Dave Woodward Is The CEO Behind Clickfunnels, So Who Is He?
ClickFunnels has witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years, surpassing about $500 million in sales and an active user base of about 127,000 users. Moreso, the fact that the company has exceeded the $100 million mark is in no small part connected to the ingenuity of its founding members – Russell Brunson, Todd Dickerson, and Dave Woodward.
Dave Woodward may not be a silicon valley household name. Still, entrepreneurs and marketing experts know him as one of the brains behind the rapid growth of ClickFunnels, one of America’s fastest-growing non-VC-backed tech startups. Under Dave’s leadership, ClickFunnels raked in more than $100 million annual revenue in just three years and built an active community of over 250,000 loyal ClickFunnels users.
Although Dave Woodward didn’t take the traditional route into the tech industry, he has always been an entrepreneur and marketing geek. With his wealth of marketing experience, Dave has leveraged the intersection of marketing and technology to improve sales processes and drive revenue growth in multiple industries. His enterprise growth and customer-centric marketing principles have helped ClickFunnels create value for users and increase customer retention rates.
“We want our customers to ascend and continue to ascend. It means their business is growing, and that is what we want for them.”- Dave Woodward.
In this article, we’ll look at Dave Woodward’s career and how he helped build ClickFunnels. We will also dig deep into some of his tips for multiplying sales with ClickFunnels.
Who Is Dave Woodward?
Dave Woodward is a result-driven entrepreneur, marketing genius, and proven expert with several years of leadership experience and demonstrated history of growing businesses in multiple industries. He is an expert in marketing, advertising, sales, strategic planning, and business development and
Dave is a founding member and the Chief Executive Officer of Click Funnels. ClickFunnels is a SaaS software that lets users create and design sales pages, landing pages, order forms, and membership sites using a simple drag and drop editor.
With this software, businesses and marketers can manage their entire sales and marketing funnel, increase conversions and grow sales. ClickFunnels is built for businesses of all sizes and entrepreneurs at any level, whether it’s a brand-new business, established company, or a side-hustling stay-at-home mom.
Dave Woodward wasn’t always a marketing guy. As Dave recounts in his interview with Matt Wolfe and Joe Fier, he got accepted into medical school, and just a week before he was supposed to resume, he decided that he didn’t want to pursue a career in medicine. His decision did not sit well with his dad and mum. His parents were so devastated about his decision and kept wondering what he was going to do with his life.
In 1994, Dave joined Americo, Houston, TX, and got involved in selling insurance and benefits. During his time at Americo, he held managerial positions and served as regional director between 1994 and 2003.
Dave’s work and achievements earned him several accolades, including Americo’s regional director of the year, 2001. As a regional manager, he engineered business growth and oversaw the company’s expansion into 12 states, and eventually, the company’s sale.
According to David Woodward, the sale of Americo ignited his love for sales and marketing. He got so excited about it that he decided to set up his marketing agency and got heavily involved in direct response marketing at the time. In 2003, Dave founded Monopolize Inc., where he helped grow businesses in the insurance, fitness, investment, mortgage, and real estate industry using cutting-edge business growth and marketing strategies.
Judging from his marketing strategies and clients’ successes, he decided to set up his own mortgage company. Unfortunately, he lost tons of money when the mortgage industry took a nosedive.
Undeterred by the storms and challenges he faced, Dave started all over again and built from scratch. This time he switched over to flipping and selling houses—his decision and determination to pick up the pieces paid off.
As a business growth expert, Dave runs Monopolize to date. At Monopolize, he provides consulting and advisory services in digital marketing, advertising, business development, growth expansion, email marketing, search engine marketing, etc.
The Move to ClickFunnels
Around 2006 when the tech industry was just catching the buzz, and many internet-based companies were springing up, Dave Woodward decided to dig deep into the tech industry and internet. Although he already explored direct response marketing with his client’s businesses, he soon realized the internet could help him deliver better results.
While Dave was trying to figure out more about the internet game, he attended an affiliate marketing event hosted by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson, co-founders of ClickFunnels.
“I learned a long time ago that you need to either work your way in or buy your way in” – Dave Woodward.
So, when Russell and Todd announced a signup sheet for anyone willing to take them out to lunch to “pick their brain,” Dave raced to the table and filled up every breakfast, lunch, and dinner spot available.
His decision to take that chance during a transformative period in the tech industry paid off. From that time, Dave and Russell became lifelong friends. Prior to ClickFunnels, they collaborated on different projects in network marketing, fitness, real estate, and other niches.
When Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson founded ClickFunnels, Dave Woodward was invited to become a partner. Before assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer in 2019, David served as the company’s Chief Revenue and Business Development Officer between 2015 and 2019. From 2014 till date, Dave Woodward has helped build and transform ClickFunnels into one of America’s fastest-growing and successful tech companies.
Dave Woodward holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees from Brigham Young University. He has been listed multiple times in Who’s Who of International Business. He has also spoken at podcasts, interviews, and big events, hosting up to 4,500 attendees, including Funnel Hacking Live, Traffic & Conversion, SaaS Academy, and more.
ClickFunnels Radio
Beyond his role as CEO of ClickFunnels, Dave Woodward is the high-energy host of ClickFunnels Radio and the weekly Funnel Hacker Radio Podcast,
With his easy-going, engaging and demeanor that distinguishes him, Dave has a true gift for making his guests feel right at home. His conversational style and unquenchable curiosity bring the best out of every guest on his show.
Dave has perfected the art of Q&As and is well known for his uncanny knack for getting mentors, entrepreneurs, and business experts to spill the beans! From his podcast, listeners and members of the ClickFunnels community get to experience ‘never-before-revealed sales and marketing secrets from some of the savviest business owners and self-starters on the planet.
The weekly Funnel Hacker Radio Podcast features experts and entrepreneurs across different industries and niches, including business experts, digital marketing professionals, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, public speakers, and success coaches. The podcast episodes draw over 250,000 listeners worldwide and cover a wide range of topics, including
- Business development
- Sales and marketing,
- Digital marketing,
- Networking,
- Leadership and personal development
- Customer service, and
- Building valuable relationships.
Previous episodes have covered topics such as
- 17 Steps to Uncommon Success with John Lee Dumas
- 6 Pillars of Intimacy Framework with Tony DiLorenzo
- Should You Be an Entrepreneur or a Business Owner with Ryan Daniel Moran
- How to Create Defining Moments – Nicholas Bayerle
- How to Pivot When Everything is Going Against You – Trey Lewellen
How Dave Woodward Helped ClickFunnels Scale $1 Million in Three Years.
ClickFunnels is so beloved that many entrepreneurs have used several phrases to describe the value the product brings to their business. While some call it “the game-changer,” others refer to the software as “the complete sales growth tool .”
ClickFunnels is a website, sales funnel, and landing page builder for entrepreneurs. The solution was created to help businesses create beautiful pages, display products and services, and drive sales through a funnel that optimizes the selling process. Without a single line of code, marketers can build sales pages and get their products, courses, digital assets, and services out in a few minutes.
ClickFunnels has helped more business owners generate millions and even tens of millions in annual sales than any other landing page or funnel software on the market, with the numbers to prove it. Since its public debut in September 2014, ClickFunnels has enjoyed unprecedented growth. The company has about 127,000 users, including entrepreneurs, professionals, nonprofits, startups, and organizations.
ClickFunnels has processed more than $6.6 billion in sales globally through their platform. Over 7.1 Million funnels have been built, and more than 1.3 Billion contacts and leads have opted in. Between September 23rd to December 2014, ClickFunnels earned about $1.7 million in revenues, and at the end of 2015, revenue rose to $10.1 million.
So far, ClickFunnels has raked in over $500 million in revenue. And with their customer retention and acquisition metrics growing at an astonishing rate, their revenue will continue to soar.
ClickFunnels Growth Hack
For a company that’s 100 percent funded by its owners, how did the founding members bootstrap and scale $100 million in three months?
During his interview with Matt Wolfe and Joe Fier, Dave Woodward recounts that they saw the opportunity to sell ClickFunnels through webinars, events, and podcasts in the early days. Those webinar deals and pitches became their rocketship to introduce a product that was a necessity and a problem solver for tons of entrepreneurs.
Another strategy that helped ClickFunnels grow was the willingness to help other people achieve success. During the first few years, Dave noted that they had to build lots of free funnels for influencers like Tony Robbins, Dave Asprey of Bulletproof Coffee), etc. Getting testimonials and shout-outs from these influencers gave more credibility to the product and further boosted customer acquisitions.
This culture of engineering other people’s success has been a key growth hack for ClickFunnels. For many entrepreneurs, ClickFunnels is not just software. It’s a culture, an environment, a team of people throwing their weight behind their users and doing all they can to help users succeed.
Education has been a critical part of ClickFunnels’ growth strategy. According to Dave, “education is a way of providing enormous value to the community, especially for a community that is struggling to achieve success. ”
ClickFunnels provide tools, resources, and training courses to help users manage their online business, increase conversions, rake in more revenue, and scale their business to the next level.
The company recently launched Funnel Flicks – more like a Netflix to provide value, training, and education not just for the ClickFunnels community but any entrepreneur who is still trying to figure stuff out. They acquired licenses and aggregated content from seasoned business leaders, marketing geniuses, and successful entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins, Dan Kennedy, Frank Curran, etc.
ClickFunnels became a source of value by aggregating valuable content and a place where people who may have stopped using the software came back and renewed their membership just to have access to the content.
This customer-centric culture has enabled ClickFunnels to increase customer acquisition and retention as well as build an active community of over 250,000 loyal members.
Another marketing strategy that has helped ClickFunnels soar is the affiliate marketing program.
ClickFunnels has one of the most successful affiliate programs in the tech industry. Moreso, the affiliate program is one of the key reasons the company has grown so big and so fast in the past six years.
ClickFunnels offers affiliates up to 40% in commissions and has paid out over $100 million in commissions to date. The company provides affiliates with everything they need to succeed. That includes providing them with winning, time-tested, and proven marketing assets to promote ClickFunnels and any additional offers.
Furthermore, to help you build their business, affiliates get exclusive access to the “Affiliate Bootcamp Army,” one of the best affiliate training on the market,
One of the many reasons why marketers love ClickFunnels is that they provide users with an opportunity to grow their business using proven strategies. With the ClickFunnels backpack, business owners can create and add affiliate programs to their sales funnels and scale their business.
Under Dave Woodward’s transformative leadership, ClickFunnels is uniquely positioned to fuel innovation and seek better ways of helping businesses make more money. With about 60 percent of their customers based outside the US, ClickFunnels plans to expand to international markets and is currently hunting for partners who already have resources in those areas. They are also looking to expand their customer base by targeting new segments such as eCommerce and professional services.
