The Russell Brunson Show•August 27, 2025

Building a Brand Bigger Than Yourself: Bridget James Ling on Movement Marketing | #Marketing - Ep. 65

Here's a 2-sentence description for the episode: Bridget James Ling shares her inspiring journey of transitioning from a traditional coaching business to building a powerful movement called Freedom Queen, which helped her scale from small beginnings to hosting a major conference for women entrepreneurs. Through her story, she demonstrates how creating a strong brand identity and focusing on movement marketing can transform a business and help entrepreneurs move beyond trading time for money.

Solo Entrepreneurs

Creator Economy

Business News Analysis

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Podcast Summary

In this episode, Russell Brunson interviews Bridget James Ling about her rapid transformation from a struggling coach making $700/month to hosting 500+ person events and building a multimillion-dollar movement-based business. Bridget shares how attending Funnel Hacking Live in 2021 sparked her vision to create the "Freedom Queen" identity (04:05), leading to her first breakthrough retreat in Costa Rica where she closed $36k from just 8 attendees. She reveals the pivotal shift from selling "hire Bridget" to "become a Freedom Queen" (11:41), which made her business infinitely scalable by positioning the movement—not herself—as the primary asset. Despite facing online hate and a hurricane-cancelled event (28:37), she ultimately delivered a million-dollar weekend at Freedom Queen Live, proving that movements compound over time and create deeper customer loyalty than traditional coaching models.

Speakers

Bridget James Ling

Movement expert and founder of Freedom Queen, scaled from $700/month to multiple seven figures in four years. Built a methodology around identity-based movements instead of traditional coaching, now hosts Freedom Queen Live events with 500-700 attendees teaching women to build influential personal brands.

Russell Brunson (Host)

Founder of ClickFunnels, bestselling author, and creator of Funnel Hacking Live. Built a multi-million dollar software company and movement of "Funnel Hackers" spanning hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide, teaching sales funnels and movement building.

Key Takeaways

Stop Selling "Hire Me" - Start Selling "Become Us"

Transform from coach to movement leader by shifting from "hire Bridget" to "become a freedom queen, join the movement." This fundamental pivot removes you as the bottleneck and makes your brand infinitely scalable. (11:21)

Master the Power of One Identity Shift

Build a multimillion-dollar company by changing one woman's life through a powerful identity transformation, then watch it compound exponentially. Focus on creating a shared vision and pathway to transformation rather than positioning for everyone. (06:27)

Status Over Commission: The Affiliate Advantage

Drive massive event sales by prioritizing status incentives (speaking opportunities, VIP recognition, shopping rewards) over pure commission structures. Your affiliates' core desire is importance and mission alignment, not just monetary compensation. (25:36)

Turn Crisis Into Competitive Moats

Use unexpected setbacks to filter out uncommitted followers while strengthening your true believers. Hurricane-forced event postponements and online hate can eliminate wrong-fit clients while rallying your movement's core supporters into an unbreakable alliance. (28:34)

Build Your Proprietary Methodology Framework

Create a distinct, named transformation system that differentiates you from generic coaches. Move from vague positioning to a specific methodology with clear outcomes - like "BodyTalk" for somatic healing rather than generic "embodiment mentoring." (22:59)