I recently opted in to receive Russell Brunson’s new eBook called The Funnel Hackers Cookbook and in this review post will be summarizing it for you (as well as sharing what I thought about it).
I had some expectations going into this, specifically expecting this eBook to be basically another approach he was using to promote his Clickfunnels program and to a certain extent, that is the case, but I was pleasantly surprised at the angle this eBook took to promote it and there is in my opinion a lot of value to be gained from reading it, so I am recommending it.
But there are also certain things I feel were missing there, at least from my point of view such as helping beginners find their ideal niche to build online sales funnels with. This ironically may be the missing ingredient in The Funnel Hackers Cookbook but I will explain all of that coming up.
A short summary and review of the Funnel Hackers Cookbook:
Who wrote the Funnel Hackers Cookbook?
Russell Brunson.
How much does the Funnel Hackers Cookbook cost?
It’s absolutely free and its 307 pages long.
What is the Funnel Hackers Cookbook about?
It’s basically a breakdown of all the types of pages and online sales funnels you can make online and breaking down the ingredients each of these pages need to succeed online.
Russell really dissects everything from squeeze pages, to affiliate pages, webinar pages and so forth showing you templates of what types of ingredients are necessary to hook people into them to get the desired results you want, which is making money online.
My rating for the Funnel Hackers Cookbook: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Do I recommend The Funnel Hackers Cookbook? Yes.
From a marketing education standpoint, this eBook does teach you a lot about how to structure your pages and online sales funnels. Overall though, it does try to steer you into Clickfunnels (which is understandable) and if you read my past posts on Russell’s eBooks and programs, you’ll know I’m not the sort of person who recommends this.
It’s not because I think Clickfunnels is bad.
On the contrary, I think it’s a good program, but very overpriced and unnecessary in my opinion and I also think a lot of what drives it’s success is flashiness and affiliates marketing it (typically through flashy marketing too), but in terms of it’s functions, you can get that from other programs for less (and get the same level of success too).
But that’s an opinion that is explained in my review of Clickfunnels here.
Alternatives? Yes.
What I liked about The Funnel Hackers Cookbook:
1) Very well organized eBook.
2) Excellent illustrations and visuals for each page, how to structure it and the ingredients to use (it’s easy to understand).
3) It’s absolutely free to get. That’s one thing about Russell I really like. He does deliver quickly. There’s other programs which give away free eBooks, but make me wait until after I watch a webinar or something (Examples include Lurn programs, like Printable Profits and Email Startup Incubator).
4) There’s a lot of good value in this eBook.
The 1 ingredient I think is missing in The Funnel Hackers Cookbook:
I think a big missing piece is the focus on selecting niches based on your interests, and I happen to think it’s the most important ingredient. You see one of the biggest reasons I don’t promote Clickfunnels or am not overly gaga over Russells programs and eBooks (even though some of them are really good) is because there’s so much attention and focus on things like:
- Being a good copywriter.
- Making amazing looking funnels.
And those 2 things really overshadow anything else I’ve seen. Now you may be thinking what else could possibly be more important than those 2 ingredients? Well, a niche passion you want to build a business off would be the thing I’d place above those 2 things.
The key point: Passion for your niche is really what will drive your online success:
I happen to believe that is the most important thing a marketer needs to focus on, especially if they are a beginner, because it creates authenticity and an honest business and to use copy writing skills and amazing sales funnels to compliment that passion.
When I look at marketers today, a lot of them, including the successful ones to me don’t seem to have much passion for what they are promoting, but supplement that lack of passion with good copy writing and nice looking funnels.
This to me reads as inauthentic and how politicians sound.
I’m not saying they are lying, but anyone can copy paste good copy writing skills and make nice looking funnels, especially those that are done for you (by the way Russel does have a program called Funnel Scrips which goes this), but at the expense of focusing on those things, people’s unique voices and passions get drowned out and that is at it’s core what I believe (And from my experience) to be the most important thing.
The longer I do online marketing, the more I appreciate any honest voice that speaks from the heart about what they are promoting and that has made me buy more than one product over the years (See Chad B’s Affiliate Marketing Boss for reference or my Wealthy Affiliate review).
Now I’m not taking anything away from The Funnel Hackers Cookbook, because after all, it’s central content talks about what it should talk about which is ingredients for making good funnels, but an extra chapter or two about finding that niche passion to build the funnels off would really hit home for me personally and this isn’t just for me, but in my opinion anyone seeking to start an online business.
The cake analogy (why this is super important to this topic):
To illustrate how important niche passion is as the main ingredient to your success, imagine baking a cake and even though you have all the ingredients you need to make it tasty, if you hate baking the cake, that will really translate into how others feel about eating it and that really is a good metaphor to explain how I feel about The Funnel Hackers Cookbook (and Clickfunnels in general).
This is one of the reasons I’m a bit proponent of promoting and recommending Wealthy Affiliate to people to build profitable businesses with.
It’s because it’s one of the only programs that starts people off on that main focus first, and then helps them make amazing websites off that. As long as that core ingredient is there, your odds of success are going to be very high.