at the Dallas FHL event! It was a huge growth year, with 1,436 FHL tickets sold! (That’s about 400 more entrepreneurs attending the event than the year before!)
I had used the term “One Funnel Away” here and there before, but the Dallas event is where that phrase really became solidified as one of our main taglines.
Because I loved it so much, and because it embodied the message that I wanted everyone to understand, I decided to use “One Funnel Away” as the theme for FHL 2017.
I just really wanted everyone to have the unwavering belief that, no matter where they were in their business, they were just one funnel away from creating CHANGE in their life…
Every entrepreneur in that room was on the cusp of something greater…
Maybe they were one funnel away from firing their boss and leaving their j-o-b…
Maybe they were one funnel away from finally getting their business idea to “work”...
Maybe they were one funnel away from scaling their business, and getting their Two Comma Club or 8-Figure award...
The point is, everyone in that room in Dallas knew that just ONE great funnel could be a life-changer for them (and for the people they served).
Since then, “One Funnel Away” has been an overarching theme of ours, not just for the following FHL events, but in our daily messaging to all entrepreneurs and our ClickFunnels audience.
We had several offers that we had planned throughout the event…
One of them was a really cool new offer called “Fill Your Funnel”...
It was a special training that showed entrepreneurs how to leverage the different social platforms to send consistent traffic straight into their funnels.
And the “Fill Your Funnel” offer did ok…
But there was a huge ‘missing piece’ of the marketing puzzle that our ClickFunnels users desperately needed even more…
See, the ClickFunnels editor gave them all the tools they needed to build and create their funnels…
But they still had to connect it with a 3rd party email autoresponder if they wanted to follow-up with their audience. (And often, those outside systems didn’t really do everything our users wanted it to do…)
So our development team worked for a long time to create something of our own...
And we were finally ready to launch it in Dallas…
We were all soooo excited! It became clear that the show-stealing offer of the entire event was the opportunity to go “All In”, and upgrade to Actionetics, our system that helps you easily create email follow-up campaigns.
I had been a fan of Tony for forever…
About 10 years prior to this event, I actually had the chance to privately meet up with him at an Unleash The Power Within (UPW) event.
After that, he invited me to speak in Fiji, and I was a part of his new Money Masters DVD…
When we started doing FHL events, I knew that I wanted him to come speak…
But I was also nervous because I knew he doesn’t exactly speak everywhere…
That, and I didn’t even want to think about the hefty speaking fee that he no doubt had…
But I always dreamed that one day when FHL had grown large enough and reached our pinnacle, that we could invite Tony to speak…
So in 2017, we had almost 1,500 registrants, and in my head I figured that was the biggest this event could possibly get… (I had no idea at the time that we’d be DOUBLING our number seats at the next event!)
So I made the decision that THIS was the year to ask him!
I sent Tony a text, and asked, “What would it take for you to come speak at my event?”
And he shot a text back that said, “I’d LOVE to!” And he directed me to his agent where I could start the process of getting everything set up.
And it was a major process!
We had to make sure the dates all worked…
And the location…
And the times…
And we coordinated what to talk about and focus on…
And the contract negotiations...
There was sooo much back and forth coordination - and then finally one day, a contract landed on my desk, and all I had to do was sign.
It was a surreal dream-come-true moment for me.
I signed the papers, and it was a done deal…
Tony Robbins was coming to my event.
It was really important to me that I got to be the one to introduce Tony Robbins when he came on stage.
I hired Devon Brown to be our emcee, so naturally he would have introduced Tony...
But I wanted to be able to share my story with my Funnel Hackers in the audience…
I wanted them to know how I met him, and the huge impact on my life that Tony has had. (He not only changed my life, but he saved my marriage…)
I hoped that, by having Tony at our event, I could give the FHL community a glimpse at this super-human that had changed the trajectory of my life in so many ways…
And then came the moment for Tony to take the stage…
It was HOURS of the craziest energy inside a room I had ever seen…
After he was finished, Tony came off stage, and I came back on for a minute to wrap up the event…
And it was a moment I’ll never forget…
Everyone was still riding the ‘energy-high’...
They were just so grateful to be able to spend an entire afternoon with Tony, that the entire crowd was ON THEIR FEET, chanting “Russell! Russell! Russell!...”
In that moment, it felt like such a crazy, surreal experience for me that had come full-circle.
Just a decade earlier, I was the young man in the audience at Tony’s event who had his life completely changed…
And now, years later, we were able to bring him on the stage at FHL, so he could do the same for so many entrepreneurs who were in that room.
Whenever a funnel generates OVER $1,000,000 inside of ClickFunnels, we induct it into what we call the "Two Comma Club
Something special was happening among many of our Funnel Hackers that I wanted to celebrate…
There were tons of people crossing the MILLION-DOLLAR mark inside their funnels…
That’s such a huge milestone for an entrepreneur to hit, so I wanted each of them to have a special moment that they can take pictures of, and look back on and remember.
I wanted to recognize them in front of everyone during the FHL event.
So we created a very special award called the “Two Comma Club” award for entrepreneurs who reached the 7-figure financial milestone inside one of their funnels…
They each had a beautiful and emotional shining moment where they walked across the stage, and Todd Dickerson and I had the absolute honor of presenting ‘Two Comma Club’ plaques to 85 deserving entrepreneurs!
Since 2017, we’ve continued this tradition at FHL each year for the new entrepreneurs who cross the million-dollar mark with their funnel!