Spend The Time To Make Your Art Sexy

Behind the scenes look at the creation of the art that sells the art.

On today’s episode Russell talks about the upcoming photo shoot for his Traffic Secrets book, and why we should put as much time and energy into the marketing of our art as we do into the art itself. Here are some of the fascinating things you will hear in this episode:

Why watching Russell’s Instagram, should give you an idea of how he has been marketing his book throughout the process of writing it. Why it is important for Russell to think about the marketing of his book before he has even finished writing it. And what kinds of things Russell is doing and has done for the last year to prepare for the launch of the Traffic Secrets book.

So listen here to find out why you should be spending an equivalent amount of energy on making your art sexy, as you did creating the art in the first place.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson and welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I want to talk about a piece of marketing that I hope you guys see me doing. If you follow my Instagram or Facebook you’ve been seeing me do it, but I want to address it because I don’t really talk about it. I think those who are paying attention and those who are listening with ears to hear have kind of picked up on it, but the rest of you guys I’m going to let you in on the big secret.

Alright everybody, what is the big secret? I hooked you really good huh. As you guys know I’m at the penthouse right now, if you’ve been listening for the last couple of episodes, and we are tonight going to be trying to get the shot for the book cover. So you look at that and it’s like, “You just take a picture Russell, that should be a simple thing.” But I want to walk you behind the scenes of what has gone into this. Because I think what happens is a lot of times, as creators we’ll spend insane amounts of time working on our thing, on our craft, which is important. If you guys have been watching me and following me on the Expert Secrets, excuse me, what book are we on now-book three, the Traffic Secrets book. I have spent insane amounts of time on this getting it prepared, getting it ready, getting written, getting it….I’m not downplaying that at all. I spend more time writing my books than anybody else I know. Everyone’s like, I got a couple of friends bragging on Facebook this morning, I was dying laughing.

It was Anik Singal, for those that know Anik, he’s like, ‘I’ve written two books in the last two days. Both are…” anyway I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the opposite of how I do mine. I’ve written one book in a year and a half. And I spend insane amounts of time…” I’m the opposite. So I get it. When you have art you spend your time because you love it and you create it, and I get it. So I’m not downplaying that at all, continue to be an artist, continue to put your heart and soul in the things you do, continue to stay up late nights and wake up early mornings and kill yourself for your art, because I think it’s important.

So I’ll lead with that, the next piece is your art, as amazing as it is, you should be spending an equivalent, not hour for hour, but an equivalent amount of energy and time on the marketing of your art. If you don’t then your art will never be seen. So I’m saying that because if you follow me, and hopefully you guys follow my Instagram because that’s literally if you want a reality show of my life, go to Instagram, watch my stories every day, you’re seeing everything. You see me waking up with my kids, you see me going to school with them, I Instagram and kind of document the whole thing. It’s literally the Russell Brunson reality show. So if you want to go see what’s happening, go and I would recommend it because literally this last 24 hours I’ve been documenting this whole process I’m going to tell you about, and you would have seen it, and it’s fun. And I want to show you guys behind the scenes of everything. If you go to instagram.com/russellbrunson and follow me, and then watch the stories because I’m showing behind the scenes all the time.

But anyway, if you’ve been watching you’ve kind of seen this. I’m at the penthouse, my kids are gone, and I’m working on editing the book. But in the process I was like, ‘I need a shot for the cover.” And I’ve had this vision ever since we got the penthouse, I was like, “It would be cool to have this shot where it’s like me looking over Boise the city, and there’s monitors and I’m looking at Traffic stats and working” and it’s similar, if you guys saw the Dotcom Secrets book cover or the trailer for that book, it’s the same kind of concept. It’s a really epic picture that has the city lights in the background. Anyway, that was kind of the vision.

So I messaged Brandon Fisher on my team two days ago and I said, “Hey Brandon,” I messaged him at like 11:30 at night. I’m like, “hey, tomorrow I’m going to the penthouse to write the book. I want to create all the footage for the trailers and ads and everything if you want to come down.” So he came down and he spent probably two hours in the day looking at what we could possibly do. Then he went back and got lights and cameras and cranes and gimbles and jigs and I don’t even know what these things are all called, monitors and brought up like four buckets, not buckets, like four trailers, I don’t even know what it’s called, big old wagons full of lights and equipment and stuff like that and he set it up.

And last night they were here until almost 1 setting everything up. Probably 7 or 8 hours worth of set up and testing shots and looking at what the light looks like at 6:00 and 7:00 and 8:00 and 9:00 trying to figure out what’s the perfect time, the perfect everything, all this stuff. And we did a bunch of sample, practice shots and a bunch of things and got it looking really good last night. And none of that are we going to use. That was just the test. And tonight everyone’s showing up at about 5:00, we got photographers, video guys, everything, and we’re going to spend from 5 until probably midnight, so 7 or 8 hours, doing all this stuff, with the one goal of getting a picture for the cover of the book.

But then that picture is cool, but now we’re trying to get all the b-roll around that. Like videos of me writing on the windows, walking around, doing this, doing that, just all the different b-roll of things that we can then use for the ads to sell the cover of the book, which sells the book, and then from there, we’re capturing stuff for ads, and we keep going backwards.

So it’s like, you have the art as your focal point, it’s the center point right, then you step out. They always say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But guess what people do, they judge a book by the cover. So it’s like you put in all the time in to create the art that makes the art, the art that sells the art, right. The cover or whatever it is, for me it’s the book cover. For you it might be a whatever, the branding, the design, but it’s the one layer outside of this little nucleus of your art is the wrap that actually looks exciting. And from there you go one step out further, which is these are the assets we’re paying for the sales video to sell the cover of the book, which sells the book. And then we go from there and step out, which is that we need to create it for the ads, the ads sell the sales video, sell the cover, which sells the book.

So when all is said and done we will have put in, I don’t know, probably 20 or so hours at least to capture the picture for the cover of the book, but then we’re creating all the art around it which becomes the ads, the videos, the b-roll, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So that’s the part that people don’t often see. They see the book cover, like I can’t tell you how many people now have knocked off my style of book cover, it’s so annoying. It’s like they send their designer, “Here’s Russell’s book. Make something similar.” And then they just slap up some stock image and a logo that looks similar to mine, and there’s their book. It’s like, dude, this is why you’re not going to have a product that’s a perennial seller, that’s going to last forever because you don’t put the energy, the time, the effort into making the art sexy.

So that’s the big hook. That’s the big secret, that’s the big key. It’s spending the time to make your art sexy, in fact, maybe I’m going to entitle the podcast that, making your art sexy. Because that’s what most people are missing, it’s not just slapping some images together and throwing it up. Spend a lot of time. You’re not only, we spent time in this shoot, as I was writing the book we caught b-roll of me writing the book. We got b-roll of me here at the penthouse, we got b-roll of me at the office writing and sketching it out. We got b-roll of me at an event teaching this. All those things for the last year, documenting the creation of the process of this thing, are all going to become ads, and parts of the videos and all the things that support the art, now that it’s eventually done.

So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you because I don’t think a lot of us creators are thinking about that piece of it. We’re thinking about the creation of the content, the thing, the piece of the thing that you’re selling. But you should be spending as much effort and energy and creativity and probably even more so sometimes on all the stuff around that, that actually grabs the people and brings them into your funnels, converts them on the funnels, makes them desire the thing you’re selling, and then they actually get the thing you’re selling.

Yeah, I think that’s one of the big tragedies of our world, is amazing artists who create art, and I’m not saying paintings, I’m saying art, it could be anything a book, a work, a video, a movie, whatever that never gets seen by the light of day because they spend so much time on the art, they didn’t spend any money on the advertising, the marketing of the art, which is its own art form in and of itself. In fact, almost a more fun art form.

Anyway, so there you go. I just wanted to show you guys a glimpse behind the scenes because some of you guys are watching it like, ‘Oh, it’s so cool Russell. So cool.” And I’m hoping that you’re getting like, ‘Wow, when I create my next product I should put this much effort into the trailer. I should put this much effort into the cover. I should put this much effort the ads.” Because anyone can get an ad and hold a book like, “Hey my name’s Russell. Here’s my new book, you should read it.”

But man, when you see mine, what’s going to be happening? You’re going to be seeing me writing the book, you’re going to be seeing me at the desk, you know, and the camera and things moving in and out. You’re going to see all the creative that went into supporting this art. You’re going to see all that. And when this book launches it’ll be the, your social everything will be drowned in it, because it’s going to be fun, exciting, beautiful, amazing things. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the ride.

So there you go. That’s all I got. I’m going to go get ready and start the editing process. I got basically like 12 hours today to edit before the video shoot. So wish me luck, that’s the plan. Appreciate you all, thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.