The Russell Brunson Show
How to Turn Your Voice Into Revenue: Dr. Sonja’s Playbook | #Success - Ep. 34
Mon, 12 May 2025
What if your voice was the most valuable asset in your business? In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I sat down with Dr. Sonja Stribling, speaker, coach, Army veteran, and the powerhouse behind a $28 million brand built from a single outline and a willingness to say yes. In just the past three years, she has gone from speaking on borrowed stages to becoming the “General to Giants,” helping thousands of entrepreneurs build businesses by turning their story into their superpower. We unpacked how she transitioned from divorce coach to business mogul, how she closes millions from the stage, and the internal battles she had to conquer to unlock it all. This is all valuable insights you can take from her and apply directly to you and your business right now! Key Highlights: The mindset shift that helped her go from struggling coach to 8-figure business owner How a single $10K offer with no product changed the course of her career Why most people undervalue their superpower, especially when it feels “easy” Her five-part framework that includes speaking, books, coaching, and events How she helps others monetize their voice and build real brands, not just funnels The exact moment her imposter syndrome showed up and how she shut it down Her system for selling other people’s offers and making millions in commissions Why being great on stage is not optional if you want to scale What makes this game more than just a business… It’s a sport Whether you're just starting out or ready to step onto a stage and scale, Dr. Sonja brings the fire, the strategy, and the truth about what it really takes to grow something meaningful. Follow her on social @iamdrsonja or visit drsonjabrands.com to connect with her coaching programs, events, and training. https://sellingonline.com/podcast https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/secrets Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/russell to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at LinkedIn.com/CLICKS Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Sonja and how did she start her journey?
Yeah. It's been so much fun having you. For those who don't know yet, I love you tell just a little bit of your history and backstory. Because you weren't in this industry for a long time, but in the short time you've been in it, you have done some amazing things and grown faster than probably almost anyone I've seen who's entered into it. So I'd love to hear kind of how you got started into this.
Well, I'll go back story being from a little small country town, not Boise, Idaho, but from Wilson, Arkansas. And so I grew up having 12 siblings. I'm the youngest of 12. And so when I grew up, I knew I wanted to not stay at home because the only thing to do at home was work at a factory or do some other wild things. But I wanted to be legal. So I left and I joined the United States.
I went to college first and then I joined the United States Army. That was a thing that I knew I wanted to do. I needed to have legal rights to fight.
Ja, du bist ein Kämpfer. Ja, ziemlich.
Aber ich wollte nicht physisch kämpfen. Es war nur, dass ich mental so viele Dinge durchgegangen habe. Meine Hintergrundgeschichte. Ich hatte ein Kind, das sehr jung war und all das. Und so bin ich in die Vereinigten Staaten gewandert. Und als ich nach 21 Jahren vertreten bin, drei Kampftouren, habe ich gesagt, was will ich wirklich tun, wenn ich groß bin?
Und ich erinnere mich, dass ich an einem Rundtisch mit einigen Senior-Offizieren sitze. Und sie sagen, well, Stribling, du bist um zu vertreten. Was wirst du tun? Und ich sage, well, ich will etwas finden, wo ich bei zwölf arbeiten kann und auf das eine gehen kann. Und sie haben einfach gelacht und gesagt, nein, es muss ein Ding sein.
Ich hatte keine Ahnung, dass ich in diesen Coaching-Welt kommen würde. Und so bin ich in diesem Raum seit etwa einer Dekade. Aber die letzten drei oder vier Jahre sind großartig gewesen. Es scheint, als ob sie einfach weggegangen sind, als ich verstanden habe, was wirklich passiert ist und wo ich authentisch bin.
Ja, es ist interessant, weil viele Leute, ich sehe die ganze Zeit und komme in meinen Welt. Also, wenn ich das tue, wie schnell kann ich, wie schnell kann ich Geld machen? Und ich bin immer so, ah, das ist die falsche Frage. Wie die Frage ist, wie du kommst in und lernst es und verstehst, wer du servieren willst und all die Dinge, dass du weißt, dass die Foundation vorhanden ist.
Ich bin gespannt, wenn du zehn Jahre ago, als du kind of started, wie waren die? Ich glaube, was waren die Dinge, die du durchgeführt hast, bevor es losging? Was waren die Sehnsüge, die du damals plantest?
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Chapter 2: How did Dr. Sonja transition from divorce coaching to business mogul?
Nein, nein, nein. Ich begann, als ich das Divorce Coaching machte, die Leute sehen mich online, Periscope und all diese Orte. Und ich habe sogar ein Televisionsshow auf Bravo, weil ich spreche. Ich gehe live und jemand ruft mich an. Okay, we're looking for our next Oprah Winfrey. And I'm like, I don't want to be the next Oprah Winfrey. I want to be the first Dr. Sonja.
And that set the course of, I wanted to be the first in everything. Not second, I wanted to be first. And so when I went on this journey to do that, Russell, I would be speaking on stages. And I remember one particular event. It was like a thousand women in a room. I finished speaking. We were talking about relationships. And I saw the course. I've always been selling from the stage.
That's what I just, not intentionally. It was just like, hey, come to back table. Das erste Mal, als ich sie gesehen habe, war ich so, was? Was ist passiert? Warum reagieren sie so? Und diese junge Frau kommt zu mir und sagt, hey, Dr. Sonja, ich habe dich auf Periscope gefolgt und ich möchte, dass du mich coachst. Ich möchte, dass du mich lernst, was du tust. Ich bin so, was mache ich?
Ich helfe einfach. Sie sagte, nein, nein, nein. Ich sagte, na gut, geh auf die Rückseite und signiere für das Coaching-Programm für das Leben nach dem Divorz. Sie sagte, nein, mein Mann und ich sind in Ordnung. What is going on? That was the first sign. And that was the first time someone asked me to coach them in a different area. And she said, well, I mean, how much does it cost?
I can pay right now. She said, you take American Express? Absolutely we do.
The answer is always yes.
I put the order form all over on the side, wrote in the name of the program that I hadn't even created yet. It was $10,000. She paid right then and there. Haha, next level business. I know it was a build your business empire. That's all I did. Just like that. I wrote it on there. She signed it. Then we got our official contract after that. It's like, oh man, I got to go build this.
And so I've taken that model, anything that I launch. I just need the outline and I need a name and I'll go build it afterward. And it forced me to get into this space. I just start showing her to do what I do. So now my whole thought process, Russell, is let me just teach other people how to do what they already do. And teach other people how to do that.
You'll make more money teaching other people how to do what you do than you will doing it, is my thought.
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Chapter 3: What mindset shifts helped Dr. Sonja grow her business?
Chapter 4: How did Dr. Sonja make her first $10,000 offer without a product?
Whatever you do on stage, like that, you know, and almost for you, you're like, I didn't do anything special. I just did my thing, you know? I think that's what holds a lot of people back, is understanding that, like, Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.
Yeah, for sure. You gotta make it worth it.
Alright, Funnel Hackers, let's have some fun for a second. One of the hardest parts about B2B-Marketing isn't getting attention. It's getting the right attention. I'm sure you know what I mean. Isn't it a pain when you see the weirdest ads showing up in your feed? Ads for things you know you would never use in a million years.
And you start thinking, that person is wasting so much money targeting me for a product or service I will never use. And here's the thing. Those companies probably thought that they were marketing perfectly. But they were wasting money because they didn't get their targeting right. And that's why LinkedIn Ads is such a game changer. LinkedIn ist nicht deine tägliche soziale Plattform.
Das ist, wo über 1 Billion Professionale, Menschen, die bereits über das Geschäft denken, abhängig sind. Und ihre Targeting-Options sind unreal. Du kannst dich mit Job, Titel, Industrie, Firma, Größe, Rolle, Fähigkeiten, Revenue-Level, Seniorität targetieren. Du legst dein Fokus auf die Entscheidenden, die tatsächlich was du verkaufst. Es ist wie ein magischer Filter für deinen perfekten Kunden.
Und wenn du ernsthaft über dein Geschäft wachst und du willst nicht mehr bezahlen, um Menschen Ads zu zeigen, die nie kaufen werden, dann musst du auf LinkedIn kommen. Hier ist das Beste. LinkedIn wird dir sogar 100 Dollar Kredit geben auf deine nächste Kampagne, damit du es selbst probieren kannst. Geh einfach zu linkedin.com. Das ist linkedin.com. Terms und Bedingungen sind nur auf LinkedIn-Ads.
If you're anything like me, you've probably spent more time than you want to admit just trying to stay on top of your email. Am I right? I used to wake up, fire up the inbox, and boom, I was hit with a wave of random stuff. Newsletter noise, low priority requests, affiliate spam, and somewhere in the chaos, a few messages that I actually needed to respond to. It drove me nuts.
And I'd end up spending hours every day sorting, replying, getting distracted, and pulling off the work to actually move my business forward. But that all changed when I tried Notion Mail. And let me tell you, it's like somebody took my funnel brain and built an email platform out of it. This is the inbox that thinks like you.
NotionMail uses AI to organize everything based on what's important to you. It learns what matters, automatically labels and sorts messages, drafts, responses and even schedules meetings. It's personalized, automated and completely flexible. And do you want to know what's become my absolute favorite feature? Custom inbox views.
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Chapter 5: How does Dr. Sonja overcome imposter syndrome and self-doubt?
Chapter 6: Why is being great on stage essential for scaling your business?
Whatever you do on stage, like that, you know, and almost for you, you're like, I didn't do anything special. I just did my thing, you know? I think that's what holds a lot of people back, is understanding that, like, Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.
Yeah, for sure. You gotta make it worth it.
Alright, Funnel Hackers, let's have some fun for a second. One of the hardest parts about B2B-Marketing isn't getting attention. It's getting the right attention. I'm sure you know what I mean. Isn't it a pain when you see the weirdest ads showing up in your feed? Ads for things you know you would never use in a million years.
And you start thinking, that person is wasting so much money targeting me for a product or service I will never use. And here's the thing. Those companies probably thought that they were marketing perfectly. But they were wasting money because they didn't get their targeting right. And that's why LinkedIn Ads is such a game changer. LinkedIn ist nicht deine tägliche soziale Plattform.
Das ist, wo über 1 Billion Professionale, Menschen, die bereits über das Geschäft denken, abhängig sind. Und ihre Targeting-Options sind unreal. Du kannst dich mit Job, Titel, Industrie, Firma, Größe, Rolle, Fähigkeiten, Revenue-Level, Seniorität targetieren. Du legst dein Fokus auf die Entscheidenden, die tatsächlich was du verkaufst. Es ist wie ein magischer Filter für deinen perfekten Kunden.
Und wenn du ernsthaft über dein Geschäft wachst und du willst nicht mehr bezahlen, um Menschen Ads zu zeigen, die nie kaufen werden, dann musst du auf LinkedIn kommen. Hier ist das Beste. LinkedIn wird dir sogar 100 Dollar Kredit geben auf deine nächste Kampagne, damit du es selbst probieren kannst. Geh einfach zu linkedin.com. Das ist linkedin.com. Terms und Bedingungen sind nur auf LinkedIn-Ads.
If you're anything like me, you've probably spent more time than you want to admit just trying to stay on top of your email. Am I right? I used to wake up, fire up the inbox, and boom, I was hit with a wave of random stuff. Newsletter noise, low priority requests, affiliate spam, and somewhere in the chaos, a few messages that I actually needed to respond to. It drove me nuts.
And I'd end up spending hours every day sorting, replying, getting distracted, and pulling off the work to actually move my business forward. But that all changed when I tried Notion Mail. And let me tell you, it's like somebody took my funnel brain and built an email platform out of it. This is the inbox that thinks like you.
NotionMail uses AI to organize everything based on what's important to you. It learns what matters, automatically labels and sorts messages, drafts, responses and even schedules meetings. It's personalized, automated and completely flexible. And do you want to know what's become my absolute favorite feature? Custom inbox views.
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Chapter 7: What advice does Dr. Sonja have for monetizing your voice and brand?
Oh, no, that's eight years. That's eight years.
Okay, eight years as the first business coach. Yes. Okay, and then tell me about that journey then. So then now you've got an outline, you've got a name and $10,000. Most people freak out at that point.
How many more of them can I find? How many more? And I just start looking at things differently. I didn't stop at that immediate point of the divorce side. I decided to have an event. I've been in that space. I didn't know everything, but I am definitely a risk taker. Calculated risks are better, but I'm a risk taker. And I'm like, what's the worst thing that could happen?
Ja.
Ph.D. oder nicht, das macht keinen Sinn. Ich hatte immer noch diese Selbstverdachtung, wie viele Leute es haben. Ich hatte nur diese Selbstverdachtung, kann ich das wirklich machen? Das ist, als es anfing, zu steigen, als mehr Leute mich bezahlt haben. Warte, ich bin ein Imposter. Ich sollte das nicht machen. All meine Vergangenheiten.
Also musste ich mit dem internen Geist, der sich zeigen möchte, wenn du einige großartige Dinge tust. Und ich begann zu erinnern, Russell, er oder sie wird immer wieder zeigen. Für jeden Niveau zeigen sie sich. Nur um dich zu testen.
How do you shut that down then? Because a lot of people struggle, they never get past that, right?
I'm smiling because I don't want to yell too loud in the mic. It's like the voice that speaks the loudest wins. That voice that speaks the loudest, and I'm very cognizant of what that voice sounds like. That voice will say, you can't do this. Russell's going to have you on his podcast. Are you sure you're ready for that? That voice wants to speak loudly. I'm like, what? What are you talking about?
Just sit down somewhere. I'm worthy of this, right? And so just really listening to the voice and which one is speaking the loudest. I am not saying I have mastered that, but I've become very good at recognizing that the truth, your brain cannot tell the difference between the truth and a lie.
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