Expert Secrets Review – 6 Ideas for Better Copy

6 Ideas for your business and how to apply them.
From the book Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson

This book is aimed at people who:
– Have expertise in a certain field and want to share their advice in the field and get paid for it.
– Are still on the journey to “Expert” status or are just starting out.
– Someone who is selling a physical/eCommerce product. (Here’s how)

Note: The review is based on the 1st edition of the book while the links redirect to the 2nd edition.

Table of Contents

Animated Summary

Expert Secrets Book Table of Contents

Introduction

Foreword by Robert Kiyosaki
Introduction

Section I: Creating a Mass Movement

Secret 1: The Charismatic Leader/Attractive Character
Secret 2: The Cause
Secret 3: The New Opportunity
Secret 4: The Opportunity Switch

Section II: Creating Belief

Secret 5: The Big Domino
Secret 6: The Epiphany Bridge
Secret 7: The Hero’s 2 Journeys
Secret 8: The Epiphany Bridge Script
Secret 9: False Belief Patterns
Secret 10: The Three Secrets

Section III: Your Moral obligation

Secret 11: The Stack Slide
Secret 12: The Perfect Webinar
Secret 13: The One Thing (The Intro)
Secret 14: Breaking and Re-Building Belief Patterns (The Content)
Secret 15: The Stack
Secret 16: Trial Closes

Section IV: The Funnels

Secret 17: The Perfect Webinar Model
Secret 18: The Four Question Close for High Ticket Offers
Secret 19: The Perfect Webinar Hack
Secret 20: Email Epiphany Funnels
Secret 21: Epiphany Product Launch Funnels

Section V: What's Next?

Secret 22: Fill Your Funnel

Conclusion

Conclusion: Your Invitation

Decision Process

After reading Traffic Secrets and Dotcom Secrets, and having found them valuable, the third book in the secrets trilogy was pretty much a consequential read. I also wanted to have the summaries of all three books for you in one place, so that you wouldn’t have to search for them.

Book Attributes

Author: Russell Brunson

Here are a few of Russell’s Achievements:
-The founder of “ClickFunnels”
-The writer of 3 Books: DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets and Traffic Secrets.
-Host of “The Marketing Secrets” Podcast
-Was a wrestling State champion in his youth
-A nine digits millionaire
-Amassed a great following on basically all social media (193k –YouTube, 657k – Facebook, 45.5k Twitter, 994k Instagram)

Length

Physical/Audio (Foreword by Robert Kiyosaki): 302 pages / 6 hr 11 min

Reviews

There are 1,182 reviews on Amazon.com 78% of which are 5 stars and 11% 4 stars (As of writing this post)

Introduction

This book is about creating a very strong emotional connection between the buyer and the brand contrary to selling a commodity.
Because we buy with emotion and justify with logic later, that connection is a huge factor when making the purchase.

We buy on emotion and justify with logic.

Zig Ziglar Tweet

The 5 Sections of Expert Secrets

Section I: Creating a Mass Movement

As Russell was looking for ways to attract more followers he started reading about the leaders of mass movements such as: Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler and many more who had a strong impact.

Through his research he found that all movements have 3 things in common:
1. They all have a charismatic leader.
2. They all create a bigger cause
3. They all create a new opportunity to achieve that cause
In this section Russell concentrates on breaking down how to create those 3 factors.

Section II: Creating Belief

The key to being able to positively influence your audience is having them believe in your new opportunity.

Belief is the base for all the interactions between you and your customer, and we can create belief by mastering storytelling, this is what this section is about.

Some of it’s main Ideas:
1. Break down the audiences false beliefs and fears
2. Make the audience believe the 1 big thing
3. Tell your origin story that made you believe in your new opportunity in the first place.

Section III: The Moral Obligation

This section is called The Moral Obligation because if you have something that can help your audience it is your duty to do everything in your power to sell it to them and that is exactly what you will learn to do with this presentation according to Russell.

Remember – This is not Noah’s Ark if we build it they probably WON’T come, we also need to market it well.

On a more personal note: This is made for a 297+ Dollar product, and I still don’t have such a product, therefor, I’m not yet at the point to apply it.

Section IV: The Funnels

So now that you know how to present the webinar script, Russell explains what funnels we will need in order to get the audience to show up for the webinar.

Key subjects discussed in this section:
– How to move the audience from registration and up to the purchase
– How to sell higher ticket products ( Secret 24 from Dotcom Secrets copy-pasted )
– How to make a webinar in 15 minutes if you’re in a rush
– How to breakdown the webinar funnel into mails ( Like Secret 14 in Dotcom Secrets)
– How to use the webinar funnel as a product launch funnel ( Like Secret 16 in Dotcom Secrets)

Section V: What's Next?

This section consists of one chapter/ secret which is basically Traffic Secrets in a nutshell. In the newer version of the audiobook this section is removed, because the contents are almost all found in Traffic Secrets.

5 Ideas for Better Copy

Idea 1: Improvement Offer vs. New Opportunity (Section I: Secret 3)

VS.

A quick sidenote before we start with Idea 1: The following idea is based on quotes from Eric Hoffer’s book – the true believer. Those quotes seem a bit evil and condescending to me ( on which a lot of the table is based ), but I haven’t read the book itself yet, so I might be wrong here.

Anyway, the table below shows why Improvement Offers* are NOT a good Idea,
and why New Opportunities* are.

	Improvement Offer (Disadvantages)	New Opportunity (Advantages)
1	Improvement is hard	People love spreading new ideas because of the accompanied increase in status
2	Improvement offers are for the ambicious 2% if you market to them, it's an uphill battle (because there are fewer of them) while the 98% are those who just desire	They don't have to acknowledge past mistakes, they may say it was the fault of the previous offers they tried but this one will work
3	To improve people must admit past failures and take responsibility, most don't want that	It creates a new dream to move towards
4	The competition is high therefor the price you would charge would be much lower	You give them a ready product while in an improvement offer they have to work for it

Idea 2: Get The Audience to Identify With Your Brand (Section I: Secret 2)

There’s not a lot that makes us tick as much as the way that we identify ourselves. A common example of this is that we get some notion that we are good at math when very young, and since then we perceive ourselves as such, and act to reinforce that way of view of ourselves.

When it comes to creating your movement this could manifest itself by giving the audience a name to identify with. For Example: Bulldogs for Bulldog Mindset, Funnel Hackers for ClickFunnels or Improve Mentors for Improvementor 🙂

Idea 3: Determine Your Domino Statement (Section II: Secret 5)

Fill in the Current template to create a statement, that if believed, the audience will buy your product, because the big domino will have fallen (Main belief) and now they are more likely to start obtaining all the other beliefs that will support your product.

If I could make people believe that “my new opportunity”(Funnels) is the key to “what they desire most” (Online business success)and is only attainable by “my specific vehicle”(ClickFunnels) all other objections become irrelevant and they have to give me money.

Idea 4: The Epiphany Bridge (Section II: Secret 6)

What is the story that made you believe that your new opportunity is the way to go in the first place? Share your epiphany story and if you believe it, it is likely to make the audience believe it as well.

Idea 5: Just 1 chapter away from the students (Section I: Secret 1)

Russell describes a story that comes from a book/movie that’s called “Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake” the movie talks about the story of a con-artist who masked himself as a sociology professor for a whole semester, even though he knew nothing of sociology before that.

When asked how was he able to pull this off, he said “I just had to be one chapter away from the students”
So it is with us, there are always people who will know more and less then us, the key to stop having the “imposter syndrome” is understanding that we should concentrate on the things that we can teach and that it’s okay not to know everything.

Idea 6 (Section I: Secret 4) Work for Free to Prove Yourself

Every “Expert” begins with 0 experience at first.
In this situation – It is hard to get hired or paid for your services.
Both because you and others are still not confident enough in your skills.

So what’s the solution? You guessed it. Find someone you believe you could help get results, and offer them your services for FREE.
If you’re successful you’ll now have more confidence and perhaps one great testimonial to start with.
Once you’ve got your first interaction, it’s a lot easier to get more, but paid this time.

Practical Takeaways

Every Idea is a takeaway as of itself, but let’s really describe how I applied/understood/Intend to apply them practically in relation to Improvementor.

Practical Takeaway No.1: The New Opportunity

So an improvement offer is basically when you offer something that already exists in the market and do not differentiate in something special.

So for example before I started doing Marketing book reviews, I used to do Self-Improvement book reviews.
But how many blogs and YouTube channels are there who do Self-Improvement Book reviews? That’s right. Too many to count. On the contrary, I haven’t yet encountered even 1 YouTube channel or website that specializes specifically on Marketing book Reviews. This was not an easy decision.

What eventually pushed me to the change?

What broke the last straw for me and made me move to Marketing book reviews was when I was listening to The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, in particular laws 1,2,10,12,13 and perhaps a little bit 21 were those that moved me most in this direction as far as I remember. In addition, at the time I used to be a member of the Bulldog Mindset Membership, and John advised me to do the same at one of the monthly livestreams. (I am not affiliated with bulldog mindset, John just gave me lots of value, so I decided to mention it.)

Practical Takeaway No.2: Tie Your Audience's Identity to Your Brand

As a result of reading this Idea I decided that Improve Mentors would be a good way to identify with the brand, it is still in the testing stage though so if you guys have better suggestions, I’ll gladly accept them 🙂

I’ve added the “Improve Mentors” Identification in the end of 2 videos already 🙂
Marketing Made Simple – A 5 Step Plan Animated Summary
and
28 Dotcom Secrets for Digital Marketing Book Summary

To drop your suggestions for an Identity name – comment on the Expert Secrets video once it’s published, or mail me at yan@improvementor.blog(Working to fix comments on the blog)

Practical Takeaway No.3: The Domino Statement

Here’s how I filled the Domino Statement

If you are trying to make them believe that ideas from marketing books is their only way to money then they have to go to Improvementor marketing summaries which summarizes the marketing ideas in the quickest and most pleasantly transferable manner, there’s no other way, they have to watch these summaries.

Try filling it out for yourself, then, If this statement doesn’t seem to make sense it’s an indicator that you’re probably in a red ocean (You don’t offer something unique but something that has many alternatives or in other words you don’t have a new opportunity but an improvement offer).

Practical Takeaway No.4: The Epiphany Bridge

Since I have earlier read the section YouTube Secrets within Russell’s book Traffic Secrets, I already have a sort of an epiphany story in my Trailer Video on YouTube.
Here’s how the elements of the epiphany story are included in the video.

Character – Yan
Desire – Become financially free
Conflict – Not knowing which method is the best (Tried quite a few things already)

P.S. The conflict might need to be explained in a clearer language.

Practical (Mindset) Takeaway No.5: One Chapter Away From The Students

This Idea helped me raise my confidence a little bit.
Understanding that I don’t have to know everything in order to offer my advice as a service is the key to moving forward, otherwise if you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll keep coming up with excuses to not allow yourself to earn.

Practical Takeaway No.6: Work for FREE to Prove Yourself

As the next piece of the puzzle after the previous takeaway, before you start offering your services, find someone or some company that you think you could help, and offer them your services for free.
Then, if you’ll achieve good results you’ll earn more confidence for yourself, and perhaps (hopefuly) a testimonial to go along with it 🙂

Rating (6 Parameters)

Narration

Clarity of Speech

How clear and understandable was the voice? 6/6

Fluency

Were there any gulps, voice jumps? Recording interruptions? The higher the score – the less interruptions. 6/6

Expressing Emotions

How much does it sound as if the narrator was really there? How attached is he to the sentiment in the story? And how well does he transfer the emotion to the reader? 6/7 Answer: He was pretty good but I like it better when the author reads it out himself.

Plot

Is there a storyline? How connected is one Idea to the one before it? Answer: Very connected it’s built one on top of the other, and should be done in the exact sequence that it’s presented 10/10

Heading Distribution

When I read the heading, can I recall the contents? Answer: Some headings repeat themselves with a slight twist which makes it difficult to understand the difference Like “The Stack Slide” and “The Stack”, “The epiphany bridge” and “Epiphany bridge script”, then there is “The perfect webinar” and “The perfect webinar model”. 6/10

Drive For Implementation

How much does the book push you to apply it’s contents?

Visuals

Does it use images or other resources to transfer it’s message? Answer: In the version that I used in scribd there is no accompanying pdf whatsoever and the book doesn’t refer to a website course or something either… 0/6 Though in the newer version of the book which I happened to purchase on Audible, there’s a 100-page PDF. So it’s just a scribd thing…

Direct Calls to Action

How often does the author prompt you to apply the ideas in the book? Answer: There are some quite good prompts, for example in section 3 he says that we should really do the exercise because we’ll be using the information from it in the rest of the book. Though apart from that, mostly I didn’t really feel prompted to action. 4/7

Providing Actual Specific Details

Can you actually apply the Ideas in the book without additional resources? Answer: I believe so. Most of the things in the book are explained well and can be applied as is, one caviat though is that different tactics are for you to apply in different parts of your journey. For example the perfect webinar script can only be applied when you already have a product, and to have a product you need to first gain enough expertise and following, just like Jacob Hiller’s example in the book in which he started blogging about dunking basketballs just for himself and as time went by he became better and people got interested. 6/7

Examples

How often are examples provided to explain a point, and how well do they portray the ideas? Answer: Examples are provided for most of the Ideas as far as I recall, again the only problem is that some parts of the book are for different parts of the journey which are miles away from eachother, which doesn’t allow for immediate application 🙁 18/20

Content

How interesting/useful was the content? Answer: Despite the fact that most of the book is about the Perfect Webinar Script which requires a 297$ product, I still found many Ideas of the book to be very useful ( As you could see above, with at least 6 practical takeaways 🙂 ) 17/20

Final Rating

Narration – 19/20 Plot – 10/10 Heading Distribution – 6/10 Drive for Implementation – 10/20 Examples – 18/20 Content – 17/20 Final Rating – 80/100

My General Experience of Expert Secrets and Conclusion

As from what I´ve felt, this book really is very detailed and may be really helpful, though for me – a person who doesn´t have a 297$+ product most of the book was currently irrelevant, even though there were things that I have learned from the 3rd section and up, I would rather concentrate on JIT – Just In Time learning, as Patt Flynn mentions in his biography book – Let Go, which is learning things that I need to apply right now and not in a year from now.