# Who Do You Want To Serve When You Grow Up?

- Link: https://jarvislegacy.com/podcast/who-do-you-want-to-serve-when-you-grow-up/
- Published: 2020-10-26T08:00:00-07:00
- Author: anchorwave

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Who Do You Want To Serve When You Grow Up?

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Instead of asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, let’s start asking
this question instead.

On this episode, Russell talks about the importance of considering WHO you want 
to serve, before you start working on WHAT you are going to provide. Sometimes you
might end up wasting time doing a lot of work for something that won’t actually 
help the people you are called to serve.

—Transcript—

Hey, everybody, hope you guys are doing amazing today. It’s Russell Brunson. Welcome
back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. In today’s episode, I want to rewrite what
all of our parents have been telling us for generations upon generations. And hopefully,
save me and you and our kids from the same frustration, because if we fix this, 
I think we’ll fix everything else.

All right, so, this is my thoughts today, and I hope you don’t mind me sharing with
you. But inside of our community, we talk about the fact that, I believe, each and
every one of us is called to serve a group of people. It’s like, for me, I was called
to serve entrepreneurs. And so, I figured like, who are the people I’m supposed 
to serve? They’re entrepreneurs. And then it’s like, well, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs
in the world. Who are my entrepreneurs? And so, my entrepreneurs are funnel hackers.
And I give them a name and a title and a belief and all that kind of stuff.

And it was interesting because as soon as I knew, oh, here’s who I serve, these 
are my people, this is who I’m supposed to serve, then everything else came really
easy. Then it was like, well, what do these people need? Well, they need this, they
need this, and then, the ideas, the products, the services, the events, the coaching
calls, the podcasts. All the things became easy when I first identified, who am 
I called to serve? And then, giving those people a name. They’re my specific people.
Because saying, “I serve entrepreneurs,” is tough because there’s a lot of people
serve entrepreneurs. Now, I’m fighting and competing against everybody else. It’s
like, no, I don’t serve all entrepreneurs, I serve my entrepreneurs, my funnel hackers.

And so, it’s interesting though because I was talking today with some people, and
there’s a phrase that we hear all the time when we were kids. It’s, what do you 
want to be when you grow up? And people like, “Oh, I want to be a dentist. I want
to be a doctor. I want to be a football player. I want to be… ” We talked about 
who we want to be. But you think about how we actually make money, how we actually
start businesses, it’s not about who we want to be, it’s about who we want to serve.
It’s like this little thing.

And so instead of, with our kids asking them, what do you want to be when you grow
up? What do you want to be when you grow up? Or asking the kids who just graduated
from high school, what do you want to be someday, when you… After college, what 
do you want to be? I think to ask that question, what do I want to be, sends us 
on a wrong path. I want to be a dentist. Okay well, how do you be a dentist? Well,
you got to go to school here, and you got to go to school here. And then, when all
that’s said and done, then you become a dentist. And then, you get your dental degree.
Now, you’re able to clean people’s teeth. And then, cool, now, you can clean people’s
teeth, the question is, who do you serve? And you’re like, I don’t even know, I’m
a dentist, just everybody probably. And it just puts you on this long, long, long,
long, long path that before you ever get to the real question, which is, who are
you called to serve? I think we should start switching around like, well, who do
you want to serve? Who are your people? Who’s your tribe? Who’s your whatever you
want to call it.

So looking at that standpoint, it changes everything. It changes how you start looking
at this business and starts changing all the different things. And so, my question
for you is you’re starting this journey, wherever you are is not so much, what do
you want to be when you grow up? And I’ve asked myself that a lot. But it’s like,
who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who is the group of people that you’re
the most passionate about? Who is that if you woke up every morning and be like,
okay, this is the group I get to serve, it would change everything for you. And 
then, if you have that and you have that person, then you figure out like, what’s
your name for that group? Who are your people? Then, all the ideas start flowing
easier.

I think when I first got started in this business, and I talked about this a little
bit in the Dotcom Secrets book, for those who have read it. If you haven’t read 
the new updated version, by the way, please go get it. I promise it’s worth getting
the new updated one. But I talked about how I started my business. What I was focusing
on, I was like, what do I want to create? I was like, I want to create this product
and this product. Again, a question, a lot people chase down, but it puts you on
a really weird path. I was like, well, I want to create a product that does this.
Because I had this idea. I want to create a product that does this. So I started
creating these different products. I thought that was the path, I started creating
them, and I was selling them. And luckily, I was able to figure out the process,
and I started making money.

But it was by default, what I created, it attracted a certain audience. And because
I didn’t ask, who do I want to serve? I just said, what do I want to create? And
I create this thing. And then by default, what I created attracted a certain type
of people to me. It’s like bait. I’m not a fisher, but I went fishing one time. 
And I remember it was like different bait. If I want to catch… I don’t even know
the names of the fish, so embarrassing. If I want to catch a big fish, I want to
catch a trout or a salmon or whatever, there’s different bait. And the bait you 
throw out, attracts different fish to you.

I have no idea if that analogy is actually true, maybe I just made it up. But I 
think it is. And if not, you guys get the gist. Right? Same thing, the bait you 
put out into the world attracts different people. And so, because I led with, what’s
the bait I want to create? What’s the idea I have? What’s the bait? I started doing
that. I started throwing this bait out, not knowing what it’s going to attract. 
And all of a sudden, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, it attracted trout.” And then, I’m 
like, “Oh, I actually hate trout or I hate salmon,” or whatever your version of 
that.

In the Dotcom Secrets book, I talk about that, how I woke up one day and I was laying
in bed and I was like, I wish I had a boss, so that he could fire me because this
is miserable. Like, I am not enjoying this experience at all. It was such a bad 
thing. And so, if you remember the default, what I should do, is I shifted away 
from what do I want to create? To, who do I want to serve? Who is my dream customer?
I wish I would have led with that. I never did. And most people don’t. We lead with,
what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to create? Here’s an idea hat.
And all those things sent you on a path, but it’s not a direct path.

The direct path is who do I want to serve, then go find those people and figure 
out what they actually need, and how they want to be served. Because you come in
with a product that people don’t actually want, no one’s going to buy it. And then,
it doesn’t work for you. And you’re frustrated like, “Oh, this business thing doesn’t
work. Oh my grade, it didn’t work.” You don’t need to have great ideas. This business
is not about being super, hyper creative. That’s not going to help you as much as
you think it will. Like, “Oh Russell, you’re so creative.” No, no, no. I’m not that
creative. I’m just really good at knowing exactly who I’m serving, and I pay close
attention to what they want. That’s it, pay attention. That’s what the podcast episodes
come from. That’s where the books come from. That’s where the software comes from.
All those things are just coming back to, who is my dream customer? Who am I called
to serve? And then, how do I serve them? What do they want? Wheat do they need? 
I pay attention. And then, that’s what we create, that’s what we go and do.

So I want you guys to understand that, because again, I think so many times we look
at it wrong. I think instead of asking our kids, what do you want to be when you
grow up? We should ask our kids, who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who 
are the people that get you pumped up? And I just recently finished the Phil Knight’s
book, Shoe Dog. His people were athletes. He loved athletes. He was an athlete. 
He wanted to serve athletes. And if you haven’t read Shoe Dog yet, by the end of
the book, it’s really cool. He starts… it might be the epilogue. I was listening
to the audio books, I’m not sure… Anyway, but at the end of the book, he starts 
telling these stories about dinner with Michael Jordan and this guy, and this guy,
all these athletes. It’s like, he served his athletes at the highest level to the
point where the who’s who of athletes had him at their weddings, had him at their
funerals, had him at all these different things. Because he figured out who he’s
going to serve, and then, he focused on that. And he built a shoe company and a 
clothing line and all these things, because he knew exactly who he was serving and
how to make the product better than anybody else.

I think for you guys, if you come back the same foundational things, like who are
you called to serve? Not, what I want to do when I grow up? Not, Oh, I had this 
idea for a product or, oh, what should I create? It’s, no, who do I want to serve?
And then, if you come with that in sincere heart, they will tell you, you will see
it. Especially online, like you see it in the Facebook posts, the positive and negative.
I see it in the comments. Every time I post a podcast, I see the comments, and where
I see the lack of comments. I post some episodes, but nobody responds. I’m like,
I guess that’s not what they needed. Other ones blow up, I’m like, Okay, people 
like that, I should go deeper on that, let me share more things. I’m using this 
community texting app where I text out the audience. And I can see what things get
response, what things don’t. And I pay attention.

It’s funny, those who have seen me using this texting app. It’s a texting platform.
It’s pretty cool. In fact, let me pause for a moment to insert a tiny around to 
make sure you are on this texting platform. When I come back, I’ll tell you the 
cool thing I’m doing with it.

So as you see, you guys have a chance to text me. And then, the message come to 
my personal phone, which is pretty cool. And at first, the first week, I was doing
really good at answering every message. And then it blew up and it’s getting thousands
and thousands of people, and I can’t keep up. But I do spend about anywhere from
15 to 30 minutes a day, answering as many questions as I can, which has been really
fun. So I may be personally answering your question. Hopefully, I will have a chance
to. But the cooler thing is that every time I send a message, I can see the responses
to that message. And so, every day I look at the day before, I look at the message
I sent. And I scroll through and I see what things hit chords, what things people
are looking for, things people are complaining about.

And it’s my market research daily. I get a daily text message from all my dream 
customers telling me what they want, what they don’t want. And even if I don’t respond
to them all, I read them. And so again, I have my pulse, I feel the pulse of the
market. So many times, I get hit inside the ClickFunnels team as well. I think I
drive them crazy because they’re all planners. They want to plan what’s happening,
and what emails are going out, the sequences, all sorts of stuff. And I’m like, 
you don’t understand, if we plan ahead of time, we miss the pulse of the market.
Everybody asks me, “What’s the plans for next year?” The plans for next year is 
to feel the pulse of the market, see what they want and serve them. That’s where
we’re going. It’s not like, “Okay, well, Q2, we’re going to do this, Q5, we’re going
to do this Q 10, next year, we’re going to do. It’s like, no, no, no, no, pay attention
to the market and let them tell you what you do.

Yeah, so I drive them crazy because we’ll do a campaign and they’re like, “Okay,
we have 12 emails. Let’s try these 12 emails.” I’m like, “You can’t write them right
now.” I’m like, “Why not? Let’s get ahead of it.” I’m like, “Because we have to 
feel the pulse of the market. What are they saying to us? We need to be shifting
our message based on what’s happening, with the feedback, the response.” If we’re
not doing that, we’re not truly serving our audience. We’re trying to write an email
sequence. We’re trying to create a product. We’re trying to do a webinar. I’m like,“
No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not how this game works.” Hey, if you want to be 
good at this game, it’s coming back to the foundation. Who’s your dream customer?
How can I serve them? Paying attention, watching, listening, and they’ll tell you
everything they want, which is pretty cool.

So I hope that helps, hope that helps shift some of you guys who are struggling.
Again for me, I struggled my first five or six years in this business because I 
was chasing the product or the idea I had, as opposed to the customers I want to
serve. And it was crazy for me. And you guys probably heard this part of the story,
but when I shifted that, I said, “Okay, no longer am I going to create products 
that are my good ideas and sell them. I’m going to figure who’s my dream customer
and figure out what they would want.” And I made that mental shift and it was like,
what could we create? And the very first product we created was my book, 108 Split
Test Winners, which some of you guys have a copy of that book. And what’s crazy 
about that is, I was so scared to create the book. Because I knew that my existing
audience, the people who I was serving, I didn’t love them. I knew they wouldn’t
want to buy that book. They weren’t going to buy it. And I even tried, I put the
book up, I sent email out to my existing customers and none of them came. I sold
a few copies. I was like, okay, that sucks, this is my best material. This is stuff
that people would die for. And they weren’t interested. And I realized that I was
serving the wrong customer.

And so, what was cool, is that this new thing I created, I created for my dream 
customer, for the person I wanted to get into my world. I launched it. I put it 
out there. I started buying ads to it. And then, guess what eventually happened?
My dream customers, they heard my voice, and they came to me. And that’s how we 
built the list. And then from there, we built ClickFunnels. And from there, we built
the Funnel Hacking Movement And my funnel hackers and everything else we’ve done.
But it all started with, who do we want to serve? And then, what bait do we create
to attract that person? And that’s how we changed the game. So at least, changed
it for me. And if you listen to this, probably for you as well.

So hope this helps, hope you enjoy this. If you guys got anything that from this
episode, please take a screenshot on your phone, post it on social, tag me on it.
And tell me your biggest takeaway. I love to read those. I see them. I read them.
And you’ll see me, I usually like them, if I see them. Anyway, I appreciate that.
Thanks you guys for everything and I’ll talk to you guys, all, again soon. Bye everybody.