[00:00:00] Jack Thompson:

Would you mind introducing yourself and what you do?

[00:00:02] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Dr. Connor Robertson. The company name's on the hat here. Syntacz, syntacz.com, it's S Y N T A C Z.com.

We basically are a business development company. The way our offers work is we are focused on organic prospecting. So there are really two channels we work on, LinkedIn and email. We work with agencies, coaches, consultants, business owners, tech founders, SaaS companies, but pretty much anyone that's B2B high ticket service-based company.

We help them put appointments on the calendar and our big value prop for most of the people that we work with is we build the system and our customers own the system. So we do a lot of work that's non-recurring in nature, and that helps take, an early-stage company and help them grow with the maximum number of profits.

So we actually launched this company in January of 2019. So we're about 30 months in, at this point. My business partner, Keith he lives out in Denver company is incorporated out there. I'm in Pittsburgh, but our team is all over the world.

We've got people in the US, Canada. We've got people in Mexico. We've got people in the Philippines, Bangladesh, India. We've got, a little bit, we've got all the corners of the world, there. We even have you guys in your team from the UK, represent. You got the miniature Big Ben back there. So we have a good team, a lot of people that are really focused on growing the company.

But again, our value prop is pretty simple: scale businesses without ads. That's it.

[00:01:17] Jack Thompson:

So what made you decide to jump on board with us? Hire us an appointment setting agency?

[00:01:22] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Yeah, so actually very interesting kind of backstory in this. A lady on our sales team originally, Alifia had a call set with Mike, actually, when we were looking at working, helping Coaching Sales with some work, the other side of your guys' company.

And they set up a call and they're going back and forth and, and I ended up jumping on the phone 'cause I'm like, ah, I don't know if what we're trying to do here is the best fit. Let me get on the phone and let's meet. And the funny thing is two weeks before that I was actually in Miami, which is where Mike lives, or just outside of Miami there in Fort Lauderdale.

And I was like, man, you're Fort Lauderdale. I was just there, whatever. I ended up going back and I met Mike in person, just randomly at some like WeWork shared facility kind of thing. And so I was like, all right. We ended up deciding to work together, jumped in, did a little beta. And then it was like, oh wow.

Like your guys' offer is performing really well with our email service, and then I started to think to myself, well, if we can generate the leads and you guys can do the traffic change, meaning, I have the lead and I want the appointment, all that setting activity, then it makes tons of sense for us to do something together.

Because at the end of the day, it was either me or my brother or someone else on the team setting appointments all day. And the balance was set appointments, take appointments, set appointments, take appointments. And there just was no time to do both, especially as we started scaling up. So I was like, all right, Mike, how can we make this work?

Right? He's like, we have this Done-For-You Setter option. I'm like, okay I don't even know what that is, but that sounds cool. And probably the number one reason we jumped in my opinion is I don't want to manage more people. Obviously, we have interactions. We have to talk once in a while, but I didn't want to have to bring someone in-house, put them on payroll and then have to manage them every single day and teach them things that I didn't know how to do.

So I just told Mike, I said, listen, you tell me what to do. You're the expert. You guys know what you're doing, tell me how we can make this work. And so that was the start of uh Done-For-You Setters.

[00:03:03] Jack Thompson:

When we got started with each other, how quickly do you think that kind of transition was made? How quickly were we able to get started with you guys and your platforms and such?

[00:03:11] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Yeah, I think it was actually, it was pleasantly surprising, how it came together. Because my whole thought was this, like, typically it takes 90 days to ramp somebody up, get going, train a new person, build up the SOP. But I think your guys' big thing is Facebook groups and you have some specific parts of the setting process that we never had.

So I think in the first two weeks we dialed in LinkedIn growth machine and our email inbox got those two things set up and then you guys really were pushing on, hey, what about a Facebook group? We didn't have Facebook groups.

So I think we worked together for 12 weeks now, maybe 13 weeks. 11 weeks ago, we started a Facebook group and took it to 2200 members in 11 weeks. Which is not bad. It's not great, but it's good enough. You know what I mean? And most of it's through organic traffic, about 98% organic.

So I think that the cool thing is you had a quick ramp-up with our SOPs that other people didn't have. And then we also took all the stuff that you guys said we should do, and just start implementing it, even though that's not the service. The service isn't to tell us what to do, but it ended up being, hey, if you think we can build a group, let's build a group.

[00:04:07] Jack Thompson:

What do you think the biggest difference was? From before and after working with us?

[00:04:19] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Yeah, probably predictability, where, we are good at getting appointments on the calendar. Prospecting, appointment setting, doing the whole thing, but there's always like a day or a week that's light or appointment slots that are missing. And then I got to stop and start and it's like a big time-suck.

I think another big thing is with you guys, because it's so quick, and it's not my job to set the appointment when somebody cancels or no shows or reschedules, is if it's someone within four hours, you guys are setting it again. So the calendar is a hundred percent full, and that was something that we never had that option before. If somebody no-showed or canceled, it was done. We, that spot was blank, and I was, I dunno, working on the business during that slot instead.

So now it's just filled up right away. We just go to the next call.

[00:05:00] Jack Thompson:

What have you actually found is your favorite part about working with us?

[00:05:03] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Probably management, right? Like I don't want to have to manage a ton of people. We already have a ton of people on our team that I need to talk to every day or operations, Keith, there are other people on the team, we have to always have these conversations. What we are looking for is, hey, can we have this integrative approach where you guys represent our brand, but I don't have to manage and create the infrastructure.

Whether it's a virtual assistant on your team setting something, or do you getting on the phone for a dial, or someone else getting on the phone. It's just nice to have that comprehensive, I pay you guys X amount of dollars. You guys, come back towards us and just say, okay, here's the deliverable.

I don't have to worry about who's doing the work, how they're doing the work. Like I just don't have to worry about that stuff. I just rather just pay to have it solved.

[00:05:36] Jack Thompson:

And how did you find the initial transfer of trust? Handing over the reigns is obviously something that can be a little bit scary, especially when starting with a whole team you're not going to be managing.

[00:05:49] Dr. Connor Robertson:

I didn't really find that big of a deal. I'm sure some people out there with their businesses, would look at that and say oh, that's a lot of responsibility.

It's, listen dude, you got to put the ego aside and just say, hey, we didn't have this company in, before January of '19, that's like not that big of a deal if it implodes. So let's just keep going. You know what I mean? Just start the process, trust the process, execute. And if it fails, it just is what it is.

So I didn't really have, I don't think that was a big thing for me, looking at it and saying. Okay, this is a trust issue. It was just, tell me what I need to do instead of me telling you what to do. I think that's probably the biggest thing. That's different. Most people who work with you guys probably come in and try to tell you what they need.

I came into this process and said, what do I need to do to be successful with you? I think that's like an accountability ego thing where it's you got to drop the ego, having accountability go up and just execute. And most people probably don't.

[00:06:33] Jack Thompson:

And to back that up with a few numbers. To actually give you some kind of context on some of the numbers we've seen over the past three months. We've actually only been working together for three months, which is crazy.

What we've seen from you is a 32% close rate. Now, from revenue that we have actually closed, or you guys have closed, it's been $439,000 on revenue closed from a 32% close rate for appointments that we have set to you guys. Now we sat around 311 appointments and out of 286 of those calls, they've shown, and that obviously equates to a 32% close rate at $439k.

Those are just some crazy numbers.

[00:07:09] Dr. Connor Robertson:

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that are good. The number, obviously the lead flow or the channel that we're sending from his LinkedIn and email, I think that's important for people to know it's not really Facebook ads, where we're getting them mostly from LinkedIn and email. And I think fundamentally that allows for a high show rate. I think across the board we're averaging a 92% show rate. Which is pretty much untouchable. I would say most ad companies are getting 50 to 60%. If they're really good, maybe 70 to 80%. And also we take everything on a one-call, right?

I think a lot of people are like, oh, I got a 50% show rate to my first call and a 50% show rate to my second call. Dude, that's a 25% aggregate show rate. You have to set so many, but you have to set a hundred appointments to get 20 people to actually show up, to get five deals on a 20% close.

Cause you're setting two appointments and you have bad show rates. So for us, it's 92% show and we do one call. So it's one of those things, it's so easy.

[00:07:54] Jack Thompson:

And you guys do have a really high close rate as well, we should mention that. Now we have had 91 sales since working together. What would you say to somebody that is thinking about jumping on with Done-For-You Setters?

[00:08:04] Dr. Connor Robertson:

I think it's a couple of different things. The biggest thing is the offer.

You have to have a good offer, right? You can't set appointments on a crappy offer, so you better make sure that your business is actually a good offer. That's the number one thing. If you can build it and create it and have a good price point, and you're willing to spend 2% of revenue for an appointment and 10% on a deal.

You're good all day long. So if you have a $10k offer, you're willing to spend a thousand dollars for acquisition and $200 per appointment. You're gonna be laughing all the way to the bank because all the numbers work out. It's when you get into a small offer, a two, three maybe $4k offer with no backend, with bad show-up rates and all that.

That's where it becomes very problematic. But if you have a good offer with something that people want, that are willing to pay for it, then it makes tons of sense because essentially you're taking that middle piece of the sales process and just delegating the whole thing.

Which for us, by the way, principally speaking, last year, I wrote a book called the Seven-Minute Phone Call: How To Get More Sh*t Done In Less Time. And basically, the principal in that is EPAD: Eliminate, Prioritize, Automate, Delegate. Eliminate, Prioritize, Automate, Delegate. D, the last step, is delegate. That's what we've done with you guys. We've taken a sales function that we don't want to do that we're not good at.

And we have delegated to someone like you, who is extremely good at it. So it absolutely makes sense to follow that framework, get rid of all the stuff that doesn't matter, prioritize the stuff that does, run as much automation as possible, and then delegate that function to somebody who's actually good at.

It follows all our principles, works for us, seems like a great fit for anybody who actually has a real business.

[00:09:22] Jack Thompson:

Did you have any kind of uncertainties or hesitancies before jumping on with us guys or was it pretty much just, this makes sense let's do it?

[00:09:29] Dr. Connor Robertson:

All business owners have a risk tolerance. My risk tolerance is pretty heavy, pretty high, I guess you'd call that and I'm willing to take risks. I think there are some people that might be a little bit concerned about the outcome, but really, the way I see it is like listen, the worst-case scenario, you spend money and it doesn't work out for you. Okay. You're, you've lost a little bit of money.

It's not that big of a deal. It's not like your life's going to change either way. But what I do tell people is if you don't try it, you'll never know. I've told Mike this a few times, I really stand behind Done-For-You Setters. It's still the best investment we've made to date.

We've worked with a lot of ad agencies trying to tell us that they can get us appointments. We've worked with other people that claim to be great at certain functions in a business. It really, hands-down, dollar-for-dollar, this is probably the best investment we've made to date. There's really nothing else that I can say about that.

[00:10:11] Jack Thompson:

Do you have anything else you wanna close out with?

[00:10:13] Dr. Connor Robertson:

I think fundamentally you guys act really a lot more like consultants, right?

I think people look at Setting as, either a Done-For-You function or a Done-With-You function, a hiring function. But I think one of the value-adds that are probably misrepresented by you guys is just, you guys know what grows companies, for us. It's like we didn't have a Facebook group 11 weeks ago, 12 weeks ago.

I was like, that wasn't in my roadmap of Syntacz is gonna build a Facebook group. That wasn't in there. That's just not part of the plan. But it became part of the plan because you guys said, hey, this is a great opportunity to have people come in, teach content, set appointments, push people through the ecosystem and grow the business.

So you guys really gave me, a framework that I didn't really have before that I think is a lot better than the average professional service. So I'd say it's really Done-For-You Setters PLUS, right? There's always that extra piece that you guys have provided. So I think, two thumbs up all around. Great service. Love all the work that you guys are doing.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark:

We are on. I am excited to have you here today. I think, what you're doing is really interesting. And, I know when we initially started working together, we had a conversation. I was mentioning that like, I feel like all of us are in a lane, but we're always like peeking over at what people are doing in the other lane.

And so, you know, a lot of our works in the agency and coaching world, and that's like what we've really mastered. And obviously you're rocking it with the coaching side of things in the business as well. But, you really got your foundations in e-commerce, and that for all of us in the agency space, I feel like agency people where it's like, well, we know ads and let's speak over there.

And same with real estate we're all kind of looking at each other's stuff sometimes trying to get inspired or figure it out and it's interesting cause I was mentioning to you when we started working together that we have a client who basically he uses his real estate investments to buy eCommerce stores and then you started telling me about the arbitrage [00:01:00] opportunity that you guys do, which is a little bit different than anything I've ever heard. And I thought, well, this, I think would be something that's awesome for anybody who's at the point where, you know, once they start hitting these multiple seven figures, they start trying to figure out well, what do I do with all this money in the first place? A lot of the times too, you know, we're looking at options like for example, maybe I put it into real estate, maybe I put it back into my own business, maybe I put it into, you know, some sort of digital assets.

And, I, when, when my client was saying how he was buying eCommerce stores, I was like, that's amazing and the cashflow and pay themselves back so much faster than an actual real estate asset, which I thought was pretty interesting. So I'm excited to pick your brain here and really learn about arbitrage, how you're doing arbitrage w, what it is, and, as well, how you transitioned into the process of teaching others how to do it, and then, tell the listeners as well about your guys's [00:02:00] reorganization and how you've dramatically increased your success rates.

Cause I think that of, of anything you guys are going to want to stay till the end for that, because what you told me was amazing. And I think that anybody who's building a coaching or training business needs to hear that in order to be able to, to set their students up for success, you know? So, so everyone, this is Ann and, Ann, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and kinda tell them who you are, where you're from, what you do. And I know I covered a little bit of it, but we want to hear it from you.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks. Great to be here as your guests. I came on line actually 15 years ago, 16 officially, and I had done real estate investment. We also were in the automotive industry up in St. Paul, Minneapolis of the twin city area of Minnesota.

And, it was a new law that came out that wiped out that business and we're doing real estate investment at the same time. And I was also homeschooling our three boys at the same time. So, dribbling a lot of balls, very, [00:03:00] very entrepreneurial, very, Oh, do a few things, kind of a deal. Anyways, we ended up moving on from real estate investment.

Cause we moved South was one reason and, you know, real estate in terms of that turnaround one you're depending on that monthly cashflow, through real estate investment, that is, and that can vary so much because inevitably you got a water heater you have to replace. So, this, so that this and that and that monthly cashflow really, it's not like the study consistent thing that they talk about.

Home ownership is home ownership and there's always snacks along the way. And plus we did it more as rookies. We didn't really have, we didn't have someone to take care of it for us, you know, it was just one or two properties. So, we basically had our sons help us out in that business. So, I've had a taste of that, and we actually ended up selling it the worst time in the market. Missed out about $70,000 profit by one year, it was right up to the crash, but we just wanted to unload. Our CPAs said, Hey, you need to stick with your wheelhouse, which is online marketing, where we [00:04:00] really succeeded. So, actually came online as a digital marketer and I helped three training manuals. So, we did 4.2 million. What are, my first eBook in 2007, and then built a subscriber list through that, through the two free eBooks that funneled into that paid book.

And we really didn't you know, starting down, and this was many years ago, 2007, didn't have the whole backend dialed in. And it's kind of that thing about, well, when you're getting going, you can only have so much dialed in and then it's a little bit of learning as you go. It's really hard to have everything perfect from the get-go.

So our experience was we really crushed with the front end. And built a really good list out of that. We actually transitioned into eCommerce in 2013, the fall of 2013. So, it's been seven years, but my wheelhouse has always been training and mentoring and coaching. And that's what I, when I first came online, it was teaching, mentoring people how to, how to have an online sales funnel.

So, that's my main expertise. So, that's what I continue [00:05:00] to do as the digital marketer of my training company. And so, I'm the marketing director of the company and create all the funnels, et cetera, et cetera. So, we shifted a mean commerce. And I'm gonna just tell you, it was sometimes the market pushes you to make a pivot and basically the market is dead. So I was in the direct sales industry and none of the advertising channels, as it turns out is very fond of the drug sales industry. So, no sooner would be up and running in Google ad words and bammo, me and another 10,000 direct response marketers lost our accounts now back on, of course, and thankfully, and then same with Facebook.

And so, I kind of got tired of it. Just basically getting really high converting funnels going and then having the doors slammed in my face. Whereas with the eCommerce, yes, it is a home business up, but I think it's, it's definitely seen as more legitimate than the direct [00:06:00] sales/network marketing industry.

So just to put it all into context, primarily I'm a digital marketer and my expertise is developing out the training and mentorship program and creating the marketing pieces to promote that.

Mike Mark:

So, how did you discover the e-commerce opportunity that you're doing? And then, give us a little background on sort of that when you found it and then how it came to be in its current form.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, it was kind of all by accident, so to speak, first of all, so, I homeschooled my son for 12 years and I taught them to be entrepreneurial cause we've always had a number of businesses. They did eBay when they were, one was in junior high, the other one was in senior high. And so they were doing the eBay and I had my little job of running the youngest son off to the post office to make sure the products were shipped out.

Very fascinating, mom, we got to have a five-star review. Got it. Okay. So that was my contribution to that, but they pretty much ran that business by themselves. It was Lord of the ring’s memorabilia, Marine memorabilia. We had a [00:07:00] lot of sorts in our house. Three points. Yeah, that's right.

Anyways, we had already had a taste of it. And, what happened is because I was in direct sales and I'd built many teams through that is then there was an network marketing/affiliate program. I really saw that's an affiliate. It was a, yeah, it was a two tier, two tier affiliate programs. And it was actually my, a, coaching mentor from 16 years ago. He was testing it's like, and this thing works. And so, I told my husband about it. He said, yeah, I'll give it a shot. My husband's starting to make money. And he's not very non-techie and I'm like, well, Okay, if my non-techie husband can do this, then I'm pretty sure my current members who I was teaching attraction marketing, or funnel building to, I thought they should do really well.

So, it was a new year's Eve promo, everybody signed up and everybody started making money, [00:08:00] almost immediately. And so, and they would have to create listings and do keywords, which is something that I taught and train them on. And that really caught my eye. I thought, okay, this is a whole lot more fun to be selling something that creates success so quickly for my members that it's, it's gratifying, right?

We like to do things where the results come back quickly. And I didn't mention earlier I was a gymnastics coach for 15 years. So this whole thing about teaching, training, coaching is just something that I really, really have an affinity for, but nonetheless, so that was successful. And then of course, we're, I have been a top affiliate marketer for many years, and I had a top affiliate program as well.

So, we put together all our affiliate marketing pieces of our own to promote this particular direct sales company, including our added value events. So we've been doing events as it was for about five years prior and we're like, Hey, let's start [00:09:00] doing our own events and pretty much what happened is when I was providing them, ended up being a more value than the actual company that we were referring to. Subsequent to that, and this is, you can just watch this historical phenomenon, that company went under and it's like.

Mike Mark:

Which company was it?

Ann Sieg:

I don't know if they want to say the name, but they ended up, I, I can kind of spot those things from afar and go yep, here comes the decline and, and that's exactly what happened. And it was, it was sad cause they had a lot going for themselves. It really did.

But I could just see the writing on the wall and I'm like, well, I was good and set to go because we had such a solid infrastructure before promoting it. And then we were really quick to build our own back office, our own affiliate, marketing materials, et cetera. So, then the term that I've coined since then is to deep blue oceans and beyond.

And that is that e-commerce is just [00:10:00] so deep, so deep. I'll give you a quick example of it. So, we have our 90 day peak performance brought in a member January 1st. We've interviewed her twice. Once after 30 days, she had her automaticity come as business setup. We just interviewed her Saturday. She's now got a lead generation company as a auxiliary business around her eCommerce business. And that's what I love is when our members can come into this space and have so many opportunities available to them to really strengthen, instead of, you know, sometimes you throw it on your roots and the roots, ah, there goes that industry. You have to swim over and find another one now. Been there and done that. ECommerce is not going away.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. It's only growing and it's, I mean, with everything going on right now, it's become more and more obvious that it's here to stay. And it's, you know. One of the things I've found has been interesting and I've, I've often thought about this like what percentage of people are going to go [00:11:00] back to buying stuff in the store that had to convert now? That, that this is all happening, right? So, I, I can't imagine it like, eh, you know, my mom, for example, she's now ordering food as well from Instacart and stuff like that. and they've never done that.

Ann Sieg:

Right.

Mike Mark:

And, to me, it's like, I can't even imagine going back to a store once you do it. And so, with e-commerce, we start to realize how easy it is now that it's necessary. It kind of took away a lot of the objections, which everybody's is almost always the same. I want to see it. I want to feel it. I want to try it on. I want to, with the ease of returns and whatnot, those almost go right out the window, which is interesting.

So, it's really, unique. I think, your journey is almost that you had already done the coaching and training and you built the organization. You took your sales skills, you took your marketing skills and your problem was different than a lot of people's, which is [00:12:00] how do I get the sales and marketing skills? Your problem was where do I channel them?

Ann Sieg:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

And so you told me a little bit about arbitrage and how you're doing e-commerce arbitrage. What, can you explain it to the people watching and sort of what this opportunity is, and then how you discovered specifically e-comm arbitrage.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah. Just so people are clear, so primarily we teach through Amazon and then they can scale from there and move into Shopify. I always believe in starting with the path of least resistance for a member so that you mitigate the risk factor as much as possible. And new sellers have no clue of the big picture view of am I stepping into the deep end of the pool with this method? Or am I in the shallow end of the pool?

And so, we have taught every method from arbitrage on up to private label sourcing from China and, Shopify. And so obviously it's fast when someone's brand new that you start with that path of least resistance so that you can [00:13:00] better ensure their success and help them build their foundation.

So, arbitrage is simply, and it was in part through this original company that I was with, but we layered on and then built a book flipping program. And then we built online arbitrage. They basically taught local retail arbitrage. So, arbitrage is just a fancy word, that means buy low, sell high. So if you've been in real estate, that's kinda like flipping houses, except you go in and you fix them up and a whole lot more risk when that return on investment, the market can change, so many factors that you got, all that money in there, whereas with product flipping, you're, you're basically at its most fundamental form through local retail arbitrage as you download an app from Amazon. It's called the Amazon seller app and it's free. And so, with that app, you use them through the camera on your phone, you're going to scan the UPC code of products. And what happens to that app is it's searching, and it will identify if [00:14:00] that product is on the Amazon catalog.

So, this product, for example, right there, this is Burt's bees hot, very, very well-known brand. Okay. I strictly only buy through Amazon now because I just can't find this particular product to my local stores, even though I originally did, but nonetheless, so when you scan the UPC code it's and this happens in a microsecond, it's just boom, like that.

And it will identify if it's in the catalog, then it dishes up these beautiful, gorgeous data points and the data points are for you then to make a calculated decision, essentially as an investor. So, I tell people, okay, you're thinking you're a shopper. Yeah. You're shopping at a store. But what you really are as an investor.

And so, you have so many data points that you can make a really smart savvy, calculated decision to put that money into, let's say this product and uhm, know how many other sellers there are? Know what the sales velocity is? No, what the profit is. There is no gotcha. [00:15:00] I know everyone always, they look really high and low.

There's gotta be a gotcha. There's gotta be a gotcha. The only, gotcha is this, is other seller could jump on that same listing after you had bought it, when you determine, Oh, there's only five sellers. I should be good to go. And then opps, it lands in the store, especially during Q4, there's an extremely high level of velocity that it's just, it's like a bucking Bronco. It's quite, q four is amazing, which we had a repeat of that with COVID by the way, but nonetheless local retail arbitrage, that's what you're doing is using your smartphone and scanning. We also have a specialty program for book flipping cause our master trainer had done that five years generating a six-figure income just flipping books, use books to sell on Amazon, which is how Amazon got started.

But the one that we really, put together our high ticket, so to speak is with online arbitrage, because that meets all three pillars of the eCommerce success that we teach our members, which is to generate [00:16:00] cashflow, automate systems and build assets.

And so our promise to them, our value proposition is that in 90 days, when they follow her instructions and we've proven it over and over, you will have a profitable, automated eCommerce business set up in 90 days. So, that's where we landed because we found that the biggest point of failure was life gets in the way, they're no longer consistent in their business, this is why they need, for example, VA's who then do the grunt work so their business keeps working with or without them.

Mike Mark:

Yup. I think it's really interesting. and I want to highlight what you're saying for anyone watching this, which was how do I design my product and how do I design my coaching and the training to go to the path of least resistance?

How do I get that fast, easy, low hanging win, and then start to be able to compound that win and then take them to the more advanced levels if they want to go there. And [00:17:00] if they don't, that's great too. But I think there's a something for anyone out there that's watching this right now, when you're designing your offers, when you're designing, how to deliver the offer, how to make the promise, how to be able to make sure that you're making a promise and then within integrity, delivering on it in a tight timeline, thinking like what Ann's saying there.

Because that's like it's so subtle when you said it, but it's just such a big difference whereas like, if you were to start at private label, now, now we've got to go buy bulk. We don't know if the supplier is good or not. There's so many things variables that could happen. You get the money's tied up as it's coming on a barge over here.

So, you got, you know, however, for many, three weeks before you even see it, if you're lucky at that point could get stopped in customs. And if it does get stopped in customs, you know, God forbid. And if that person's tight, too and they're, they're really like trying to make anything work, that those two months can [00:18:00] really hurt someone.

Whereas it's what you're doing is smart. It's like, okay, what's the low hanging fruit, what can we get them that first sort of like taste of it and then take it, rinse it, repeat it, and then scale it.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, we call it proof of concept and we want them to get that as fast as possible. Call it a dopamine hit, whatever people want to call it is, it worked Eureka. And it's like, I mean, I remember the first sale, my son and I made online, I was just like, Oh my gosh, it worked, it was a sales funnel selling the product, you know? And I was like, it's just, it's. And I always tell people, I can give you a proof of the wazoo, but until you do it yourself, It's not the same.

It always will seem like, yeah, and so, and so did it. So, we always want to really make sure they get to that proof of concept as quickly as possible. And we've got people there in profitability in two weeks. I mean, it's because of Amazon, it's just an unreal machine. Did you want me to dive into the nuances [00:19:00] of, I, you know, getting the, I mean, for me, I feel like I'm in the lucky bucket.

Cause it, it just is a faster turn than when I taught building sales funnels. And that's so much of a fast turn. You got to have traffic to test, your squeeze page, you this and get that. But when it comes to this Amazon, they've done the marketing. Yeah, you've got the customer less, they got the prime buyers, it's it's done, you know, so it's like super cheating and in a good way, but I, I've done the other kind of stuff too. Not as an agency, but as a training and mentoring and coaching program.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. It's interesting as well, right? Because a lot of the pricing of the products are technically going to be lower. So, it's an easier barrier to get them to spend, it's on Amazon. We already trust Amazon anyway. And then, I think that, with Amazon now, the other thing that you have to your advantage is all the tools like being able to see, you know, keywords, how many searches are you getting per month on a [00:20:00] specific keyword?

And you know, the advertising inside of Amazon, there's so many tools in and around Amazon that make your life easier if that's where you're going to go first. So that makes a lot of sense.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Mark:

And when you said with the, the teaching sales funnels, you meant for the students, it was harder for them to get the, that first value. Is that what you mean?

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, it was my former training company, that was more difficult because it always has to start with traffic. So, they're going to have to either learn paid advertising. They got to be real good at direct response marketing, or they're going to have to do social media one or the other, but no matter what you put in a fair amount of sweat equity before you start getting up that flow and then that's got to go through the offer to see if it converts. And, there's a lot to that entire process and it would take longer, we did people got results, but it was nothing like ecommerce. It, you know, [00:21:00] and speaking of what the real estate investors and people have extra cashflow, eCommerce is just such a simpler model.

You know, once you get your systems in place and your team in place to run them for you. And I mean, we've seen what we've got, some people are really good at project management and they're, they've got great, awesome teams that are running their business for them. So once you have that part of the formula done, it is, I'm not going to call it set and forget because you know, there's always fluctuations in the marketplace and this kind of thing, and someone leaves and this and that, but, it's just such a simpler, cleaner model than these more sophisticated, advanced, you know, whether they're agencies or whatever other options are, what I previously did. They're just more sophisticated.

Mike Mark:

Makes sense. That makes sense. A lot of sense. And, what I think specifically with what you're mentioning, it's like selling a product doesn't require the same level of [00:22:00] copywriting, direct response skills. And I did notice that, that was a sticking point for a lot of people.

And in fact, like with a lot of what we do, you know, we chose to serve the upper end of the market because it's the people who have already developed those skills. And now I don't have to teach them. I can just help them scale their team and their sales team specifically. And that was our choice. And I think a lot of like, what we're describing is this concept that we talk about internally a lot.

We actually, it came up in our weekly meeting today, which is first value, right? The first value is that first moment that your customer experiences like that, the joy of using or owning or buying your product. And in your case, your first value is when someone gets that first sale on Amazon. And then in, in our case, our first value is when someone gets the first sale from the sales person that they've got onboard and, with the sales funnels as [00:23:00] well, it's, it's someone getting their first sale.

But what we're looking at is back to that question, I think is kind of the key of everything, which was what is the fastest and easiest and lowest hanging fruit that I could get someone to first value. And then how can I crunch that timeframe down? And then at that point, it also is cool because your product's more sticky and people want to work with you longer because now you've delivered on your promise much quicker.
It wasn't as difficult. And that comes out of the product engineering side, which that's kind of where I'd like to segue our conversation cause I know you guys mentioned, when we started working together that you had spent so much time last year, just kind of like pulling your product apart and then reconfiguring it.

So, walk us through the before and then the after of how you overhauled the product and what that all looked like and what the results have been there.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, definitely. So, it's called e-commerce acceleration. We developed it, fall of 2017, [00:24:00] which was an upsell through an Ascension funnel. We had started with the $37 product, and then it went to a side hustle, a 997 product, and then it went to the 3K and it was definitely, you know, worked really, really well.

And, and then it was this past, primarily December where we stepped back and it's like, okay, how can we make this thing even better? The eCommerce acceleration program. And it was, two of my main team members who really put their heads into that to pull it apart. And how can we improve upon it? Especially our master trainer.

And he noted it was really a behavioral issue. More than anything as a point of failure for our, I should say more circumstantial issue on the end of our members in that many of them, you know, probably 70% is B to C for us. And 30% are B to B business owners, a realtors, people want to add in an additional cashflow where they lost [00:25:00] their businesses and now they want a new one, et cetera, but the B to C and so, looking at that, what we saw as the biggest problem was disruption in their life.

Cause there are mostly seized consumers and, you know, grandma got ill, son broke his leg, you know, this, that and everything. Life got in their way, and then they're losing their consistency of their business. And so that's what is, as he studied, and I agree. And I said, yeah, you know, cause it's like, they're clipping along. And then, Oh, and now they dropped the ball because they gotta stop for a month because of XYZ.

And so from his own experience, so it was, well, once I got a VA in place and a team of VAs, that's when it was sky's the limit. You know, and so that's when we restructured it, that was part of, it was just one, one piece because that's where we always like to do. Where's the point of failure and how do we correct that? How do we mitigate that?

And so, it became not, we're [00:26:00] just, we moved beyond, we're not just selling another method, another sourcing method. We're providing a system for them to create an automated business. So now, you know, usually the distinction in the eCommerce space.

If you go out there and you scope it out, Oh, he's teaching Shopify. Oh yeah, they've got private label. He's got sourcing China. And that's how they are known is by their particular, where are they hanging their hat for their particular sourcing method. We wanted it to be that from day one, being that if they didn't have systems in place and a team to run them for them, they just couldn't get to the big numbers, the big scale.

So that was definitely built into it one way then layered on what's come to be known as 90-day peak performance. So, we quantify things and the brain in marketing works a lot better when you have your value proposition. And in 90 days you tell me I can have that's on us. That's what I'm telling you.

And [00:27:00] so, so that made a really big shift in the marketing. But it has literally come true that started on New Year's Eve day and a gal who joined on that webinar, in 30 days she had all set up. She went actually further. It's like she decided to get a Shopify store set up and this and that, but she was making sales by day 13 and made sales every single day with the exception of three in the month of January.

Mike Mark:

Wow.

Ann Sieg:

And had VA's, she hired two. And she had already set that work. She already hired someone to run the account for her. And so, it was like, yeah, it was proven very, very quickly. So, that's just one part. The other is this, and this comes somewhat from my, in the sports world is tracking. Now, I've taught tracking for 12 years since I've been in line.
And we have a end of day tracker tool in our back office, but I'm talking about, accountability and a public setting. And I remember when I went through consultative, selling way back when I came online, there was this public [00:28:00] disclosure of your numbers in the, this and that and I thought, Oh fine, it's going to be public isn't?

Long ago and after it, I like it. And you know, it's going to make those stars writes up kind of a thing. And so we do in our weekly calls, there is, and this takes a lot of care and attention. It's not, you'd have to have the staff to accommodate this. Everyone is tracked. And it's shown in front of everybody. You're there, did you finish this homework?

And we had already done that for almost two years through our 10 day accountability bootcamp, which everyone gets when they come into the program, know what, no matter what training product, but so when we took it to a whole another level, and I remember a coach I had, when I came online, he said, you know, when you make it public, it's a whole different game.

People are watching. And then there are four, typically people won't perform better, especially those who are performance driven. So, yeah, so it really made a big shift. [00:29:00] And in our big claim is there is no one who can come here and say they didn't get the help they need. And I say it in my promos and I said, well, what could happen on the other hand is you don't show up.

And that will be the biggest point of failure, but we're done on the football, we're around the field, ready to run with you to the end goal. So anyways, yeah, it was setting it up so that they would get into automation a whole lot sooner, pushing them out of their comfort zone through this whole training and mentoring to get them with their VA's and whatnot. And we have the systems to give them the blueprint, but also that high level accountability.

Mike Mark:

Interesting. So. I just want to unpack that the it's first was okay. We did the analysis of our data. And then I just out of curiosity, like when you guys went through the data, how did you guys come to the conclusion that it was circumstantial or something personal that was causing people to not be able to figure it out?
So, I'd like to explore that. And [00:30:00] then also one thing, just to clarify, cause I think it, it didn't come up, but prior you guys were doing like a, open-ended or a yearlong program. If I, I think it was a year, right?

Ann Sieg:

It's a good question. It ends up being a monthly, so they have their initial 3K and then it's a recurring monthly because we have 12 small group coaching sessions a month.

I mean, I've just touched the tip of the iceberg of what we offer, in terms of the high touch high help so that they can, can come back and say I didn't, but I didn't get help. We also have a private mastermind group and it's very, very, very active. So, the point of failure ends up being them, but we even have a system after the fact, you miss a week, boom, we're on you with another email. Miss two weeks? And so, on full data spreadsheet because our fight, if you will, is we want the best performance out there in the industry. Now we're never going to know that we [00:31:00] don't know what other people's is, but that's our own personal quest is we care enormously. We put in a lot into our folks. So, we want maximum performance is what we're going after.

Mike Mark:

And so, so you went from that open-ended month a month to we're now at 90 days, we know like, Hey, let's put the blinders on, let's say focus for these 90 days and get this set up to where it's automated.

Ann Sieg:

Yes. Yeah.

Mike Mark:

Okay. So, that's interesting. And I want to highlight that cause you know, if you're here and you're listening to this and you're, you're trying to figure out your fulfillment, you can see like, not only did that help you on the marketing side, but it also helps on the delivery side because people have the end date.

And so, they're running towards something and they know that, Hey, this is going to end. And so, there's nothing like, I think anyone who's marketed long enough knows there's nothing like a deadline to inspire us. And so, by putting in that deadline, rather than that open ended, I'll support you for everything, you end up getting better results, which is [00:32:00] counterintuitive. But it makes perfect sense when you really unpack it.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, it's totally that they want to get that slam dunk come in 90 days, and then we have a graduation. We actually send out physically mail certificates of completion and then.

Mike Mark:

Oh, that's awesome!

Ann Sieg:

Yeah, it's physical. And then, so the marketing is salacious. Then we bring them into a zoom call, and everybody hold up your certificate. And then, you know, we do content expansion through our marketing and still it's like gorgeous. And then them sharing what their experience was like. And many say it's unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's meant to be super hands on. It's meant to really serve the performers, the producers who, if they just get the help, they need step by step along the way. And they take off like a rocket. That's what we're doing.

Mike Mark:

That's cool. One thing I also want to say that I'm like, I love that you did this and I just have to highlight it because the thing that gives a lot of what we do about rap and to me, it's my ultimate [00:33:00] ultimate pet peeve is to blame it on mindset.
And instead you guys went, you unpack the data, you found that, Hey, it's not mindset, it's a circumstance. And there is a real problem that's occurring in these people's lives. And how do we solve that problem? What if we automated it? And we automated it as quickly as we possibly can. So, if they're there or they're not there due to whatever life events happen, they're still going to get the outcome that we're promising.

And like, that's just going that extra step. And it's dramatic when you see the outcome. Cause I know you mentioned like when we started talking, your, your completion rates and the actual success rates of clients has, I think you, how many, multiple times over has it been?

Ann Sieg:

I at least doubled, you know, they'd go through it. They're coming in every day. So, this completion part to get the full stats in this start at the beginning of the year, but the first go through it was astounding. Cause it was a [00:34:00] whole new batch that we brought in, so to speak when we kicked it off, it was on New Year's Eve that, you know, then we're all watching and then there's these three phases.

Everything is very documented. And just this morning we had a staff meeting and we're making further up optimizations, you know, iterations to. It's just this kind of some study and I'll tell you where it comes from for me personally. So having been in the sports world I had, my first coach was terrible.

She was good that she knew technique and such, but she certainly, we didn't know psychology if I were to work with people and she was like the proverbial German, she was German. She just barked and yelled and there were a lot of injuries jump. And then I go to someone else's gym to learn, and he says, if you're going to be teaching under me, I'm going to teach you how to teach.

Sign me up, you know? And, he taught progressions. She didn't teach progressions. All of a sudden I'm being, I'm doing a pair of hands free on the balance. No, I couldn't do one on the floor. That makes no sense. [00:35:00] And I ended up wiping her in the face when she was fighting me. Well, it was illogical. It's got, there's gotta be a measure of logic in it.

And so, what I learned from that was these two coaches by contrast, secondly, was just because someone is a really great gymnast, does not by any means mean they're going to be a great coach because they don't know how to think in the deeper analytical phase of, wow. that's not working for, I wonder what we could do differently.

For them, it was like bringing in their natural and what's her problem anyways? Must be mindset. And so, when I was teaching my kids and I, both my parents were teachers, so, but I would go, Hmm. All right. I wonder if I can break this skill down more. I think she's lacking flexibility here. She needs more strength there.

And I, it was my job to study the student and look for that optimization that was deeper nuances that would, that, I could held this gym, this perform XYZ, that other, yeah, soon as Dan, a chance, you know? [00:36:00] And so, and I will say there's a lot to be said for what that person brings their A game or not.

We can all agree on that. But you can also help elevate people into an A game. I can't say we do it across the board. I'm going to say, we still have people and it shocks me, they pay their money down and they never show up, but you know what? I am them. I have bought programs. I buy a lot of programs where they got this, they're selling it now and they won't be selling for another year.

And I know I'm going to need it. So, I get that because I buy a lot of training for my own staff. and that's what happens, but we're really trying to get people really that's part of that qualification process too, though, right? Cause I want them to be actively engaged, but everyone buys for their own reasons. Right? So, anyways.

Mike Mark:

Yup. And it's interesting. I mean, sometimes you only need that one thing out of the product to make it all worth it. As well, you know, I've bought plenty of products and all I got was one idea, but that idea was all I needed out of the product, you know? And so, not everybody needs to read [00:37:00] the whole book.

Of course we like it when they do read the whole book, but as long as they get what they need, that's what matters. I also find it very interesting, what you're describing with the progressions, because, so I had two coaches in high school, for wrestling. So, I had very similar experience. But the one coach, we've never had a state champion ever. We had only one person in the time that I was there go to States in the first place. And we actually got a second person. So, but we were just terrible. Then we got this new coach after they kind of pushed that coach out, we got a new coach and right now he wins States every year.

And like, all the, all the kids went to States, the team win States. Like it's, if he might not have one or two weight classes that win States versus the other guy, it was just like, well, this is just what it is. And we just thought that's, this is what it is. We're just this way. And he [00:38:00] just systematically did what you're talking about.

He made, he made it all about progressions and it's, you know, you need to learn this and you need to learn this and you can go, where are they deficient? Well, they're not strong enough, so we need to hit the weights harder, or we need to do this. And then he, he was able to like systematically transform the organization and that's always been something that's really interesting for me to see that juxtaposition of their coaching styles.

And the one would teach you everything. But it wasn't always in that progression, like what you're saying. Whereas the other guy, he wouldn't teach you everything and it would be annoying because I want, I'm make my curiosity, wants to know everything, but he would limit you to what you needed to know at the moment when you need it to know it.

And then that was what compounded and built you into a much better wrestler. So it's cool. It's very much like when you said it, I was like, Oh my goodness, it's the difference, it's the tale. And it is this funny thing too with us, like it's same thing as with teaching salespeople, like [00:39:00] my first time teaching a sales person, I always joke, but I mean, it's real, like, I feel bad.

The guy quit sales after I tried to train him because I was so bad at trying to train them out of the sell because I was an amazing salesperson and I thought I knew how to train sales. But I couldn't, I had no clue what I was doing and it wasn't until I like unpacked it and then built those progressions that then that the training of sales started to work.

But initially, it's that same thing, like, Oh, what's wrong with him? Why can't he do it? And you just think that it's so intuitive and second nature for you. You feel like everybody else is stupid or but taking the time to slow down and unpack that work and take the ownership of every part of it and then build it into a strong product.
That's what I really find exciting. And like, to be honest, I'm way more excited about the customer that buys again than the customer that buys the first time, even though we are doing the sales stuff, [00:40:00] when you have a product that consistently delivers, there's nothing better than that.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah. Well, it's mastery and it's really having the love and they intrigue, you know, call it a chase, you know. I know sales and chasing sales. This is the chase of optimization for changing people's lives and the results. And so, ours is an end outcome that has a bigger view philosophically on my own and is, I do believe that the more entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs we have, the better the world will be. Because, and I have this, I always speak into it because it is truly my, point of reference.

So I tell people I'm not, and I'll tell them very clearly during my promo webinars, I say, here's who we're not, we're not just selling yet another digital marketing program. You can go out and find a thousand other digital marketing products. That's not my business model. My business model is developing entrepreneurs.

And so [00:41:00] it's when you're developing people, that's, that's like the highest-level science out there because it's not easy. That's where if you hit a wall of frustration, and it's really, truly not your space to be there with people are people and there, they're sophisticated and they're nuanced and all this. And how do you create, you know, behavioral shifts, et cetera, and take ownership of being able to create that optimal environment, that's a love and a passion all onto itself for that unique space that is vastly different. And pumping out digital marketing programs, which I know there's, I've been here 15 years, so there's a ton of stuff going on out there, but it's a completely different individual organization where the focus is actually truly on the individual.

And so, I want to, I always tell people I'm powering the family economy cause that's my backstory is all my sons grew up in my business. They all have done the business with me. They've gone on, one is my full time [00:42:00] videographer right now. I have a son in China, et cetera, et cetera, but all to say I'm, I'm in the people entrepreneurial development space, which is so rewarding and so cool.

I don't want to just sell a product that doesn't, that I don't get to track what happens to that individual, you know, like I was just sharing. So we do this, it's called Saturday morning live, I'm in to a Facebook, you know, like what we're doing right now and featuring this gal who's, she's now six months out and she's launching a new business on top of her Amazon business. Yehey!

And it's got, it's just going to just get six years now, you know. So, she is going to another level as an entrepreneur and building out a whole new economy. And so,, I just find that shifting the world ever so much, every time we have an entrepreneur like that.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. It's a, it's a pinch me moment, always, when you have to think about too, like, you [00:43:00] know, there's her and then her direct family, then the VA's and all their families and like whatever that ripple effect is and how far it goes. It's always really amazing to me, like.

And I think what you're describing is, is something that I, I talk a lot about with, how we design our product, which is that when you're dealing with people, people are complex systems. They're not linear simple. Do this, then do that. You know, of press A get B, it doesn't work that way. Like there's a motions.

There's an, and it's funny cause you know, my wife, she's a mechanical engineer by nature. So sometimes like her brain is, everything's a linear, it's all Newtonian Physics. And the fact that people don't behave sometimes in alignment with Newtonian Physics that like frustrates her and, and when we're dealing with it, you know, we have to take in that new Newtonian physics.

So how do we design the systems, but then how do we add that people element to it [00:44:00] and then create redundancies or, make sure we're removing any potential errors and you have contingencies. All of these things built in it's really. Sometimes it's a painful problem to solve, right? You know, you're like, Oh, you bang your head against the wall day sometimes.

But then once you find that, that like, that's it and you see it work, there's nothing more rewarding.

Ann Sieg:

Yeah. Systems drive behavior. So, I think of, for example, well, the accountability and how they develop their, their peer friendships through the accountability pro, the 10-day boot camp alone.

But also, just putting out in front of some people is we have a certification program. So, we don't really pronounce and sell it out front per se, you know, but it's just that that's a trigger for some people. She's got a system where I can get certified. And for the certification mode kind of people, which is when I came online, the program had a certification program and I thought, and I thought, man, it better be [00:45:00] based on results. So, I'm so not interested. It was for sales.

And then it, Oh, no, they had the parameters I'm all in then, cause if it's not results-based and you just getting a certificate to put on the wall without real proof and results behind it. But, that's just an example of us, a system in a system that we have that, and that cultivates certain behaviors to draw people towards that as a magnet that, Oh, when I get successful, I could potentially be a coach and trainer and your sister, man. That's what we're talking about, you know? So, it's always looking for the behaviors that reward positive behaviors and not the negatives.

Mike Mark:

Yup. I've loved it. This has been a really fun conversation. So, anybody who is interested then in potentially getting into arbitrage and kind of getting that first taste of success in e-commerce with you guys, where would they go to find you or learn more about what you guys are doing?

Ann Sieg:

Go to [00:46:00] ecommercebusinessschool.com, that's our website, ecommerce,businessschool.com. You'll see a, kind of an overview of who we are, what we do. And then also there's some free training at the top, right. There's a button that you can go through that. And that's where you find out about our arbitrage offer.

Mike Mark:

And I think it's just like, compared to everything I see out there when you started mentioning it, I, I was like, Oh, that's a home run, especially because of how easy it is, the low hanging fruit, the not being tied up in inventory, not being tied up with all those issues that are going to get someone tripped up in the beginning. It, I think it's really neat what you're doing. So.

Ann Sieg:

Thank you. It's a lot of fun.

Mike Mark:

Yeah, thanks for, thanks for joining us. And you guys, if you have any questions, just drop them below in the comments and then we'll circle back and get to your questions after the interview. So, we'll periodically check it out throughout the days.

And if there is any question that we can't answer, we'll tag in and then she'll be able to help you guys out as well. And then go check her out [00:47:00] ecommercebusinessschool.com see what they're doing. I think that what they're doing is really unique. And again, I appreciate you for coming on today and chatting about what you're working on.

Ann Sieg:

You're welcome. I appreciate being here.

Tyler Narducci Episode Transcript

Mike Mark:

What's up guys? Are you here? Can you hear us? If you are, give us a like, let us know if the audio is working. I'm here with Tyler. I'm seeing us. There we go. Cool. Yeah, if you're joining us live, give us a comment and give us a like, just let us know at least you can hear us.

And, I'm really, really excited to be really breaking down the story that Tyler has been on. Like, I feel like, there was a moment in probably like three or four months into working together where you're like, is this normal for you guys? And then I was like, yeah, man, it's pretty normal. And you're like, I feel like I'm on a rocket ship.

So like that one always cracks me up. But, the journey of going from like launching an offer after, and after a bit of a false start and then relaunching the offer. And then in three months, four months getting to the place where you were hitting seven figure run rate. And the thing that like, [00:01:00] just, I like to say this because we see this a lot.

Like there's a lot of the people out there that say, Oh, we hit seven figure run rates, but then they, their cash collection is so low and their refunds are so high that they actually don't get anywhere close to seven figures. But I know like seeing what you deliver as a product and the clients and their experience and like everything is how your business is structured, it's real in your case versus with some people it's like smoke and mirrors.

So, and I know that, you know, you had built an agency before this, so what people through, you know, initially what, before you had started the second business, cause now you've got two businesses at seven figures. You're 28 years old.

That's pretty remarkable. Sometimes it's hard to realize like what we've accomplished because we're so busy doing the work.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

But, in that first business, when did you start in like really ended up deciding that, Hey, this agency thing is for me.

[00:02:00] Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. So what's really cool about that, about my first business, my marketing agency. So we've our all, was that it was really born out of just a frustration of working for someone else, really. And…

Mike Mark:

What were you doing?

Tyler Narducci:

I had some terrible bosses, so I, right out of college, I was, I did, like four months flight attending. I worked at a bar. This was after I got my college degree because that's what every college graduate dreams of, right?

I ended up landing my first marketing gig, working for this company called dream water. It's like a little melatonin shot. And then after them, I worked for an energy shot company. So sleep shot and energy shot company doing like social media marketing. They're those kinds of companies that hire you because, Oh, you're a millennial, like you can do social media, right?

Mike Mark:

Yeah.

Tyler Narducci:

One of those types of jobs, right? And I realized pretty quickly while I was working for them, that I'm like, gosh, they know nothing, like, nothing about what I'm doing. And I'm just like, I'm thinking like I could do this, but times a [00:03:00] lot more, and I could help a lot more companies that are run by, you know, generations, well about beyond me that really have no clue what to do here, and, and have a much bigger impact. So I started, I realized at that point, you know, having that kind of bosses and realizing the value of what I brought to their company versus what I was being paid, like I was getting like 40K a year, as my starting salary. And I was like, this is just not happening.

So started, I decided to start taking on side clients, brought in like, you know, some really un, like clients that underpaid, like today, like it's what I joke I charged, you know, but I just wanted, I had a goal of at least make twice as much in retainer fees as you're getting paid in your salary, at least make which with 4, 40K wasn't whole lot.

So I got there and I did it through like, you know, three or four different clients. And so I felt really safe. And then I, I went to my boss, [00:04:00] I went to them, I didn't quit. I was like, I'm going to propose them to be my next mind, you know, my fifth client, right? And then I'm going to walk out. I'm going to give them all the work that I normally do.

Turn them into my fifth client and then we're off to the raises. It didn't work out so well, that, that didn't work out as well as I planned it to. They were pissed, they were prideful, they were, how could you be doing that? And they were, we need someone to have a butt in that chair because if you're not here in the office, then you're not really working.

That was how their brains work. So I, you know, and I literally offered them half of my salary in retainer form to, to just to do everything that I was already doing, but just wouldn't be in the office and they couldn't, couldn't do it. So I walked.

Mike Mark:

How crazy is that?

Tyler Narducci:

Insane. And they literally could have saved half of my salary, got everything that they were still getting from me and more, I was even stacking extra value, like offering them even more just to pay me half of my salary in a retainer form.

They couldn't, couldn't do it. They needed a butt on [00:05:00] a chair, and I walked out that day and kept growing.

Mike Mark:

So, initially those first two roles with the dream water and then the energy shot during, those were salaried roles, both of those?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

Okay. So you were kind of like an in house marketer and then, then started doing this freelance thing.

And I feel like an interesting point where most people are going to get stuck is going from freelance to like real business. And so what happened there when you went out on your own? Like how long were you just like a glorified freelancer and then at what point did things start to really come to a head and then you make the shift into running like a business.

Tyler Narducci:

Years. It took me a while to figure that out, at like at least two years after I was, I was, you know, being that one man bands agency that just does it all, you know. And I would go and meet my clients. I was the account manager. I was the ad manager. I was learning [00:06:00] Facebook ads, learning, Google ads, learning, you know, graphic design.

I was learning it all so that I could write then deliberate to my clients. Also trying to pitch new clients. I was, it was just, it was a ton of work. But at that time, I mean, I valued my freedom so much that, you know, I was willing to put in that hustle and everything. And it wasn't until maybe two years after that, that I really kind of, the light bulb went off and I'm like, why am I doing this?

Like, why am I doing everything? Like I need a team. And I, and then I, once the, what, what really ignited Sobeviral into much, much more revenue and enabled me to scale much faster was partnering with contractors. That was really the linchpin.

Mike Mark:

Hmm. What, so what happened? Like, what was the moment when you were like, this sucks and I can't keep doing this. Do you remember it or does it…

Tyler Narducci:

Well, there was a, there was a few, I fired a few clients, just because, you know, you, you [00:07:00] take on.. The cheaper the client, the more of a pain in the ass, they typically are. It's always. And so when you're at that freelancer level and you're working with the cheaper clients that you let come in for like $1,500 a month, and you let them in for like a thousand dollars a month that, you know, and you're doing everything, they just use and abuse you.

And you know, I had a few of those texting me at like three in the morning and if they need something and then, and Oh God, and I was just like, I'm not, I'm not doing this anymore. So I was like, I'm gonna need to inc. First take a look at my prices. I need to charge what I was worth, because I also saw the value that I was providing to these clients was way above what I was charging them.

Like I was in their ads manager. Like I see the re the results that we're getting. And I, and I see what we're doing here. And I know what the value that I'm bringing to your, and it was kind of like this, this a moment where I'm like, well, wow, I get this once in the nine to five, right? Where I saw the value I was providing.

And [00:08:00] I got my exit strategy, build my client, started getting clients and then moved to this. And now I'm kind of doing it again. Like here I am providing all this value and undercharging for my services. And so I was like, you know, I started looking at, you know, where my prices should be. And then, with fixing my prices, enabled me to hire contractors to then take those accounts for me. And I was able to then shift my focus from fulfillment to sales, which really helps a lot at that point.

Mike Mark:

Okay. That makes sense. Did you also notice like a common trend among the clients that you were able to get really good results for? And if you did, what was the trend that you picked up on, besides from higher prices? Because I know you mentioned that one.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah, yeah. No, that, so the trend, the clients that we were able to get really good results for, there's a lot of personality involved, honestly. Like I talked to the DFY agency members about this all the time [00:09:00] that when you're on sales calls, like, it's not about just like selling to anyone who will buy from you.

You really want to suss out, like who's going to be a good client for you as well, because there are some, you know, I call them the agency hoppers. People that dive into an agency, get services for like a month or two, you know, leave the contract, hanging, go hop to another person, see if they'll do it cheaper.

Like, and they've just, there's some really bad fits out there. So the clients, first of all, that we had a really good, really good success with are the people that, you know, believed in the service. So you didn't have to convince them that Facebook ads work, right? They know, they know Facebook ads work, but they know that they're not doing it the right way, the right way themselves, or that they had a bad experience with someone else.

And so the ones that, you know, worked well where they had, the right personality type, like they were a good client persona but they also believed in the service, they just needed to be sold on us as the provider. And then with that autonomy, that, [00:10:00] that, that, that gave us really as the service provider that enables you to then have a successful client relationship.

Mike Mark:

Interesting. That's an interesting distinction to, they go from like where you have to convince someone the value of your service, as opposed to share with someone, what is compelling and different about you, when they already value the service, it's just a matter of which service provider. So like in the, the, levels of awareness. There they're more solution aware as opposed to just problem aware is what I heard you say.

And then, then by being able to shift into that solution aware, and then it gets down to like offer and the actual provider awareness that they need to get to. That's a, it's interesting. It's a subtle one and it's sometimes hard because like when you're talking to the person, they all look and sound the same until you pick up on the subtle nuances of the difference.

And it's so easy when you first get in the game, it's like, [00:11:00] you just need money at all costs. And so you'll take on all those people and then it really ends up stunting your growth. And, and it's not until people will have that realization that like, okay, cool, they can search…

Tyler Narducci:

You can tell, you can tell a lot by getting in and out account and doing an ad account audit. Some of the things that you see in there are just, it's just, it's sad. Like it's really depressing. Like you, they say they'd been doing Facebook ads, but really they were just boosting posts or they had another agency before that, and I've seen it so bad before with other, you know, other providers that they will name the ad sets a different interests thing, different interests, and then you get in them and they're just doing retargeting.

So that their numbers looked good, but they actually weren't even spending money on prospecting. They were just doing retargeting and like lying in the ad set titles because their client didn't fully understand. So there's so much mystery, it's shady, right? So there's so much mistrust in the industry, right?

And so where [00:12:00] you have those best clients are the people who understand the value that, that the service itself can be for their, for their business, and just they're looking for the right fit, the right provider that's gonna be able to, you know, really get the results that they're after.

Mike Mark:

Yup. Yup. That makes sense. And then, so as you transitioned from the glorified freelancer agency into having a team, you said getting contractors. But what did he mean by that? Was that fulfillment contractors? Did you get contractors in terms of VAs? Like who did you bring on board? And then did you have any failures with the people that you did bring on board and did it take a few tries or what, what did that process look like?

Tyler Narducci:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I. Yeah, that has been, some, some of the greatest hits, in the Sobeviral journey has been, in the beginning of hiring contractors and, go in with a bad one. The worst thing that you want to do and agency owners, that are watching this and he lifts the end of this, [00:13:00] listen up. One of the worst things that you can do is focused solely on lead gen. Get an awesome lead. Close them and then scramble to find someone to actually fulfill on what you've promised in that sales process. That is a nightmare scenario, and it will come back to haunt you because what will happen then it's, you'll scramble and you can find contractors everywhere. You can find them in Facebook groups, you can find them online all the time.

And everyone's got screenshots of their amazing success that they'd had in the past, right? But, you know, screenshots can be bias, right? And, you know, I found myself, you know, I've done a lot of trial and error as I grew Sobeviral. And I found myself in this situation hired, you know, you know, two contractors.

They got in new account and, they just ran it into the ground within sixty days. And it was just like a complete dumpster fire. And, you know, at that time, in that specific situation, they weren't also doing account management, like they were contracting just for the ads management. So I am the [00:14:00] face. I am the responsibility. I have to explain everything. They get their fee and gets a walk with no, you know what I mean? So it was just like, totally learn that lesson the hard way, right? And so, you know, you always want, and I, I teach my DFY agency, program members is the first step is finding your team running good contractors that you know, can produce that, you know, can fulfill, at high levels that can give you case studies, right?

Because like, if you get a team,you get case studies. Now you have more authority even in your sales process. And if they can fill out high levels, you have that competence in the sales process and you won't have to worry about getting burned when they actually start. So, you know, don't scramble to find your contractors after you have the lead, like have them in place then really go in on your lead gen. It's a huge part of the process.

Mike Mark:

Makes sense. So once you put the contractors in place, you started focusing on sales. What was sort of the before and after there? [00:15:00] What, what happened?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah, so, so once I was able to take, you know, my day to day time out of ads manager, it freed me up to do so much. It freed me up to, you know, work on, my pricing, my offers, services that I wanted to offer.

What, getting more case studies, partnering with more contractors like, the operations really, building out the business, right? Because at that stage, you know, you go from you're going from a one man band to an actual business. There's so many things that are in place. And then I think the biggest, the biggest transformational thing that happened at this point was building out a SOPs.
So building out standard operating procedures, because up to this point, you're just flying by your seat. You're doing everything as it comes in, and there's no process for anything. And so as you start seeing these repetitive tasks, start documenting how it's done so that you can then hand that in to contractors and have them take the, take that process on, [00:16:00] take that process on a, and that's what it enabled it to grow a lot faster, but that's really what was happening in that phase.

Mike Mark:

So what, what was the thing that helped you become a good operator? Because interestingly, like I have to give you kudos, you know, like there's no way that we could have scaled as fast as we did, if you weren't a good operator, you really are a great operator, especially compared to a lot of the people that we see behind the scenes.

So like what, what was one or two of the kind of main tools or, you know, maybe it's a book, maybe it's just a, something that you had learned in idea, but like, what are those things that you feel like make you particularly good at operating?

Tyler Narducci:

So I think, I think, adaptability, right? So not really, you know, growing a business and growing it really quickly, you have to constantly be okay with not knowing what's coming next, not [00:17:00] knowing how to solve the next problem, but knowing that someone else does being able to be resourceful, find that person that does, and then trust them with, with the answer, right? Like I, I've worked with many agency owners that have, you know, they're starting out brand new.

They don't know what they're talking about, but they're sure of their answer. And that, I think that, you know, that mental block stops a lot of people from growth. You know, maybe it's pride, maybe whatever, but just get putting, getting, stepping out of your own process and, or your own way, I guess. and letting you know your team, which we already talked about is so critical.

Because with the team, I always brought in contractors that were smarter than me and better than me at the thing that I brought them in for. If I'm bringing in a Facebook ads guy, he better be four times as good as Facebook ads than me then instantly doubles my business up. Same thing with every, [00:18:00] every person I've ever brought into my team, they're smarter than me or better, better than me at something that I'm bringing them in for.

And what that does is it collectively levels the business up, we all learn from that person about their, their, you know, their strengths, then we all grow. So, I've never brought in someone and then worked over time to teach them how to do something. It's been the other way around, in most cases. And I think that has really, really made a big difference.

Mike Mark:

There's one thing I do want to highlight for anyone watching this. So if you're watching this and you're hearing what Tyler is saying, and tell me if you agree or disagree with this, I'd be curious, but I want to make this as like a caveat emptor for someone out there right now, that's listening to this and thinking.

Oh, wow. I just need to hire people that are smarter than me. Therefore, I don't actually need to know how to do the thing. You knew how to do it, but you knew, well, someone else was better at doing menu and you didn't just go hire it out so that you didn't have to learn how to do it.

Tyler Narducci:

Right, right, right. [00:19:00] No, everything that I hired out, I had already done myself many times over and knew a baseline of it, right? So, I didn't go straight to, so that's and that's beauty of the path of freelancer one man band to successful agency, right? Is you learn all of these things, right? You know, when people want to have a sales closer, you know, I, in my elite program, You know, you get a sales closer, but you don't get them right away.

You have to take your own calls first. And there's a very important reason for that. And it's, you have to learn who you're selling to. You have to learn your product. You have to learn your markets, learn your industry. These are very critical things in order to be able to manage someone else successfully.

So even though, you know, a closer may be more highly skilled at sales, than me, I knew the product better and what they're selling better and the business better. So ordinary, I marry my knowledge of the business and the [00:20:00] product with their experience in sales. And you have a winning partnership.

Mike Mark:

Yup. Yup. Yeah. And, and you knew your market, you, you intimately understood your market and like from all ends from the beginning, middle and end, you know, when they're a prospect to lead to then sale to then, coming on board so when you have that intimate understanding of their emotions throughout the entire journey of working with you.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

It's a big difference. But yeah, I wanted to highlight that because it's very easy for someone watching this to draw the conclusion that, Oh, the secret to getting far fast is to hire it out as quickly as possible and not doing it myself. And if you do that, you'll literally crash and burn. And that's like, those are really bad operators.

Almost every time we deal with them and they try and come to us being like, Hey, we want to do this. We, for the most part, we'll turn them down because it's just like, you don't understand, you don't have the grip on your business that you need to in order to have the control.

Tyler Narducci:

That's so true. And it honestly, what that boils down to is just, there's no easy way out [00:21:00] to success.

It isn't easy. Success is not something that you just wake up one day and purchase from somebody. You don't buy success. You have, if you want your business to be successful, you have to get in the mud, learn the processes that you can have, you know, in the Done For You agency program, you know, we install these three awesome systems that crank out leads, give them the contractors and even, and give them really great sales, training and a closer.

But even with those amazing pillars in place, if you're not a great operator, like you're saying, if you're not going to take the time to really understand your business and, and get in the mud and, you know, manage the processes, they don't manage themselves. You have to be the CEO, right? Either going to be the, the, the, the, everything, or you're going to be the boss, but the boss isn't sleeping all day.

Like the boss is managing the systems, knows the process, like the back of their hand. And that's what makes a successful agency or a potential business general.

Mike Mark:

Yep. That makes sense. Cool. And then, so [00:22:00] once you started to get the contractors in place, you started to focus on sales then, like where were you, what was the revenue level that you tapped out at as the freelancer? Then what was the revenue level you tapped out at you know, when it came time to start to get these contractors in place?

Tyler Narducci:

Wouldn't that be the same level? Hello, I cat's out at, I needed to bring in contractors, it's the same level, right?

Mike Mark:

Yeah. So what I'm asking is when you tapped out at freelancer and then to like, fulfillment's only going to get you so far, right? So when you bring in the contractors on fulfillment, where did they, like, what was that next ceiling that you hit? Does that make sense?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah, so my, my own capacity, like doing everything myself was about $3,000 a month, is where I kept out like I just, you know, I couldn't take on any more clients because I was totally kept out. Bringing in contractors allowed me to scale, more than twice that, cause I, they were taking on the clients at that [00:23:00] point.

So, you know, it immediately doubled my capacity, as a business owner. And I mean that, wasn't just the ceiling, the doubling that could have gone a lot, a lot more, did go a lot more, but that's just where it went in a shorter period of time. But you can always continue to hire contractors.

That's another thing, when you hire your contractors, you have to make sure that they have capacity cause oftentimes contractors, I mean all, all contractors have their own capacity, right? So if you're hiring specifically for that, then that's a really, that's something that you really have to dig down in, in the contractor, hiring processes, make sure that they have, the hours the, and connect him, manage the accounts. Cause I've run into that problem too. I've hired a contractor that didn't have much capacity. And that was, that was frustrating.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. I mean, feel like they finally got here relief only to find out…

Tyler Narducci:

another one. Yeah.

Mike Mark:

So then from that point, you've kind of figured this out and then you decided, hey, let me start to help other people do the same thing that I've more or less gone through [00:24:00] from being a guy working at a nine to five, to being a freelancer then to having basically a seven figure business that's specializing in ad agency world.
And then, then you said, okay, let's take this and teach this. And then this is where things really got fun because, you know, you went from the zero to about a million a year in terms of your run rate inside of three to four months, what, what happened there? Like how, how did that happen? What's your perspective on it?

Tyler Narducci:

What happened there was, so I think a lot of, a lot of the stars aligned, for that, honestly, and I like, there's a lot of credit to give out, where it's due, really. First and foremost, hot shout out my, my program manager, Jane, she's like the backbone of my whole program. She does so much. And then I was able to grow really fast with her assistance.

But, you know, beyond that, I, like you said, you [00:25:00] mentioned earlier. I knew my product really well. So I had lived for the last four years prior to starting this program. The experience of my clients like myself lived it. I knew the words they spoke. I knew the terms that they used. I knew the problems that they faced.

I knew the questions that they had, and all the struggles. I knew it all. So, you know, when I, when I talked to my members, I, one of the big thing I always drill down is know your niche, know, your niche. For this program, the niche is agencies and helping agencies and I just, I lived in that experience fully.

So in my marketing, it's spoke really well to my audience. And you know, the path, the program itself that I put together solves all the problems and the pain points that, that they have, or a lot of the main ones that they have. And so it worked really well cause I lived at basically.

Mike Mark:

Makes sense. Yeah, and I think, you know, the, the offer works really [00:26:00] great. Like the, you know, as much as sometimes we want to take credit for like the sales reps being amazing and what not, it doesn't matter. You can put a sales rep on a shitty offer and he can't sell anything. So a big component of when something works like this, it's because we got the right offer, you got the right message, you know, your audience, and you're able to line up all of those things.

And that's, I mean, definitely in my experiencing what it was, it's like the right offer just flies and it sells like hotcakes. Whereas the, when someone's off like slightly off with their message market alignment, there's so much more work to get them close.

And it's, it's really interesting to see that difference. And I think that like the way you had designed and drill down your offer, a lot of it comes from knowing your audience. But a lot of it comes from hiring people smarter than you. And that combination kind of really, I think set the stage for it to [00:27:00] go so fast.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. I mean, I honestly, people ask me like, Oh, you know, how did you, how did you put together the program? Or like, how did it, how did it come to be and everything, and, you know, I literally, so, I had, I actually, no one really knows this. I had a failed course that came out before this program, learned so much from it.

And it's really cool because it kind of goes along with what we're talking about, which I learned the hard way and got into it, got involved, what failure feels like and what, you know, what mistakes not to make. You know, I tried to drop a Facebook ads course, unsuccessfully like two years ago. And it just totally fucked. And I learned so much from it. I learned a lot and I, after that experience, I was like, you know, why don't you focus on what you do know? I was like, Oh, duh, I just had like this like, aha moment, like, Oh, you do know agencies, like, why are you trying to do Facebook ads? So I had this revelation and then I, then I sat down.

I said, what, what would I have [00:28:00] needed five years ago? What program would have allowed me to rapidly grow, and all the things that I needed. And that's how I, you know, literally built the three pillars and the program and, and, the services that we offer basically.

Mike Mark:

Makes sense. And then, so as you're scaling and you're scaling so fast, like just for anyone watching, so you understand context and history, what was it? It was March, February of 2019 that we started working together, right?

Tyler Narducci:

February. Yeah. And I think at the very end, so it was starting in March, but yeah.

Mike Mark:

Yeah, it was like February 22nd. I think if I actually remember the right day, but, something like that. And then, so we started working together in February. By that point, you, well, you had hired a sales agency or what someone proclaimed was a sales agency. I think that's, being a little generous with what they were doing. But you had hired someone to help you with the sales at least one, right? And that didn't fully [00:29:00] work. You had sold, how much of the offer had you sold beforehand?

Tyler Narducci:

Hmm, I think we were at like maybe, we're at like 30K months. At that stage?

Mike Mark:

I don't think so. I think if I remember you did 15 grand in December or something like that, and then.

Tyler Narducci:

That was then, but like, February, I think itself was 3K.

Mike Mark:

You did thirty?.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

Okay. And then, so then we got the sales reps on, and then now here we are..

Tyler Narducci:

…close to their ethic, but the close rate was just a Bismal. At that time, I would kill to have bleeds that cost of what we had a pipeline that was just, for the pipeline that we had, the, that revenue was just like horrible.

Mike Mark:

30,000?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Mark:

Who did the sales at that time, was that you?

Tyler Narducci:

So I had hired someone, directly to, to take the sales calls. And then I, I unsuccessfully hired a few different people for the program to try.

And, you [00:30:00] know, I went kind of against what I said earlier, which was hire someone, and. I tried to like train them on how to do the sales calls cause I had been doing the sales calls before. Again, I, you know, I had experienced in this, I knew what to expect, so I get to kind of coach them on that. But you know, at the end of the day, I'm not a sales coach, right?

Like that, like, I'm, I'm really great at really agencies. I'm not the best at coaching salespeople. So I found myself trying to do something that I really wasn't equipped to do. And it just didn't, it didn't work well. But the, the offer was, the offer was good, the pipeline was there, the other pieces are all there, but, it, we were just like this sales bottleneck really.

Mike Mark:

Yup. And then, so, so from there to fast forward now to give the listeners context, basically late in June, what was it? It was three, three what, 365 or something like that? More?

Tyler Narducci:

No, [00:31:00] you're talking about last month?

Mike Mark:

Yeah, last month.

Tyler Narducci:

No, it was just over three, just over 3. And we're pacing for, just about four this month.

Mike Mark:

So pretty much between like a $4 to $5 million run rate right now.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. Damnit.

Mike Mark:

Which is insane. I mean, like in that course of a year to a little over a year, a year and three months to go that, like at that scale people. For the average person, they think like that's not even possible. You know, and then, but this, it really is what happens when you get the right sales reps on the right offer with the right systems to scale.

Like everything can just go at such as work speed. And I mean, granted, you paid all your dues and you learned a lot of stuff the hard way upfront. So this is really like when you see someone do it this fast it's because it's an amalgamation, all of the previous experiences combined as well.

Tyler Narducci:

I think another, another, like a little indicator that's really cool. It's, [00:32:00] it's, it just feels really cool. It's, I happens on almost every re every closer that I bring on to the program, they end up wanting to do the program and they start doing the program themselves because they, they love the, they end up loving the product so much that they ended up, starting their own agencies as well, which I think is just, it's so cool because it just shows the, you know, the success of the product and they, the, the, faith and trust that they have, you know, in it themselves. Cause you know, I've, I've brought on closers that have worked in other, that have left other offers because they just really didn't believe any offer. And they couldn't sell it, you know, because they didn't, they didn't like the experience, but mine it's the complete opposite.

They all are starting eight, the bank sales guy, they're all starting their own agencies, which is really cool.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that also goes down to like, when you get the offer, right, you know, you can say, say the offer in front of people. And then it's like, okay, I got to talk to you about that. If [00:33:00] you get a good offer people, like, I, I need to talk to you about that.

And, you know, so that's, what's happening to that. That's, that's really cool. So what happened being like in the second go round where you know, oftentimes it's easy to not learn as much from success because for the most part, it's been a lot easier than the initial, like false starts or like ceilings that you hit and whatnot.

But if you were to really like unpack the, the major ahas from this go round, like what have been the big takeaways or the things that you felt like you really leveled up as an operator?

Tyler Narducci:

You know, it's, it's definitely about bringing in the right people. I mean, I, I said that in the beginning, but it's, it's still about that, you know, even from, you know, a $30,000 company to a, you know, 4 million, $5 million run rate, it's still, it's still about, bringing in the right people, [00:34:00] for the job.

And it's really, because there are so many programs out there and there are so many offers and that people are just like, you know, almost numb to so many different offers in the same space that you really have to do something to stand out and really show your clients that you care. And that you're really truly invested in their success, right?

So like for example, you know, I have a coaching call with all my middle tier and top tier program members every Tuesday. And, I, you know, it's supposed to be an hour, but it's been going like, well past two hours and I'm not going to hop off there if there's still somebody on there that needs some help, like in, they noticed that I noticed that.

And, and they'll, you know, the level of attentiveness for all of our clients is, you know, is really high. We don't, they're and they're surprised by that because they've often come from another program that was like nine 99 or nine 97 buy now and then, you know, we'll never see you again. And so it's a, it's a different experience really, because we're, we're really invested in their success. And [00:35:00] like, we like to see, you know, the systems that we put in place come to fruition and, and do really well for them.

Mike Mark:

Okay. Carlos asked a question, Carlos, if you're still on with us, I, can you, I don't understand the question. I'm sorry. It says how to apply our own marketing for grow the agency.

Tyler Narducci:

Like how do you get the marketing for your own agency?

Mike Mark:

I don't know. I don't know. So Carlos, if you could clarify your question, that would be super helpful. And then that way we can make sure to answer it for you. I think the overall and like, there's a lot of stuff that I, you know, I have kind of kid with you about, but like, we haven't tapped into certain media channels yet we haven't done any sort of backend offer structures, really.

Like you're just now starting to formulate it. And, you know, there's a whole set of other things that we can do in terms of like geometric expansions on it.

Tyler Narducci:

Yes, they're in progress. They're all in progress. I [00:36:00] swear.

Mike Mark:

Bad time. Bad time.

Tyler Narducci:

I know, right. It's only taken a year, but when you look at how fast everything else has grown, it's like yeah. Makes sense.

Mike Mark:

And then, yeah, I think too, like sometimes, sometimes when you get to the level that you're experiencing right now, it's like, you never imagined that you would be at this point in this short of time frame.

Tyler Narducci:

Told me, here's the, here's the cool thing. So like, I, I'm a, definitely a lot more of a mindset guy than you are. Like, I totally am a believer in it. And then, and then, I'll have my own mindset routine. I talked to my own members about it and everything. And I remember, when we first started working together back in February of 2019, and you, you were like, Oh yeah, you're looking at this and you're like, yeah, we could have this at 250K months easy. Yeah, for sure.

And I, and I was looking at you and like you said, like you didn't, you don't really believe it and I'm looking at you, I'm like, Hmm. Really? Like you think so? really? Like, and I'm like I wanted to believe it, [00:37:00] but at the end time, like, yeah, you're almost even skeptical of like your own potential, at those, at those early stages, which you shouldn't be. And that's the lesson you should take away from this little side bit.

Mike Mark:

Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's interesting, right? Where, I feel like with a lot of the clients that we're working with, they've talked to a lot of salespeople and don't salespeople oftentimes talk a good game, which is fair, but like in the, in this situation when, when we're looking at it, like, I don't know, it's just, we do this so much. I look at it as scaling a business as opposed to sales, you know? And so it's like the pieces you had in place. It was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, this is easy. And then, but the crazy part is like, because you had never thought that it would hit this level in this timeframe, then it's like, now you have to almost get reacclimated to like, shit, what are my, what are my goals now?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah.

Mike Mark:

Now, what am I shooting for? What, what is the next level? Cause even then I couldn't conceive this level. How do I conceive what the next level is? And [00:38:00] it's like, that whole set of problems is really.

Tyler Narducci:

Absolutely. It's definitely, it's honestly, even now it's, it's like a month to month thought process, like cause every month beats, it's typically right now it's beating the last month. And so it's just like, okay, you know, what are the levers that you can pull to continue to scale? Which is like more ad spend, more bookings, you know, more team members. You know, at all at the same time, you're, you're never not working on the business too, right?

So the product that we have today, the DFY Agency Program today is not the Done For You agency program that launched in 2019. Like it is evolved and grown. The training has changed the so many things that changed. So you're working on improving the actual product itself and also trying to scale the product itself all at the same time.

So there's, there's a lot of things going on that kind of goes back to the operator, right? That all that doesn't happen without the operator doing it. It doesn't happen on autopilot. The product doesn't get better. The end, the end, the [00:39:00] sales don't scale, without an operator, actively making those things happen and making sure that they don't go off the rails.

Mike Mark:

Yup. And the thing is you could take time off if you wanted to. And I mean, you ha you, you went to Australia and like basically were off the grid for the most part for a week, two weeks in Australia. And you've been able to take the time off. But it's true. Like anytime you take the time off, you're good and a sacrifice, a little bit of the edge that you could push out of your team and the ads that you can push out of the machine if you're there forcing the additional results, it still can grow without you. But there is a sacrifice of edge, you know,

Tyler Narducci:

For sure, for sure. I even, like, I just recently removed myself from another part of the process and, and, and just that, you know, that one little step alone has allowed me to now rework, on my offer again and rework on another things.

And so it's, it's constantly, I think at this stage, it's about looking at [00:40:00] literally the hours in the day that you spend and what you're spending your time on and what can you delegate and then what can you do with that time instead? That's going to push the game forward.

Mike Mark:

Yup. Yup. And it's really interesting like I think they get to seven figures. Most people know all the things to do. You know what I mean? Like you kind of know everything that you need to do in order to scale to seven figures for the most part, right? You get your messaging dialed in and you get your PR your predictable lead generation and scalable lead generation in place.

You get your product built and consistently delivered, and then you, you get your sales handed off and consistently going without you. And then at that point, like that's basically all you really need to hit it, right? Then the crazy part though is then,to push to like pass. I think there's a moment at like 250 to 400, 500 grand a month, that once you start getting into territory out there [00:41:00] for the, like, most operators can't even conceive what the hell they need to be doing at the spaces.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I totally know what you mean. And honestly, for me, it's just like, like I had a, I had a team meeting, so we do our internal meetings every Monday.

And they're growing because we keep bringing in more people and like, I was, I was having dinner with my friends, socially distance of course, yeah, last week. And I was telling him, I was like, you know, talking about the business and how much it's grown and everything. And I was like, there was definitely a moment where like, I'm looking around this internal zoom call and I'm looking at all of the people on my team and I'm like, shit, like these are all people that are working now for Sobeviral, this little company that started because I hated working for somebody else and being, you know, getting, getting in trouble for walking in the door, five minutes late and everything, you know? And so it went from this little, you know, I'm going to do my own thing [00:42:00] and, and, and really believing myself and putting in the work to where it is now, where I have like this whole team everyone's talking and explaining, you know, their, their roles and there expertise.

And it's just like one of those, like pinch yourself moments, like, this is real. This is happening. Okay. Stay focused kind of thing.
Mike Mark:

Yeah. That's really cool. That's a, it's a really wild feeling too cause then you, you know, when you especially consider, like all these people are paying their rent, they're feeding their, their kids. They're like all the things that are happening as a result of the ecosystem that's growing, it's really pretty mind boggling to see.

Tyler Narducci:

I'm like the youngest by like 10 years which is the funniest part.

Mike Mark:

We had, we had a moment recently where it was like I came in back from, when we took off with Mia and it was like, who's so, and so, they're like, Oh yeah, we hired her.

You, yeah. She's, she's doing this department. I'm like, Oh, that's cool. No big deal.

Tyler Narducci:

Great.

[00:43:00] Mike Mark:

Yeah, it was pretty weird, but, and that's, that's a new one for me. I haven't, haven't ever experienced that one but it's wild. And I guess for you, I think one thing that I would like to go in on before we wrap up is there's something unique about your culture, for sure. I think that, you know, like we have a belief that the fish rots from its head, right? So that the, the, the leader determines if it's gonna succeed or failure, the leader determines the culture, the, the like, every thing, culturally, principally and value wise about the organization emanates from that fingerprint or thumb print of the founder.

So, what are you doing consciously and sometimes, maybe even unconsciously, what are you doing to engineer that culture? What values are you establishing across the team? What are, how are you uniting them? And like, how are you developing that vibe?

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah, so, well, it starts, it starts at the [00:44:00] hiring process, right? So there, there is a natural culture fit to start with, right? So, I believe that you, you can't just bring in anybody and then make them a culture fit through the vibes or through training. Like they're either a culture fit from day one, or they're not. Then after you get past that and they're in, then they can become an even better culture fit than they already were from day one.

They need to be kind of a culture fit from day one. And, and we were really fun team, and, and, and, everyone is so supportive and helpful, right? Like I have, you know, members of my sales team that will take, you know, a follow up call for another member, help them close a deal that they're not going to get a penny on, just so that they can help them, you know, bring it across the line and help the help the company, help them.

That's the level of camaradie that my team now has, and there's never a wind that goes unnoticed or unannounced. And so everyone is waiting to announce [00:45:00] their next biggest win, right? So, you know, whether it's, you know, on the operations side where our wins are, our client wins. You know, those are the ones that I get to announce that I get, I get my, my positive bias terms.

I'll let the whole team know, hey, our client just did 45K in 45 days for their agency and they didn't spend a penny on Facebook ads. Then like the whole team will go crazy cause it's their successes, it really energizes us. And that's, those are the wins I had to put in. You know, Jane, our elite success manager, she gets to put in, wins that, you know, she hears directly from our elite clients because she often hears them before I do.

So she gets to share those with the, with the team. And then obviously the sales, all of their, all of their wins that they, when they close deals, they share those. And so everyone is just waiting really for that next win to share with the team. And then it's just like a mean, mean Fest or Jiff Fest? Gift?

Mike Mark:

Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler Narducci:

It's like a gift fest. And like everyone has like million gifts ready to go for when a deal is closed or a client has [00:46:00] success or whatever. And so there's just tons of positive energy, and reinforcement and camaradie. And when, if you're new and you come in, that's the first thing that new people to my team tell me, they're like, Holy crap. Like your team is amazing. Everyone is so supportive. Like I, you know, I just got a call from so-and-so to help me make sure I nailed this to make sure that it works. They took time out of their day to help me. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's the team you're on. So it, it builds upon itself kind of.

Mike Mark:

Yeah, it's interesting too, right? Because like, when you design that a lot of the times, like when someone's talking to us and they haven't worked with us before they have questions about like, well, how do I know that the closer's gonna stick with me? And it's like, well, you don't right? That's literally why you have to engineer culture because you have to make it to where, like, where else can they meet these needs?

And I think that's something that you've done really well. And I, I'm happy that you shared the idea of like a wind never goes unnoticed. Well, the amount of positive reinforcement in that like [00:47:00] positive feedback loop, then, then you get addicted to sharing your wins. I mean, effect of sharing the wins, the laughter and then kind of the joy of everybody putting their funny gifts in and as well, like that's real and that's really powerful.

And then it makes people addicted to performing in their role, right? And so like, they get obsessed with their performance and that's all they're thinking about is performing and looking at other people performing. And it just rubs off in this like really contagious way. And like even our team, like, cause, cause we'll see that the gifts and we'll see some of the stuff and like our team's noticing it and saying like, dang Tyler's, Tyler's channels popping off. Like…

Tyler Narducci:

I'm like, I'm like, 11:00 PM on a Sunday when like, you know, no, like no one's required to put, you know, at that time you're totally, you know, whatever, but they like Sunday night, Sunday, night clothes there and everyone's going crazy. Like it's, it's, it's a really cool, a really cool thing. I think you're right.

There is a [00:48:00] level of like endorphins, literally that get released when you have all of your team also cheering you on and, and having that, that positive feedback loop that it does becomes winning becomes addictive.

Mike Mark:

Yes. Yep. Yep. That's cool. So if someone wants to learn more about Done For You agency or going about, you know, getting something where they take themselves from, if maybe they have an agency and they want to figure out how to scale it better, or if they're in a situation where they are, maybe like you where you're at the nine to five and your bosses nagging you for coming in five minutes late. And they think an agency might be a good route. Where can they find you? Where can they check out more about the program and how it all works?

Tyler Narducci:

For sure. So, sobeviral.com, S O B E V I R A L.com/application. On that page, you'll have a whole explainer video where I go through, you know, exactly how the program works. The four pillars. We [00:49:00] build your team for you. We give you a expert, contractors. It give you case studies from day one so that you're not a, you know, that beginner that wants to hit their first client. You have a team, a pro is ready to go with case studies.

Then you get a lead generating system. We pump out high ticket leads, and then you get the best sales, coaching, in the world and eventually a closer, from the best team in the world. So it's a, it's a rock solid program and you can find out more about it on sobeviral.com/application.

Mike Mark:

Awesome. Well, this has been fun. Thanks for taking the time out. And, I hope if you guys, just so you know, if you're watching this, you're catching the replay. If you had any questions or if there's anything you want to ask asset in the comments, we'll come back and make sure you get it all answered.

If I can't answer it, I'll tag Tyler. We'll just make sure that you guys get your questions answered. Hope you guys enjoyed this. And Tyler, it's just been super fun watching the whole journey and like being able to play a small role in it. So.

[00:50:00] Tyler Narducci:

Yeah. Imagine, imagine what our next podcast episode is going to look like. Let's do another one in six months and see where

Mike Mark:

We'll do. We can.

Tyler Narducci:

Yeah, exactly. All right.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:00]

What is up everyone in Seven Figure Agency Owners and High Ticket Coaches. So today's guest, I got Marquel Russell with us. So Marquel is a legend in the client acquisition arena. And I mean, like for us, one of our favorite values is really just results, results, results, especially for client results.

And Marquel, it has made it a point to almost become obnoxious with this client result, where he just gets so much results and puts it out there so consistently. I love seeing it and it's cool to me cause you know, you take people who literally know, basically next to nothing. I mean, a lot of them actually know nothing about advertising.

They hardly even notice pixel is sometimes by the time they come to you and in such a short amount of time, they get set up and then they get such crazy results. So this has been a conversation I've been looking forward to having with you and, kind of breaking down your ad strategy for the audience and then why it works so well in comparison to a lot of the other stuff that's taught out there.

Marquel Russell: [00:01:07]

Hmm.

Mike Mark: [00:01:07]

And then, really also hearing like your process to where, like, I think that you have the ideal scenario right now in your business where, I mean, you do what you like to do in the business. You don't really have to do the stuff that you don't like to do that much. You get to basically clock out at 3:00 PM every day and then go hang out with the kids.

And I mean, you got six kids, right? It's six now, or is it seven with Ryan?
Marquel Russell: [00:01:36]

Seven man. I'm losing second hand bro.

Mike Mark: [00:01:38]

Seven? Hey, hey, when you get to the second hand, that's when you're…

Marquel Russell: [00:01:43]

Yeah, started losing count.

Mike Mark: [00:01:45]

You got seven kids and then you're able to though take your time off in the afternoon, like be really present dad, be like the kind of dad that it's like, you take time to show them how to build business as play basketball, pursue whatever their dreams are, learn and all that. And like, I think that a lot of people, you know, especially in our audience have the belief that there's, you ha, you have an either or.

Marquel Russell: [00:02:10]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:02:10]

Right? And like, you have been a really cool example of seeing like how you scaled your business to where it really matches your lifestyle. And you get to do the parts that you like. You don't have to do the parts that you don't like so much. And then also you get to do what's important to you and like spend time with the people that are important to you. So, I think you've got a unique design and, and I'm excited for you to break down some of your thought processes there, but, yeah, man.

So, I guess the first question I have for you is just in general, like, how did you get into advertising and what has been the process there?
Marquel Russell: [00:02:45]

So, yeah, so I got introduced to advertising. It's been pretty crazy, man. So, I, a few years ago, I didn't even know this whole world existed, right? So I was, I actually used to do club promotions and artists management.

Obviously, both of us, we love music. We love hip hop, right? So, I used to manage some artists, and we started to pick up a nice bit of steam. And while hanging out in the club one night, cause I was kind of in the streets during the day, doing club promotions and artist management during the night, kind of doing a little bit of both.

Right? And it was kind of exhausted. So, I'm hanging in the club one night and a guy walks up to me and he says, hey man, he thought I was somebody else. I knew his face. He knew my face, but he was like, hey man, who do you? He was like, who do you know that has a cell phone? And I'm like, well, everybody I know has a cell phone.

And he was like, what if every time they paid their bill, you got paid. And I was like, well, that'd be pretty cool cause everybody has a cell phone. And he was like long story short. I'm working with it, technology company, we're expanding in the area. One of my mentors would be in town this week. And we're looking for somebody to leads who want to make some money.

So, I'm like, alright, cool. A legitimate millionaire. Cause I was used to being around people who made money, right? But he was like a legitimate millionaire to do something legit. So I'm like all right, cool. So I went to this home meeting, and we were pulled up to the house. The house is nice. It's nice cars outside. So, everything was like lined up so far.

So, cause I'm, I'm from Atlanta. So, it was like everybody claims they have money in Atlanta. So, I'm always skeptical and look in and I'm like, all right, let me see if this stuff is matching up. So, I go in. They started doing the presentations. And it was telling me about video technology.

And here's how big video technology is about to be video technology and voice technology, right? And it was like, you get the opportunity to be on the front end of this thing. And it was like, imagine being in the room with Facebook and Google first started like this, what would, this is where you're sitting right now.
So, I'm like, Oh my God, this is amazing. So, it was 500 bucks to get started. I was like, Oh man, they told me all I had to do is get two people in and they'll get two people and they'll get two people and they'll get two people and they'll get two people. And before I knew it, I'd be traveling the world, sipping pina coladas on the beaches, wearing expensive suits, driving cars the company paid for the whole nine yards.

Right? So, I'm like, I'm in, I'm like 500 bucks. That's all. I mean, we blow that in the club and I'm totally in. So I jumped on board. I started telling all my people about it. Cause I knew a ton of people. Everbody telling me it was a pyramid scheme. I had gotten tricked. I'm like, really? I'm like, y'all been knew about this stuff and nobody ever told me.

Right? So, my mom saw it and my mom was always a hustler, right? So, I was like, if there's any craziness in this, she's going to know. So, I showed it to her and she was like, well, if you put some effort into it, this could actually work. So, I'm like, alright, cool. But long story short, everybody told me I was crazy. I was about to quit to be honest with you, because I had went through a lot of people, people who I looked up to telling me it was a bad idea.

So, I was kinda like, yeah, but these guys were still hitting me up trying to like help me and where I'm from nobody wants to help you make money. So, I'm like, alright, let me hear these guys out. So, they invited me to a conference that it was happening in Atlanta, just so happened. I went to the conference and it was like thousands and thousands of people there are making tons of money.

Excited, where you know what I'm saying? They made tons of money. Nice suits. Just doing their thing. At this time, I never flew in an airplane. I had never really out on traveling out of Atlanta was really, yeah they didn't own a suit. None of that. So, I'm at the event and like a polo, some cargo shorts and like some Airmax, with my Cartier frames, you know what I'm saying. And all these people got on three-piece suits and, you know, tailored suits in the whole night.

So, I'm like, I felt out of place, but I'm like, all right, it made me something to this. So I came out of the event just out of total excitement. I ended up signing up a few people. So I hit a couple of ranks in the company. And then, I ran out of people to talk to, they told me to talk to people with who, with income, who come within three feet of you, you do home and hotel parties, posts on social media.

They weren't really teaching social media because they want to do everything that was dup duplicatable. So, but me, I'm like more naturally on a more introverted side. So I don't really talk to people who, I don't know like that. So me walking up to people in the mall, pitching them on opportunity is totally outside of my natural personality and immediate invited people to my home to do presentations, it just wasn't in my DNA cause where I grew up, you don't bring people to your home and the people I grew up around, I'm not going to invite them to other people's homes as well cause that could go bad. So, somebody on my team sent me a link one day and was like, Hey, we don't really got to do home and hotel parties.

Here's this link and I clicked on the link. It was a four part video series. Let's say here's how you attract people to you. It was my, it was magnetic sponsoring by Mike Dillard and it was basically like, here's four videos that shows you how to magnetically attract distributors to you like you don't have to do home parties. You don't have to do home meetings. You don't have to talk to strangers.

I'm like, okay, this guy is speaking my language. This is my first introduction to online marketing period. So, I'm watching, I watched the four part video series and he starts talking about direct response marketing, but for network marketers, but he called it magnetic spot where he got it on attraction marketing.

He didn't call it a direct response to it, right? So, I'm like, okay, cool. So, I watched the videos. And at the end, he saw a 40 or $40 ebook. And I'm reading a sales letter, written sales letter probably about 50 times. This is my first online purchase ever. I read it. I finally was like, you know, what, what the heck. I bought it.

And at the end of it, at the end of the book, he says, you can sell it to other network marketers, right? Because other network marketers are struggling too. So, you can be an affiliate, sell it to other people. So that was my main, my first $20 commission online. But this was my first introduction to doing, to doing marketing in a way like that, where you're not just kind of going at people, but it's more attractive.

You putting out value. You giving people a call to action, direct response, and then you lead them to that path. And that's really what got me into this whole thing. And at that moment, I was like, alright, cool. I took that and started teaching other network marketers, how to get leads for their business and start growing.

And I started to build this brand and I was still in network marketing at the time. And, I got the last company I was in. I became the number one recruiter in that company out of 50,000 people. And I did it solely just recruiting on social on Facebook and was teaching other people that stuff. And as I was looking at the numbers, I'm like, all right, I'm the number one recruiting in this company, but the numbers don't make sense.

And I'm working with way too hard. I was like, I wonder if I just took what I was doing and just kind of stepped out and started doing my own thing and teaching people what I knew. I can make money. I could hit my goals way faster and that's what we do. I just kind of cut ties in network marketing and said, you know, we're going to focus just on that own thing.

And one thing we got really, really good at is generating tons and tons of leads and actually converting those leads into actual paying clients who was like, well, this is what we're going to plant our flag and just go all in on this.

Mike Mark: [00:09:33]

So, I guess how did you get to the point where you, cause I mean, I'm sure like everybody it's like, almost like when you first start rapping, right? Like you, anyone who starts rapping they're imitating everybody, then surely they like lose the imitation and then it becomes themselves and their own style and their own format of it. So I guess how, what was that process? Like who were the people that you were imitating? And then what was the evolution into your current style where you've defined sort of your advertising strategies as they are unique to you?

Marquel Russell: [00:10:03]

So I think, I think early on it was obviously it was Mike Dillard cause he was the first person I ever, saw doing this stuff. And of course, you know, man, come on, I'm always a person who I'm like, all right. If they mentioned somebody else, if they say, well, my mentor is such and such, I'm the type of guy who's going to go check out that guy.

Mike Mark: [00:10:21]

Yeah.

Marquel Russell: [00:10:21]

Going through their rabbit hole. And now they mentioned this book. Now their mentor mentioned this book, so I'm going down that rabbit hole. So I would say the first person was Mike Dillard cause he was the first exposure. And then from there that led me into like being introduced to guys like Vince Reed, Mark Hoverson who passed, last year.

And I just kind of was in that web, but everybody obviously in that world, it was like everybody had their own style. Everybody moved a little bit differently. So I started trying to, thinking I had to do stuff a certain way and I came out of the network marketing world. So in my video, sometimes I to have, I have like a, a shirt with like my tie on, and then, you know, just a button down shirt or whatever thinking I had to do stuff a certain way.

And I started realizing that, hey, people really just want me to show up, 100% like me. I don't have to do it a certain type of way in terms of like speaking in a certain type of way or teaching them a certain type of way. If I just show up 100% of me and share my story and one guy who I really, who helped me with that was my guy, Cedric Harris.

And he was like, man, share your story because like, people really want to know the story. And the more I started sharing my story, not just the surface level stuff, but like really going deep and being vulnerable. I think that's what it was the thing that it really helped me begin to stand out.

Mike Mark: [00:11:35]

That's cool. And then, so like, advertising wise, what are you doing when, when someone comes to you like, and they don't have their stuff at all. Cause I mean, the thing that baffles me is how you take people that like really have no idea about advertising hardly at all. You know what I mean? They really are good at what they do.
They have some sort of an offer typically structured, but then when it comes to like Facebook ads manager, I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, they're really trying to re Greek to them, and then you are able to walk them through it, to where in like such a short amount of time, they're able to get like crazy results.

So what about like when you've distilled it down to its like essence, what are you having them build and sort of what's that process look like?

Marquel Russell: [00:12:26]

Got it. So the biggest thing, so one of my gifts is like taking complicated concepts and like breaking it down to really simple things that people can easily understand.

So I just kind of demystified it cause a lot of people see this thing as it's big monster, is big advertising monster, but when you break it down, it's really only a couple of components. And the main thing we focus on is the messaging. So most people come to us and they're like, they think, and they have an advertising issue.

Well, they got a Facebook at issue or Facebook ads don't work or whatever the case may be. But what we've found is the number one thing we see is that they have a messaging issue. So once we get the messaging, right. And we flush all that out and now we get to the copy. Now, the message and stuff just pours into the other thing.

So now we take that message in. Now we create it and now we take that. And now you, cause in terms of like setting up ads manager, I mean it's pretty simple. You can learn how to do that anywhere, but it's really like, how do you take this messaging? Now, how do you, you know, put that into your ad copy once they click on that, because your messaging is on point, how you, how did that, how does that now resonate with them and speak directly them? And then how do you continue to, they get them to send you to go through the process.

And it's really about having that messaging really doubt and doubt in. And I think 99% of the people who come to us. Their messaging is on point. So it was once we fix that, that's our first pillar. And then once we get that first pillar tight, now it's like, all right, what happens once they click?
Like what do they see? What do they hear? What's going to come appeal him to move to the next step? And now we get that tight and it's again, it's just bore down to the messaging. And then that third phase, like how do we get them there? And it's all congruent because obviously once they get to their enrollment call, what's being said on the call has to still be in alignment with what was said on the first thing.

So essentially we just break the whole thing down. So it's the messaging. Now we take that messaging, that messaging becomes your ad copy. That messaging also becomes your lead magnet. And then that messaging also becomes part of your offer and then the enrollment process. And in terms of your funnel, it's just breaking it down.

Cause a lot of people come to us and they've been, they've been sold on this idea of having these extremely complicated funnels. Like you gotta have enough sale, you gotta have a downsale, you gotta have this, you gotta have that. When we're like, hey, you really only require this four page funnel.

Now in theory is really simple, right? Because it's only four or five pages. However you want to have the right messaging on these pages to make them work. And then we just show them how to do this thing, the opposite way. Cause a lot of times online is like, it's kind of like the opposite of worry by the seasons. So, it's like, hey, you gotta sell a low ticket offer.

And then you upsell them from $7 to $97. You send them from 97 to 297, 297 to 497. And then later on you sell them your high ticket, but then we show them and we help them believe that you can actually start with the hot ticket offer because that's what really people really want. That's the thing that's really going to give them the solution. You start there and then your messaging is going to help, you know, sell all that. That makes sense?

Mike Mark: [00:15:32]

Yep. And so, I guess my question for you is how do you know the messaging's proven? Like what tells you that the messaging has been proven.

Marquel Russell: [00:15:41]

So basically, so a lot of times when they come to us, the messaging isn't proven like immediately, it isn't improving that point, right? But I think Facebook ads is like a fast way to get it proven because it's like people aren't responding, you know, it's not resonating. If they're not responding the rate and the metrics, which we want them to respond, we know what's not working.

And it's kinda like Tim Ferriss did the same thing with a four hour, four hour work week, right? He was like, well, I want to, it's going to be four hours. You, it, it's going to be this other title. Let's run some ads to this thing and to see which one gets the most clicks. Four hour, we just happened to get the most clicks. So he ran with that.

So it's the same thing we would say, come launched this thing with a small budget to see what happens. If the metrics meet, where we want it to meet, now great. We're going to keep running this thing. We're going to add gasoline on it. If not, let's kill it and then let's go to the drawing board and make whatever necessary tweaks.

But the biggest thing is like, we focus heavy on like the basic stuff, right? It's the outcome. Let's focus on the outcome and like, getting away from like the industry jargon, because a lot of times we can get so sucked into like our industry jargon and the people we're speaking to typically don't know what that means.

And it creates a disconnect. So that's why people aren't clicking the ads people aren't opting in. They're not going through the whole process because they're confused and it's not speaking directly to their pain directly to their desires and so forth.

Mike Mark: [00:16:59]

It's interesting cause I mean, like, I want to dive deep into this part specifically. And like, I have some pushback where like, for me, what I've noticed is that whenever I focus on the big promise and the outcome, I get everybody under the sun. And then I actually sometimes will use the industry jargon to make sure that I'm only calling out the people that know what I'm talking about and are in the right spot.
And like, sometimes one of the situations that happens a lot of the times for us and you know, like it happened to me and then it happens a lot to other people is we we're proving our messaging and all our metrics we're saying that we're accurate. But then the conversions just weren't coming across the line.

And it is because like, we kept, the messaging was working, but it wasn't working if you know what I mean, right? Like, so how do you protect against that or prevent against that? Or like, at what level is it right to bring in jargon to repel people? Cause I know sometimes like, the other part of attraction marketing is the repellent side where you need to make sure you're not getting everybody who's not prepared.

Cause like, like I'll give you an example, right? My parents had some lots in, in Florida that they're trying to sell and they were talking to me about it. And like, you know, hey, we want to run some ads and we want to get ads to people in Michigan to get them, to come buy the lots here. And I was like, okay, cool.

Well, I'm like trying to think about all the different angles and like, you know, the, the, the obvious angles or stuff, like, you know, like who wants to retire in Florida or who wants to, who wants to retire in a dream home in Florida, right? That's kind of like, or who else wants a dream home like this in Florida?

You know, like, I'm just saying kind of thinking like basic advertising headlines that I know are proven at work and, But then my fear was, you know, initially I'm like, Oh, well, if I get that, I'm going to get like the guy who's in the trailer park in Detroit that has no chance of potentially ever retiring in Florida, but then like comments on the ad because it's a beautiful picture.

And you know, those people, when you start running ads, like, hey, come out of the woodwork. Oh my God. So, you know, I was starting to think through the messaging and maybe like starting at 350K, your dream home in Florida awaits or your Florida dream home awaits, right? Like something like that. So now I put the price out to repel, anyone who would be afraid of 350K.

So I guess like for you, how do you find that sweet spot? How do you protect against bringing people in who aren't going to be as qualified as you might otherwise want with and your metrics read, like they're going good but then when it comes down to the dollars and cents, it's not, you see what I mean? Does that make sense?
Marquel Russell: [00:19:35]

One hundred percent. So like you said, so at, so, depending on the level you would tie. So like for us, we are advertising, we definitely tie in some of the industries are against us because we're looking for a specific type of person and then some individual, especially when we're testing out their advertising on the front end, we'll kind of put it out kind of broad and then dial in after we get some data.

So I'm gonna give you a couple of examples. So I got one young lady. She, she helps, she works well, and she works with high performing women, which she calls it, helping them overcome past hurt so they can, you know, get into healthy, happy relationships. So she launched it speaking to high performing women.

Right? So as we got some data, she was getting like all types of women, right? It was looking at, it was like, well, what kind of women are you talking to? So she was kind of giving some feedback and I was like, alright, cool. I was like, well, explain in your day, in your, in your definition, what's your definition of high performing woman?

And she was like, what? Like me, like a doctor or somebody who's like a lawyer or somebody, you know, an entrepreneur or, you know, they have they're successful financially, but they just, how they just, they just work, work, work, because it just kind of numb themselves out because of the pain they've had in the past.

So, they can't have, you know, successful relationships or whatever. So, I'm like, alright cool. So now we got that data based on these calls you had. So, let's implement that into your lead magnet and we can, we can tie that into the messaging. Now she's obviously cut down the amount of scheduled calls that she's having.

And then, but she's getting, you know, higher quality calls because anybody who's going to stick past that filter at the beginning of the video, they're like, all right, cool. I meet that criteria. So now she tied that in. So, I'm gonna give you another example. You was gonna say something?

Mike Mark: [00:21:19]

So just to bounce it back and make sure I'm understanding and anyone else who's watching this is understanding.

So you're basically saying at the beginning of your VSL, it was like, you know, are you a doctor, lawyer, business woman, someone who's really achieved career success, but you seem like you're struggling when it comes time to love. Like, and so that's what you guys did? Is that the messaging?

Marquel Russell: [00:21:39]
So she basically was, so she basically was like, hey, this video, before you go any further, this video is specifically for I'm high-performing women.
And when I say high performing women, here's what that means. You're a doctor, you're a lawyer, you may be a successful business owner or corporate executive. You're making money, finding, you make, you're successful financially. And on on the surface, everybody who knows you, looks like everything is well, but below the surface, you know that that's the farthest thing from the truth… it's definitely a struggle there.

Mike Mark: [00:22:07]

So, did you also implement that on the like headline and then the lead of the ad or anything on the actual ad side of things, or was the first time that that messaging tweak appears in the VSL?

Marquel Russell: [00:22:20]

So, we, we twe, tweaked it in the VSL first because the copy was great and it kind of hit on it. However, it wasn't, there was still kind of filtering to, cause I guess some people's coming through booking without watching the video or whatever. So, we implemented in the video first and then we typically just work backwards. So, I was like, all right, this is still an issue then it's probably copy. But now we worked into the lead magnet video, so she doesn't have to redo the ad and all that. Let's start here and then we'll work back that way.

Mike Mark: [00:22:46]

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. And then you said you had another example.

Marquel Russell: [00:22:49]

I'm going to give you another example. So I got another buddy of mine. He does real estate, and he does really well in real estate. And basically he teaches people how to get started in real estate, wholesaling and so forth.

And of course, you know, as a ton of people who are, you know, selling real estate stuff, no money down, get started, audited and type of stuff so it attracts like crazy amount of people. So I asked him, I'm like, hey man, where were you when you got into real estate? And he was like, well, I was a manager at quick trip and I was like, cool, how much did you make?

And he was like, I was making about 70 or 80,000 a year. And I was like, cool. So you essentially wanted to take the money you were making and then start use that money to get involved in real estate. And he was like, yeah. And I was like, great. So I was like the way we need to position this, it's like, hey, this isn't like, for example, literally saying like, hey, I know there's a lot of ma, you know, get started in real estate, no money down type of situations out there. This isn't that.

This is what individuals who you do well financially on your job or your business or whatever the case may be. And you want to take the money you're making and get started and leverage it to get started in real estate. And I'm gonna show you how to do that in this video. However, if you try to figure out the financial thing. You kind of in between jobs or you're struggling or whatever right now, this probably isn't going to be the best fit for you right now. However, if you do meet this criteria, stick with me for the next few minutes, and I'm gonna show you how I was able to do this with the money I was making as a manager on quick trip at Quicktrip, for example.

Mike Mark: [00:24:18]

Cool. Makes sense. Makes perfect sense. Okay. So you're using the messaging partly as a way to repel, but then your initial idea is go wide, narrow it down over time after you've had the data and the conversations to do that?

Marquel Russell: [00:24:32]

Exactly.

Mike Mark: [00:24:33]

That makes perfect sense. Okay. That's a good idea. That's a really good idea instead of trying to get it right out the gate cause then it allows you to have those conversations, get that data and then sorted it from there.

Marquel Russell: [00:24:42]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:24:42]

Cool. And then, so I guess like, what was your journey more on your side things in terms of building the coaching business, cause you went from network marketing into then doing the online marketing, and then you, I know you gradually built the whole coaching business side of things up.

Like what were some of the places where as you started to grow, you got stuck, you stayed at maybe longer than you should have, some of the big lessons that you learned, which are like only from, you know, getting punched in the mouth real good a couple times, you know, like, so on that journey, cause right now you're at multiple seven figures with your current run rate and everything. So like, what were some of your sticking points? What were some of the more difficult places that you hit as you were scaling?

Marquel Russell: [00:25:27]

Yeah. So man, so for me it kind of was like doubt, first off, it was down in the messaging, right? So like, and we talked about it the other day. So it was like, so number one, I was focused on network marketers now, of course, that, that, that, that that's a whole thing in itself.

So then I started to realize, okay, I built this online business. So now it's like, all right, I'm going to teach you how to start an online business. Now, of course, that's super broad. So, but come to me, trying to learn, you know, how to do e-comm, how to do this, how to do this, how to do this. And I found my self having to customize something for everybody.

So then I got into, I mean, you remember this when I was doing this as well, how to turn your knowledge and expertise into offer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I'm attracting all types of people with me who may not have quite expertise. They think they have an expertise, they just want to start a business.

So now I'm like, Oh, okay. So now we just continue to get that feedback from the calls, from the data. And that's what kind of got us to really narrow down to where we are now. Now, some of the sticking points we had, one of the biggest sticking points I would say we had was on the sales side because I early on, like I was doing all the sales calls, right.

So me being done at three o'clock was just wasn't happening. I was kind of like doing calls, early in the morning. And sometimes I didn't even get to go to the gym because I need to get as many calls in as possible, to, to get my numbers, right? So I'm doing calls all day. And then we would, was kept that, that particular area. So I think we probably got to about, 30, 40 grand a month, something like that. Some months of course worse, but I'm doing all the calls and I'm taking all the calls. I'm talking to him, you know, seven or eight people a day. Of course, you're dealing with the no shows and so forth.

And that really kept us now, as I said, you know what? I need to hire some sales people to get me off the phone or at least duplicate. So of course I did the typical way, sending out an email posting on Facebook, hired a few people that I knew now what I'm trying to train them and still do cause I'm trying to listen to their calls.

Oh my God. I would, I would've made that sale. Oh my God!

Mike Mark: [00:27:28]

Deal!!!

Marquel Russell: [00:27:29]

Yeah, that was the deal. I find myself like reaching back out to some of those people like, hey, I saw that you spoke to such and such earlier, I wanted to see if you wanted to jump on a quick call, just so I can make sure you're good to go. So now I caught myself like going behind Nim plan, clean cleanup.

So I'm doing two things. Obviously, I have no expertise. I can sell, but no expertise in training sales people. Cause I always tell people just because you can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean you can teach it, right? You can develop into that, but that's a whole skill set in itself.

Mike Mark: [00:27:58]

Yeah.

Marquel Russell: [00:27:59]

I'm doing that. So I went through a few sales people. It didn't work out. And then I was like, alright, that's when we actually connected. And he was like, dude, I can just take the whole thing, you know, off your plate. And I'm like, perfect. And then once we were able to do it for that, now I was able to step back from, I'm not trying to sales, hire sales.
Because one time I did something crazy. I brought on like three sales people at one time, all people who I brought on and like, I'm the type of person, I got very, I don't want to say low patience with selling, but I'm the type of person where I'm like high risk adverse. So I'm like, all right, if you guys understand the basics of this thing, I'm gonna go ahead get y'all on the phone so we can start taking some calls. I mean, just kind of see what happens.

So now I've got a ramp up in ad spend. I got two or three guys I need, you know, sales coming from. And obviously that bombed, right? So now, yeah, so I would say that was the biggest first I'm trying to, so me trying to figure it out stuff out. And, I would say that was the biggest place we stayed at too long because I think it would have knew what we knew.

Now we could have easily blew past that and I could've just stayed focused on what I should be focused on versus trying to hire versus trying to recruit versus all this different stuff to make sure that sales side is on point.

Mike Mark: [00:29:09]

Yeah, I think the interesting thing, like almost going back to what you were saying just before you mentioned the sales bottleneck was the messaging piece of it. And then the interesting thing is how long you stuck with it through the messaging piece? And like, you know, we talked about this the other night when we had dinner, which was the how quickly people are to give up when their messaging isn't working right away, right? And it's like, your messaging was even working to a degree, but it wasn't necessarily scaling to the level you wanted it to.

Right? Like you could sell stuff, but then at scale it was just not quite bringing you the right people. And especially like, cause I remember when we first started working together, like, this is a cool note for anyone who is, watching this, Marquel is actually the, one of the first people that, he is the first person that worked with us after once I kind of really went out on my own.

And, so, and it's cool. Like the, the thing that I'm really honored by is that you're still here and still working with us after all that time. But I remember, so we got you sales rep, who is actually Moose at the time. And Moose came out, and Moose, like, killed it.

And then, but the issue was your payment plans were all jacked up. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that Moose could sell like anything to anyone and like, yeah, he was able to give, like everybody was applying for credit. Everybody was giving him a credit card. So we knew that we didn't have a sales problem.

We knew that there was a problem with the people that we were attracting because their credit apps kept bouncing. And then their credit cards only had like a hundred dollars to charge on them. And, it was interesting because like when it was just you at the time, I think the volume was low enough where you could sell enough of the people.

And then, when, when you got off the phone or you're able to like max out Moose, it was kinda like, that was when you really noticed that Holy crap, even this messaging path isn't working at the level I want it to, and then you kind of took it and went back to the drawing board and came back with the current form, which is, is what you're describing now, which is like, hey, you, you have an expertise, but you want to scale it as opposed to like package your expertise.

Marquel Russell:[00:31:20]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a total, it's a total game changer. And like, and I would say it this, cause I don't know if anybody's struggling with this. I know for me, I think the biggest thing for me was I think I had a mental bottleneck that they kept me stuck there for a minute as well, because I knew I was good at what I do.

However, I was like, huh, am I ready to serve at a high level? Like, am I ready to really step in? and I think it was mental. So I always use it. The example I use is like, I felt like Jay Z, right? So Jay Z, he was like, alright, Jay Z, do you keep dropping bars at the level that, you know, you can drop bars or do you dumb down the lyrics just to cater to people who feel like you should dumb down the lyrics?

And I felt like me, I was dumbing down my lyrics to work with the math test versus like stepping up and saying, okay, I know I can serve at a high level. Let me step up and step into my greatness and really share what I can share.

And then that allowed me to start attracting a different caliber of people. Cause my conversation changed versus like the typical, you know, start, start a home and start a business and blah, blah, blah. It was just a different level of conversation, which of course attract a different type of person.

Mike Mark: [00:32:28]

Yeah. And I think, also it. As much as it helps you on the marketing and sales side, it helps equally, if not even more on the fulfillment side to where your results are better because you have people coming to you with the right things in place, and then you're able to get them what they need and then help them scale way faster.

So, and then with the sales rep process, I mean, like you said you were at 30 grand a month when you were kind of doing everything yourself, 30, 40 grand a month on a good month. And then post sales rep, what was like the before and after, when, once you brought on sales reps?

Marquel Russell: [00:33:06]

Meaning when I hired this, the sales when I did, was get themselves out my myself for it?

Mike Mark: [00:33:09]

No, no. Like once you got a sales rep performing, which is really like, basically after, when we got Moose on board and got you off the calls.

Marquel Russell: [00:33:17]

Okay. Got it. So once, so once, so we went from there to like doubling, right? So we went from there to like double cause I wasn't really having to take and we, so we doubled without me really even taking calls.

So I initially, I was taking a few calls, then Moose was taking some calls and then I was slowly able to take less calls and moose was able to take on more calls. So was able to double essentially and get it to like the 70 to 80 grand a month or so without me doing calls so I can focus on other areas. And that was, that was pretty quick before things kinda plateaued a little bit.

Mike Mark: [00:33:47]

Yep. And then you got stuck for a while at that, like 80 grand a month. And I think you were there for like a year and a half, right? And then, which is a terrible place to be at 80 grand a month, or like, you know, you got sales reps and it's just sucks, dude.

But so you're there for a while. And then I guess what was like. What was the bottleneck there? And then what was the epiphany that kind of helped you then unlock that bottleneck?

Marquel Russell: [00:34:14]

So I think, I think right there at that point, it was, I was the bottleneck. So it was kind of like I was doing, I was still like, everything was kind of still directly taught to me.

So one of the biggest things that we talked about before is like, A lot of stuff in our system, it was more about Marquel, Marquel, Marquel, Marquel. So now we made it, I started to just pull myself out and made it less about being Marquel. People want to work with Marquel. People want to work with Marquel, but now people want the CU system, you know what I'm saying? What they really want is the system. So now when it comes to fulfillment, it doesn't matter if I'm there to fulfill. It doesn't matter if I'm on the call, people aren't necessarily coming to the call, looking to speak to me. They're not necessarily showing up, you know, looking for me to always fulfill.

They understand it's the whole team. Because before that it was all Marquel, Marquel, marquelrussell.com, it was my logo, the branding, and all that. Now we removed all that. Now it's more about the company. Now it's more about the system and now I'm empowering other people to be in position. So now the business still runs like a machine regardless if I'm doing calls, regardless if I'm on the ads, regardless if I'm on a coaching call in the, in the group or whatever, it still run. So I think I was the biggest bottleneck because I had a lot of the knowledge locked in my head but never really took the time to really like unpack it and really started giving it off to other people on the teams. I think that was the, that was the biggest piece at that point.

Mike Mark: [00:35:38]

So one thing I'm curious about in your experience of that, like how much of it was just almost like the emotional component of that versus the actual technical, like documenting your knowledge and shifting the stuff like how much of it was emotional?

Marquel Russell: [00:35:53]

Dude. All of it was emotional. Cause, cause it, cause in your mind you're like, alright, dang. Our artists are gonna well it's because first off it's like, I think it's a lot of ego number one. Cause you're thinking a lot of times you think ain't, nobody can fulfill as good as you will, or nobody can still as good as you will or all the different types of stuff.

So there's a lot of ego there, which, you know, leads to the emotion stuff. So it's all of that. So I never really took the time to really unpack it because if I was on, I feel like I'm in control. If I released too much control, now, you know, number one, what do I do? Number two, can I trust other people to still fulfill? Number three, the clients aren't going to respond or it's not going to convert as well if I'm not totally hands on, which was all total bias.

Mike Mark: [00:36:39]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that though, like, there's a few parts of it, right? So one of it I think is, and cause like I see this bottleneck a lot and it, I mean even like personally knowing it intellectually like emotionally, I still experience parts of it.

You know what I mean? Cause I think it's just a, it's what it is. And like a huge part of your identity gets tied to your business and then your identity is all wrapped up in it. Like what you're saying with the ego part of it. And then your significance is also like there's an element of significance of everybody saying how smart you are and how great you are and how will you change their life and how, how thank God they met you.
And, Oh my God. I remember when I first talked to Marquel and like all that ego really good, like it makes you feel significant. And then when you leave that, it's like, ah, like what can fill that void? Because I think that, you know, for almost anyone I talked to that has this type of business, that like what you're doing and what we're doing, and like anyone scaling these types of businesses with clients, like everyone says, like the money is the best thing.

Only second to the moment when the people get results, right? And like, when you see how the actual product is impacting your client's lives, that is really the best part of it, right? And it's like, Like when you watch a client go buy a new car. When you watch a client go buy a new house. When you watch a client, be able to say, like I had a baby and I didn't have any issues.

Like, like when you have a client who has a baby, like we have like two weeks ago, client had a baby. He's like, yeah, dude, we're on pace to hit a record month. And I was able to take the time off to be with the girls. Like that's the sort of stuff that really like gets super addicting. And then when you start to pull out your significance, when it's not all like, you know, Marquel did this, Marquel did this, Marquel did this, you know, it's like, I don't know.

There's that sense where you get kind of like, scared in a way. And then the other thing is that you also have the fears of like, well, what if the person takes my stuff? What if the clients like that person more than they liked me? Like stupid little ideas, right? Like, but what if their loyalty then now is to that person and not to me.

And then like, I think all those things get wrapped up in it. But I do think that also like to touch on what you're saying, like it's total bias that the results did. Drop, but I think that they do in most situations, we see temporarily drop, right? Cause, cause you do have to get your ads and you do have to get your website and you do have to get your branding and you do have to get new testimonials that say, gosh, the client attraction university method is the best thing I've ever done.

Right. And they have to talk about the system all throughout all, everything. You know what I mean? And I think that in that gap of when you decide, like, okay, I'm going to move all attention to the system, as opposed to me as a human, that there is a subtle dip in conversions for a period of time and it is real.

But then at the end of the day, now you're on the other side of it, where your business is way more attractive to any buyer. If you ever wanted to sell it, not saying that you did, but like you don't want to have a business that dies with you when you die. You know what I mean? You want to build a business that can sell when, if you ever wanted to, for whatever reason.

And so like the business is far more attractive to a buyer. You're going to get a higher multiple, if you were to ever offer it to a buyer and it's easier to operate and more fun to operate now.

Marquel Russell: [00:40:00]

Totally agree.

Mike Mark: [00:40:03]

Yeah, that's an interesting sticking point. And then, so, how long did it take you to solve that specific bottleneck?

Marquel Russell: [00:40:10]

I would say it probably took me once I, after I realized it?

Mike Mark: [00:40:15]

How long did it take you to realize it is a real question then?

Marquel Russell: [00:40:18]

Oh, my God probably took me to honestly man, how long it took me to realize it? Probably maybe like three or four years, man.

Mike Mark: [00:40:26]

That's crazy.

Marquel Russell: [00:40:27]

Yeah. I would say easily, probably about three or four, because I was just, wasn't even conscious of it, right? Yeah, cause I was like in his personal brand thing, his personal brand, personal brand, personal brand. So I wasn't really even conscious of it until we start growing. And I was like, all right, we're capped at right here. And then it's basically what you got a team when they're like, want to take stuff off your plate and they want to do things, but I'm kind of like, I'm still holding it closely guarded to me because I won't take the time to like, break it out even when I brought on my first assistant.

Cause I think we probably got to like 30, 40L what, whatever, before I even brought an assistant on. And even being when I was hiring her and trying her, like me unpacking again, everything that I was doing on a day to day basis, I was like, this is crazy. I do a lot of stuff that I don't even really realize that I'm doing.

So now, we start breaking it all out, putting it in project management software, and now everything is systemized, but I wasn't even conscious of it before then it was just like hustle, crying. I'm just getting it done. yeah, I'm just going to get it all done no matter what. So yeah, that's that's, that was huge.

Mike Mark: [00:41:28]

Yeah. I remember too. So one of my like favorite moments was, when we first started working together and a year like, yo, I got this trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon coming up with the family. And then you went and like you were at the grand Canyon showing your kids one of the natural wonders of the world. And then you made like a pay-in-full that day. I was like, this is Epic. That was so cool.

Marquel Russell: [00:41:51]

And the cool thing was, it was cooler. So we were in Vegas and then Moose was actually in Florida on the beach or something like that closing deal. So it was, it was dope.

Mike Mark: [00:42:00]

Yeah, it's funny how it works. So, and then, I mean, I think like what's been cool to see as well as like, even since, well, really since like October to now, the growth has been insane.
And even like, like a lot of the work had been set up and then now you're starting to hit where it's like, what are you on track to do this month?

Marquel Russell: [00:42:24]

So we'll probably do like, so we're projecting like 350 this month.

Mike Mark: [00:42:28]

Dude, that's sick.

Marquel Russell: [00:42:30]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:42:31]

And that's not like big backends sales or anything like that, that's just core products from your evergreen systems, which is like, yeah, that's no launch. That's no nothing. That's just basically two reps. And then how, how many setters do you have right now?
Marquel Russell: [00:42:45]

So we have two reps and we have four setters now. So we got three new we're onboarding, but we had one, we've got three with like getting started taking calls this week so it'd be four.

Mike Mark: [00:42:54]

So really two reps, one setter, and then three in trial.

Marquel Russell: [00:42:58]

Exactly.

Mike Mark: [00:42:59]

Yeah. Okay. Crazy. Two reps and one setter and then you're on track pacing 350 and then you're doing it where you're out at 3:00 PM most days, like, you know,

Marquel Russell: [00:43:11]

I just work Monday through Thursday. So it was like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I don't really do anything other than the huddle on Friday, but that's it.

Mike Mark: [00:43:18]

That's crazy. That's crazy like you know, on the outside, I'm sure you've been like you at 30 grand a month couldn't imagine this, you know what I mean? Doing like 10 times the production with a fraction of the input is pretty crazy.

Marquel Russell: [00:43:33]

Yeah, bro. As I say.

Mike Mark: [00:43:35]

Yeah, and you're doing the stuff too with the live events and the big backends and you tied all that stuff in as well. And like it's, I'm really excited to see how that hits. And when you do stack this on that, like.

Marquel Russell: [00:43:47]

Yeah, it's gonna get crazy.

Mike Mark: [00:43:48]

Yeah , cool. Let's see. Do you guys, any of the viewers have any questions for Marquel about his process of scaling? I'd like to make sure that if you guys do have any questions, I see we got Malachi with us. We got Chris with us. We got, Adam Rundell, what up Adam? It looks like we've got a lot of pretty legendary people. Ryan, Samera, do you guys have any questions for Marquel about his process of scaling and any of the bottlenecks that maybe he's hit along the way, or any of the challenges that maybe your face thing that you want to run by Marquel if you did drop them in there.

Marquel, did you have anything like that you wanted to give to the audience or anywhere that maybe you want to send them or any resources for them to check out?

Marquel Russell: [00:44:31]

Yeah. So, if they want to dive like more in like a more granular step by step process of our app process, like how we launched ads, how we scale the ads, like I exact process step by step. We can, we got, we put together a playbook cause some people was asking about it. If they go to paidadplaybook.com. So, P A I D adplaybook.com. You can get the whole like rundown step by step and also some bonus training videos that goes with it as well. And he like breaks down everything like in crazy detail.

Mike Mark: [00:44:59]

Cool. So paidadplaybook.com and then over there, they'd be able to get that and then, run through it. Perfect. Let's see. I'm not seeing any last questions here, so, do you have any final words that you want to leave them with as they're kind of thinking about their journey to scale to seven figures?

Marquel Russell: [00:45:18]

Not man, I would say, I would say the biggest thing is like simplicity, right? It's really simpli, simplifying. So, like scaling this thing up to seven figures and beyond it's like, it's like, it seems like this big monster, right? But for me, I'm like, all right, how do you like simplify? So obviously you got the marketing side you want to dial in with that includes the messaging and ads and all that.

Then you got the sales side and then once you sale, you got, you know, the fulfillment and then, operations and things of that nature, but you break it down and you're like, all right. It's not this massive thing. It's like dialing in a few pillars and you said, okay, for the next 90 days, we're going to focus on dialing this in, for example, the 30 day, 60 days or whatever the next nine days after that, we're going to doubt this. Then next time out there that we're going to doubt it, we're going to make sure all this is on point. So what I tell my clients, when they, when they start trying to complicate it even more, when they was like, well, this and this and this, I'm like, look, now that you got your machine going, the only focus every day is leads, apps, sales and service.

So, it's like getting more leads, converting those leads and the scheduled calls, enrolling them and then serving these clients at a really high level. And when you start at a really high level, that's going to create more client success stories, not an outrage about you sending you more people.

And it just feeds back into those four things. And if you just focus on those four things, every day, that's, it's really that simple, to be honest with you, I know there's like an overseeing like an oversimplification, but those are the four things that we focus on. That's pretty much it.

Mike Mark: [00:46:51]

Yup. That makes sense. And, I think that, like the thing in this conversation I really liked, and I want to highlight, and if you like are just catching this now, or you're on the replay, like I would go back and like, listen to what Marquel talks about on how to dial in the messaging because when we see people's like we get to operate a lot of these systems, I'm going to get to steal all the systems and it's almost always the messaging and the offer and the message market match and the product market match that is going to be a lot of the thing that's going to be sort of like your limit to your growth. And like, even in your case, you know, you knew what you're doing and you're still casting too wide of a net, but I like that.

Your whole process as well was not overthinking it. So, then you never get started and you always have an excuse. It's like get started and know that you're going to do it wrong and be ready to tighten up your messaging further. And like, in fact, proactively look for the questions in order to tighten up your messaging so that eventually your product is even better, your results are even better. And then it kind of wraps back into those four things.

Marquel Russell: [00:47:57]

Yup. 100%, because it's all about the data when it boils down to it, man, you launch, you get, you get some data. And the best market research is ever going to happen is on the phone anyway, on the phone, when you start to get some data and you're like, alright, and we look at it like the sales fees, the marketing in the market and feeds to sales and we keep that feedback loop and then you get it dialed in. And I was running like a machine.

Mike Mark: [00:48:19]

Yeah, that's cool. The sales feeds, marketing and marketing feed and sales, I like that. All right, man. Well, thank you for taking the time out and if you guys are in the group and you got any questions, just drop them below we'll circle back and kind of make sure you guys get answers to any questions that you did have on the interview.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed it and then be sure to go check out Marquel's playbook over at paidadsplaybook.com and we'll see you here next week.

Marquel Russell: [00:48:43]

I appreciate you having me.

Mike Mark: [00:48:44]

That’s it for this week’s interview. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did enjoy this interview, we do one like it every single week inside of our free Facebook group called Seven Figure Agency Owners and High Ticket Coaches. So, if you’re an agency owner, coach, service provider, and you’re really wanting to scale to seven figures and beyond, join us in our group. It’s coachingsales.com/group. Again, coaching sales.com/group. See you on the inside.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:00]

I am going with Greg Hickman, who, Greg is a master when it comes to systems specifically as it relates to agencies, productizing your agency in order to scale your agency. I think that like, you know, knowing you, you kind of have the curse and like a lot of your clients have the curse, which is like, you guys are really smart and then you actually give a fuck about your clients and the results, right?

And so you're willing to do like anything in order to deliver on your promises and then like, as you do that, it works great in the beginning in order to kind of get that reputation, get the client base moving, but then once you do that enough, you get to this place where you're like in this hell of customization, where every client relationship is different. Every project you're doing is different.

And then, you just can't scale. Like it's more time for money and that doesn't work. And then, so, you've really sorted it out yourself and then figure it out how to take that process and help people scale. And I think if I remember correctly, you were stuck at like 15 to 25 grand a month, right?

Greg Hickman: [00:01:22]

No, we were actually, when we were still doing like done for you, we were like kind of averaging like 50 to 55.

Mike Mark: [00:01:31]

Oh okay. okay.

Greg Hickman: [00:01:32]

And that like, we couldn't we'd have like some peaks and valleys around there, but like, we were kind of netting out around, around that mark, but really couldn't break past that the way we were doing it. Which, but caveat to that is we see mo most people kind of hit that same friction around, you know, kind of like that 25 to 35K a month.

We just blew past that number so fast that I think the, the, like, it, it just caught up with us. Like we just never even realized that like where the problems were and then they caught up with us. So.

Mike Mark: [00:02:07]

Yeah. And I know, I like, I think for you specifically, it could also have a lot to do with like that you worked. Oh, like you almost were like us in a lot of ways where you had behind the scenes access to a lot of like pretty big people. And you have really close relationships with people who have made major audiences, like pretty big sway. And so when you have that backstage access effectively start to meet all the other crew members, all the other cast members, right?

And so it's like when, when you need something, you can call up that homie who you know, is like super good, super reliable, and you plug them onto a project. So you got like access to a level of talent that a lot of normal agency owners don't get when they're scaling. And they're just kind of like dealing with run of the mil clients, as opposed to the types of clients you are working with.

Greg Hickman: [00:02:54]

Yeah. And also being kind of like the backstage. I mean, we, it was like, it's kind of a double edged sword. Cause we got pulled into a lot of team meetings that you know of our clients. And so, yeah, because we were helping set up a lot of these, you know, backend systems, not just like sales and marketing funnels.

We really started to see how they would operate and like how they structure things, how they structure team. And I was always one that like loved to see how things work. I mean, even questions I've asked you, it's like, you know, I'm trying to understand how everyone pieces these things together. And so I was always that way.

And so when I started seeing that and we started making some of these transitions, it was like, I already knew what it was going to look like three, four, five steps ahead, because I was exposed to kind of how other people were doing it and cataloging that and paying attention to it versus I think some service providers, you know, just get so caught in the wiz that they don't even see, you know, see what's happening, that they can garner that insight. And that was just one thing that I think I pulled away from being behind some of these things, big names. It's just how they were able to operate and structure things.

Mike Mark: [00:04:05]

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that, like, that's definitely a big blessing for us too, is like, I've taken a lot of that where I saw how people operated that got to eight figures very quickly.

And it was like, okay, I get the patterns here. And I see the difference between them and what they're doing and the other people. And so it's just like picking and choosing what works for you while kind of keeping some of the stuff that you don't necessarily agree with outside of your business.

Greg Hickman: [00:04:29]

Right.

Mike Mark: [00:04:30]

So I guess the, the thing that most of the audience here is going to have, is that, you know, whenever someone's trying to scale, in agency offer, I feel like the, there's like two tricks that are like the, just the cheap tricks, right? Like cheap trick number one is, raise your prices. Cheap trick number two is group coaching, bro. And it's like, those are like the only cheap tricks that it feels like most coaches are going to offer.

And then they suddenly think, like I just told you to raise your prices. And I told you to switch to group coaching and I charged you 10 grand for that. And that was a steal of the century for you, right? Like, so.

Greg Hickman: [00:05:10]

I think there's a third. I think there's a third.

Mike Mark: [00:05:12]

What's the third? What the third?

Greg Hickman: [00:05:14]

The third, the third new trick, which I think is probably has more merit than the first two. But you see it a lot now is basically teaching every digital agency owner to basically go get, go get leads for their clients, like become like a lead generation machine for clients. And so now it's like, I see a lot of the agency coaching programs are really just focused on lead gen and sales and marketing.

And to me, like, there's just always having been behind the scenes, there's just so much more to it on the fulfillment side and that most of these people know they'll never even cover fulfillment.

Mike Mark: [00:05:45]

Yeah. That's interesting. That's a good point. And I know that like you're super fulfillment focused, almost like to a fault for you, right?

Like when you came to us, it was like, “Holy crap! I don't, I don't like sales calls at all and I don't want to be doing them. I just want to be building product.” So, so I guess what, what's different? Like how does someone do that without just like turning their agency into another shitty group coaching program?

Greg Hickman: [00:06:11]

Yeah. And like first caveat, I think there's really some good elements to group coaching. I just think if you completely go from agency to group coaching, I think you're actually just missing the huge, the biggest opportunity, which is the, the, like the ability to execute. And so, you know, most agencies originally were hired because they also knew how to do something, not just could do it.

And so that means you were hired for your expertise as well as essentially labor, but over time, labor decreases in value. And that's like when all these agencies are selling retainers, you get slowly pulled in to like the back-office operations. This is where you really feel like that employee. But you've kind of departed from the expertise element of it.

And so I think the first thing is, is like really starting to dissect your own methodology. So that you can train, not just internally, but also weave your client into the fulfillment process so it's more done with you. And I think there are elements of group coaching in there, but it's not just group coaching.

It's like group coaching plus the, the packaged intellectual property plus the prebuilt systems and execution support. And so like, it's not necessarily have to do done for you on everything, but maybe there's some strategic pieces that are done for you and your clients now woven into fulfillment. And it's more of like a, it's like a hybrid of a, of an agency and call it, you know, a group coaching or consulting program.

Mike Mark: [00:07:43]

Yeah. Yeah. Which makes sense. I mean like you are working with us as a client and that's like exactly what we do, right? There's huge elements we've done for you. And then there's also elements of like, Hey, here's the intellectual property or here's the, the frameworks and methodologies. And then here's the actual like systems or templates as well as then the regular cadence of communication.

Greg Hickman: [00:08:05]

Yeah, totally.

Mike Mark: [00:08:06]

So, yeah, that's, that's interesting. And it's, it's cool that you point that out. I think that's like a, almost like a trifecta of the things, like part of it is that group coaching, part of it is then the strategic execution, right? And like working with them, but doing it for them slightly in both sides.

And then part of it is your intellectual property and your systems and frameworks that you have. And like when you combine those three.

Greg Hickman: [00:08:31]

Yeah. Like some of the, like the systems and, you know, we'll call it system, but like, the, the templates and like the spreadsheets and the trackers and the tools that you've built, right? Like if I, I had to go figure that out myself, like out of that would have been double the amount of time that it would have taken me just to figure out some of that stuff. And so like, that's what I call pre preloaded done for you. And I think that's like a huge element that service providers can bring to the table is like, no, no client of yours should ever start anything from scratch ever again because you're building these tools and these resources that they can adopt and adapt to their business, which came from you doing the done for you like a long time ago, right? And so like you've built all these things. Like I shouldn't have to build it from scratch, like hand it over. And like now that's, speed, you know, the benefit of speed. So I think there's tons of opportunities for, for agencies to do that.

I think the biggest thing that most people miss on that though is the, they don't specialize first. And so like, you kind of came in, even yourself, it's like around obviously one just sales, high ticket sales, that's specializing, but then also like sales building sales teams, like yeah, you do coach on becoming better at sales, but like you kind of launched at least from my awareness of really around helping people build sales teams, which is even more specialized, which allows you to like compartmentalize the IP.

And also streamline, like there's only a handful of systems that you really need to create and offer your clients for them to have exponential results. Whereas like, if you were a sales plus marketing, plus all these other things, when you first launched, like it would have been hard to kind of transition from the agency version of that into kind of the model that you have now, at least what I've seen.

Mike Mark: [00:10:18]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's completely true. And, in, in our experience of the scale, like I did it all first, like, and the weird part is I had done it before, and then I kinda like started going out and really thinking like, okay, now I'm going to systematize this as IP. So, but I still did the work. Well documenting and systematizing the IP, and then also being in the trenches, trying to figure out what's not working.

And then like aggressively, like attacking, how do I remove that thing that's not working. And then eventually it kinda like left with what does work for the most part. And then being able to hand that off to team members. Yeah, that was like, I think, you know what you're saying and specializing is, is partly specialized, but then partly like actually become a fucking expert, which is like a comment, a novel concept sometimes in what we do.

Greg Hickman: [00:11:12]

Right. Well, I mean like the notion of productizing, I think like requires specialization first because the. When you go to productize something, you should likely at least if what, what makes it easy, like product nice and easy when you've done it enough times that you've already seen the loopholes and you've know where the trouble spots are because you've done it so many times. And that is what actually allows you to create the appropriate systems to streamline it. And so it's like if you've never solved the same problem, more than one or two times, like it's hard for you to see those gaps. For you to even productize it in the first place.

And so that's, again, why I see a lot of, you know, full service generalist agencies really suffer because they've just, I just haven't spent the time on specializing. Most of them haven't the specialty. They just started there and then slowly expanded by default versus staying, staying focused. And so sometimes it's just like getting zoomed back in and putting those blinders back on to what they were actually good at.

Mike Mark: [00:12:15]

Yeah. That makes sense. And I, I think that, like, what happens to them at that moment is they think that if I say no, I'm going to lose that client. When really saying yes, costs him far more business in the long run because there's, there's so much more value in being the guy, right? Like, so when, when someone's like, I need a sales rep, I'm the guy.

And so everybody's then tagging me or like, intro-ing me. And like, it's almost like once you become that, the guy of that thing. You have a whole army of people out there that are trying to get you clients and help you out and grow. And it's like, that doesn't happen if you become like a something to everybody.

Greg Hickman: [00:12:57]

Absolutely. And this is why I like the classic case. Like if you talked to pretty much, at least the agency owners that we talked to, you know, everyone's like, we rely on word of mouth and referrals, but the, the reason that they can't grow off of that is because they're not consistent. And the reason it's not consistent is because most of your clients can't even actually tell someone else what you do.

Because it's custom to them. And so like, they're not sure if what you do for them is what you do for other people. And so they can't even clearly communicate what it is you do to other people, which is why the referral engine doesn't even work. And that's why you're kind of on the up and down. It's like, Oh, you just got lucky, you got lucky that you had a handful of referrals that you were actually able to serve and, or you just bent over backwards in order to serve them because you needed the money. And it's just like perpetual loop that hold you down.

Mike Mark: [00:13:46]

Yeah. That's, it's such a big insight cause like that, that thing that you think you're being helpful, and they ends up just keep shooting you, yourself in the foot. And then I, it's one of those things that like it's you get just enough business to keep doing it, right?

So like, it keeps you in that place. And so you're like, Oh, okay, it's kind of working. And then like long term, it's a huge sacrifice. Whereas sometimes with, with specialization short term, there's a huge sacrifice, but long term, it pays off big time. And so like, one of the things that was kind of crazy was I remember like at the start of sort of the consultancy thing, I'd spent just a lot of money in ads and they would convert, but not quite as well as I'd want them to. And like, I was pretty in the hole when it came to ad spend. And the weird part is like I was running them. I knew what I was doing. I was super good at ad, super good at copy, knew my market backwards and forwards.

It's just not easy. Right? Like, it's easy to say it's easy, but it's difficult. So I was like really deep in the hole with ads. And then, someone offered, basically it was a 350-$400,000 a year VP of sales role. And then, you know, Adriana was like, take your take it, take it, take it, take it, take it take it. And I'm like, babe, I don't think I can do it, you know?

Oh and like I turned it down and like at the time she was kind of like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, are you crazy? And is that sacrifice in the short term that ended up paying off like massively in the long term. So it's, it's sometimes that those two things are at odds. And it's hard to recognize that when you're in the moment.

Greg Hickman: [00:15:27]

Yes, totally funny. We had a client reach that just, he's like about 30 days in and, he has had a big, you know, big agency's done, like design talks for people that have done TEDx and everything, like kind of a creative services agency. And when he, when we first spoke to him, it was kind of a couple of weeks into COVID and he said, Greg, he's like, dude, the COVID is the best thing to have happened in my business because the, like I've been stuck on that hamster wheel of just like ready to change how we do it and productize, like you've been talking about. But every time we'd go to do it, we'd get that one opportunity. And we're like, all right, this'll be the last one. And he's like saying, this'll be the last one for five years. And he's like, I've been miserable the last five years. And he's like, COVID like wiped out our entire client base and gave us a reason to start from scratch.

And he's like, don't know love with my business again. And like, that's a common thing we're hearing from our clients is like, I actually enjoy what I'm doing again, which is actually the most fulfilling part of what we've been doing because. I know it can get really tiring and exhausting and just feeling like you're an employee dependent upon how you structured it.
And it's like, just that, that switch alone. It's like the one more client, like stop doing that. It's such a short-term payoff.

Mike Mark: [00:16:42]

That's interesting. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's so seductive. Sometimes you get the deal here. I, well, I mean, there's a big rev share or there's this type of thing. And I know we don't normally do this, but I could do it.

So screw it. Let's give it a shot. And it's like, ah, yeah. And then the whole team…

Greg Hickman: [00:17:02]

..to use Twitter will be a social media marketing agency now. It's like.

Mike Mark: [00:17:06]

Yeah.

Greg Hickman: [00:17:07]

Talk to you that.

Mike Mark: [00:17:09]

So, I guess like with people who are trying to specialize, but for some reason they're struggling to specialize, what's what's like, the thing that normally is holding them back from like making the leap and going to that really niche down, offer niche down process and then productizing?

Greg Hickman: [00:17:29]

Yeah. I mean the first one is, is the mindset of thinking that you know, that by niching down or simplifying my services is like going to be harder to grow. I mean, that's a common one. I mean, we've all talked about that in varying ways. So I won't go super deep on that. I think the next big obstacle is the, like, thinking that productizing needs to be, like if, if you're this full service or more of a generalist person that the productizing means, like you go from being all of the things to like I'm in a super zone in on like SEO and like only offer one skill set, which I don't. I think that's a huge, actually a big mistake is what is the combi, it's really, what is the combination of skillsets that you can put together that actually solve a valuable problem and then productize around that. Yeah. So it's not necessarily like you need to go from a web design agency that does social ads and SEO to just one of those. It's how do you combine pieces of those to solve a specific problem.

Because likely it's going to take some of the, and sometimes, you know, you do have to, cut some fat and some of those skillsets that you don't really utilize, but often I find it's actually a combination of specific skill sets and services that will yield a specific result. And that's what the product actually ends up being. So that's another thing. So maybe if that's, what's been slowing you down is like thinking that you just need to go from all of these services on, on your menu to like one of them. It doesn't have to be that way. How do you combine them to go after a particular problem?

Mike Mark: [00:19:12]

That's really interesting. Have you ever read the book called how to fail at almost everything and still win big?

Greg Hickman: [00:19:18]

No, but I want to, now.

Mike Mark: [00:19:20]

It's by a, Scott Adams. He's the guy who's the creator of Dilbert. And like, he's so funny he writes and you just like, I like his, his thinking is very lucid, very clear and like funny as well.

And, he talks about this idea and it's actually like an idea that when I read it, I knew that that was like the thing for me, especially for me. Cause like I, inside of our culture, especially like high performance culture and entrepreneurial culture, there's that, that idea of like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, right?

Like Michael Jordan, you just are the one thing of your thing and you just, that's all you do or tiger woods, like that's all you do is that one thing. And you play that game every single day. And like, I've always been more fascinated by the guys, like, the rock or Kanye or like, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger where it's like, how the fuck did you go from bodybuilder to movie star to governor? Like, that's insane. Right? Like, or, or with Kanye, it's like you go from beatmaker to rapper, to Louis Vuitton's head designer, like w where's that occur. And, he calls the idea though, skill stacking. And he's like saying that, you know, I wasn't very good at, at being in corporate, but I was good enough. I wasn't very good at drawing, but I was good enough and I wasn't very good at being funny, but I was good enough.

And then I combined the three and then you got Dilbert and that unique combination that is Dilbert solves a specific problem for anybody in corporate that understands this humor and it took off, right? And so it's like exactly what you're saying. It's like that skill stacking idea. You don't need to be the one, like you're now the SEO guy, it's the stacking of all those skills that come together.

And then how do those combine in a way that, and I think, I remember you and I were messaging. It was like a long time ago too. And, I think that maybe like two years ago, and we were just talking back and forth on messenger and we're talking about the idea of like falling in love with the problem.

Greg Hickman: [00:21:23]

Mm. Yes.

Mike Mark: [00:21:24]

And like, that's what, and also, like when you talk about that, taking your skills and combining them, that's what I hear when you say specialization, because for me it was like that, that was the thing that did it for us was I was like, okay, someone's at this point, And then I could get them to that point.

And then I fell in love with the problem and everything that was surrounding the problem, and then just figure it out, like whatever skills you need to have inside of solving that one specific problem. That's what we're going to figure out. And then we just committed the time, energy and resources to mastering the problem, as opposed to mastering us, a service per se or mastering like, I don't know how to say it.

Greg Hickman: [00:22:02]

Like a, like a specific deliverable, like a service, like a, like a style of service deliverable. And as you're saying this, I don't know if I've actually ever said it this way. And or if, how it was in my head will come out of my mouth the same way. But like, I think when people think productized also indoor, even specialized, that that means like the, the strengths that they had as a generalist need to kind of go away. It's if you specialize in solving a specific problem, like that's where you specialize, it actually will still benefits you to be a generalist on the backend. Because like, I mean, when you start to understand, like, you're, you specialize in sales, but because you focus in sales and you have general knowledge and kind of, you know, a skillset across the board, you really start to see how sales can impact an entire organization.

Mike Mark: [00:22:50]

Yeah.

Greg Hickman: [00:22:51]

And like, even though you're still only solving, you know, helping people on sales teams when like we come to you and we have problems that like aren't necessarily related to sales, so to speak, you're like, Oh, well, when you do that, here's how that's going to impact your sales because you still know enough about the other areas.

And so your generalist knowledge as an agency, owner is a skill in and of itself and will benefit you, but you don't want to have that on the front end. You want like your specialization to be in the problem that you solve with the solution that you use to solve it. But that generalist experience will make you a better provide like a fulfillment provider on the backend.

Mike Mark: [00:23:29]

Yeah. Yeah. That's super true. Cause like, I, I tell like most of our clients, when they come on board, I'm like, guys, I just want to be upfront like I tricked you, right? Like I completely tricked you. I told you that all we do is the sales thing, but like really I know that like basically any parts of the business and whatever it takes to scale to the seven, eight figures, like I know in and out.

So, if you have questions, ask them because it's all related. And so, I think that the, especially for messaging path and for like hiring team and scaling that specialization super important, but I think that you can't actually build a robust product or business, if you don't have generalist knowledge, like I'm like firmly adamant about it.

So yeah, that's a really good point. And, I think that that like, a long time ago, like in another life, when I would take sales calls all day, every day, you know. That was a problem I might hear people always hemming and hawing back and forth on it's like, well, you know, I got all this, but should I do this?

And that lack of clarity keeps them in this loop of like, what, what do I narrow down on? Who do I, what service do I offer? How do I scale? But, but pardon me? And then there's like that one side of you, that's like emotionally, I want to do this thing, financially, I want to do that thing. And then how do I reckon those two. Do you experience that with your clients?

Greg Hickman: [00:24:49]

Oh yeah and myself. I mean, so we just had our, one of our virtual had to be virtual this time. It's normally in person these two day intensives that we do quarterly, and one of the kind of, I always share like 10 principles that we learned over the last 90 days.

And one of them was kind of leading up to when we started working with you, which was, you know, sometimes the business demands. Or the demands of the business won't align with like your desires and, or immediate demands as the owner, which means like, you might have to do some things that you don't want to have to do in order to get to the point where you've earned the right to be able to do that.

And so for me, it was like, I really wanted to get off the phones, but I hadn't done enough to get the volume consistently to warrant me getting off the phones. And you even like, kind of gave me specific numbers and I was like, all right, well, what do I need to do to hit that number? Greg has to clear his calendar as much as possible.

All of his other responsibilities to load it up with sales calls and he needs to be able to do that consistently to be able to then say, Oh, well, I can put this many calls on a calendar. I was exhausted, drained, totally tired, not useful in any other part of area of my life and or business in like that stretch, stretch of 30 days.

But when we were like, oh crap, Greg's on like 18 calls this week, already has 18 scheduled for the next week, already has 15 for the week after that. We're like, okay, we've done enough to display that we can probably fill someone else's calendar. But like we didn't, we wouldn't have known that until like I had fulfilled the demands of the business, which was max out the sales calendar, at that time, which was not desirable to me.

I mean, I was doing everything to avoid it, but like, that was the thing it had to be done. And I see clients doing it all the time. Oh, like, I want to start doing this with my content. I'm like, you literally don't have enough calls on your calendar or, you know, you're still doing, you know, spending too much time in fulfillment.

Like we need to do other stuff first. So like enable you to be able to do those things that you want. I want to do a, but it's just out of sequence.

Mike Mark: [00:26:54]

So one thing I'd want to know from you is, so you did that, right? Like you basically bit the bullet and you went for it. How did that impact then the process when you did bring in the salesperson?

Greg Hickman: [00:27:10]

Oh, I mean, well, I mean, Hey, I felt like I had had enough conversations to kind of share my own like product knowledge. So this is like, there's that like what to say and how to handle or answer certain questions we're a lot easier to communicate, obviously. Cause I had a lot more reps under my belt, and more consistently and more frequently.

I mean, but we also had the cheat code, which was like, you know, all the systems that you gave us. So like, I mean that was, you know, that was super, you know, like plug and play. All right, like follow, follow these things. So, I mean, while I didn't have to necessarily be the person that trained the sales rep. My job on training them on product knowledge. And like that piece became, which I'm good at, just became so much easier. So yeah, I mean, and then also in having done that, I had actually developed a lot of resources that I was using myself, in the sales process that made like weaponizing our new sales reps that we got from you guys like way more effective.

I mean like the sales resource document that you gave us, like, I like put it on steroids and there's like all of these things now on that document that our team is utilizing and they, and they've even said to us are like, man, like we have, I feel like everything that we need to sell and it's obviously helped cause they've been selling, closing, you know, a lot, a lot of deals relatively early from what I've been told.

Mike Mark: [00:28:39]

Yeah. Yeah. And then they came in and like just started hitting the ground running and, I, I guess when, when you're in that phase, like sometimes in that 30 day sprint, when you're taking all those calls, it feels like it's never going to end, you know, it's like this, like, this is an eternity of being on calls, especially for like, I know for you, you're like a lot of our clients where the calls are actually a source of frustration and like, like dread, you feel like, Oh, like another sales call. For me, like I, when you told me, like I'm taking 18 calls, I'm like, that's it like, cause I could do, I could do like 40 calls, 60 calls in a week if I'm really, really pushing hard, but like 25 30 is kind of where I start to feel like, okay, I'm working hard here.

And like, it's, it's interesting though like you pushed it really hard, but the other thing is and I'm curious to hear if you notice this, but so one of the things we tell the clients all the time is that as you're starting to scale, you know, initially you sell your prospects and then eventually you get to the point where your sales reps sell your prospects and you sell your team.

Right? And so when you've done it in that sort of like intensity and speed and velocity, like you have so much more certainty when you're selling your reps.

Greg Hickman: [00:29:56]

Yeah. Total.

Mike Mark: [00:29:57]

So it's not like, I think like, yeah. I mean, I think they should be getting the deals. It's like, no, I know how the thing fucking works. Like I just did it, like you got this and then they feel that confidence as well. And like, they take that and then own it when they show up on the calls.

Greg Hickman: [00:30:12]

Totally. Yeah. 100%.

Mike Mark: [00:30:16]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, it's so easy to, to try and skip that, right? And like, like, like what you said, you prioritize your personal desires over the business's needs. And then in that moment, and that now you're in this place where it's like, you don't have the confidence, cause you don't know if the thing's broken or working or not.

And so you're trying to kind of cajole them, but then nobody knows what's broken or what's working or not.

Greg Hickman: [00:30:42]

Yeah. I mean, it kind of goes back to that notion of skill stacking. I mean, like, I did enough reps on my own, on my own piece to feel confident to sell them into the opportunity. And then I got to borrow and adapt your skill set and systems to like, make the, shorten the gap on how long it would have taken me to do that by myself, you know?

But like I had to do some of those things, you know, first. And I mean, in many ways when I first came to you, you're like, yeah, you don't really have enough volume, like you just need to actually close a little bit more and really probably increase your own volume first. And I was like, alright, cool. Like I got to do that. And that was really the beginning of the whole thing for us.

Mike Mark: [00:31:23]

Yeah. I'm curious in, in your experience, what has been like, cause I know as you've scaled to seven figures, what has been the most challenging? Like I feel like there's, there's these stretches where you hit like a patch and it's very difficult. So like what has been one of the most challenging stretches for you?

Greg Hickman: [00:31:45]

Oh man. The thing that's coming to mind. Hopefully I can articulate this well enough. So, it's the, now that I ha I'm starting to, and we're still in the early stages, for sure. Like we're still potentially on the precipice of the dip that you talk about.

Mike Mark: [00:32:04]

Yup.

Greg Hickman: [00:32:04]

And, but this ties into what I'm going to share is like now that I've had like some of my bandwidth given back, because we have the reps on the team, I've been able to start thinking about like solving the next problem.

And I think the challenge is like, I know the next like three, four or five problems that I need to solve, and like trying to prioritize. I'm like now I like actually feel like I'm playing a game of chess. And I'm like, okay, like I know what my next five moves are. I'm not sure which one I'm going to need to use the second.

And all of that, I feel like there's been some pressure that I've felt personally of like, man, like, we really like our, both of our reps, like we were expecting to have one and like, we like both of them and like, Oh, okay. So in order to keep both of them, we need to basically like almost double the numbers that we were planning on trying to achieve in order to keep the one, because now we want to keep the two.

And so now it's like, I wake up and I'm literally just driven from a place of, okay, I know the next problems. I need to solve these so that we can keep both of these other guys happy. And so I kind of feel like I'm working for like a new cause, like it's not just about me. Like, it's about like, you know, the rest of the team and now there's like a weird anxiety and pressure that I like as it relates to that, but it's also a little nerve wracking for sure.

Mike Mark: [00:33:27]

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely the case, right? Like once you start having more and more people, depending on the business, it's kind of like, Holy shit. Like the responsibility is not one that's taken lightly, you know?

Greg Hickman: [00:33:37]

Yeah. But it also it's, it's never like the thing that needs to be done has never been more clear, which is also it's like, if I had felt that way with no idea what to do next, I, it would have been way worse, whereas like, I know what needs to be done. And it's like that same 30 day stretch in sales. Like I actually kind of need to do a 30 day stretch like that in marketing now, to kind of dial in a couple of things so that I can offload some things there next, right?

Like media buying. Like I still run my own ads and I've gotten a lot better at it and I can still get a little bit better, but I need to get a little bit better while starting to document how I want it to be done so that I can go get the person in the next 30 days to take it over. So, yeah.

Now it's just like, okay, this, that 30 day sprint is now aimed at something different to solve a different problem with the next problem.

Mike Mark: [00:34:28]

Yep. Yeah. It makes sense. It's basically the pressure now is fill the calendars.

Greg Hickman: [00:34:32]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:34:33]

Yeah, yeah. I always tell like every client I'm going to like, we do this, right, we're going to break your business, right? Then the bottlenecks going to be now going to fulfillment, or it's going to go to marketing. In your case, your fulfillment's pretty down path. So it's moved over to marketing and it's like, shoot, now we've got to figure that out.

Greg Hickman: [00:34:52]

And for everyone listening, I mean, like he wouldn't have been able to say that if he hadn't specialized, right? So like, like, I mean, I'm going through a training of his, that's like, Hey, you're going to hit this point called the dip. And it's like, he's already seen around corners for me. Like, that's hard when you're just doing everything, right? Like when you've solved the same problem, you could be like, alright, here's what's going to happen after you've done what, you're like, you wanted this. But here's the problem after that, then we're going to need to be ready for like right after we get to this thing that you want. So like, we can't just rest on our laurels right now. Like we got to keep rolling and it's like, when you specialize like that, being able to show someone around those corners is really like one of the most powerful things that I think is a byproduct of productization.

Mike Mark: [00:35:36]

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And it's just like, I think it's also goes to what we said, like you fall in love with the problem, like, w w in our situation it's really fascinating because like, I kind of feel like, like this is kind of, eh, it may sound like braggadocio, but it's just fucking true. Like we created the category in a lot of ways. Like, like we came out with a specific, like hybrid recruiting and closing offer and training offer. Nobody else had fucking done that, right? Everybody else was all still group coaching, Sam Oven's style at that point in time. So we came out with this distinct offer that was like completely different to what everybody else was doing.

And then now, now you can't fucking throw a dime without hitting someone who's doing the same thing. And they're all rolling out, trying to compete with us. And the interesting part is that, dude, I can't tell you how many of them start try for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, then start referring us the customers cause they can't fucking fulfill.

And it like they give up because they didn't realize how hard the problem was to solve. And.

Greg Hickman: [00:36:43]

It's a hard problem

Mike Mark: [00:36:44]

It is a super hard problem, dude. Like, I can't tell you how many nights I like screamed, got mad, like banging my head on the wall, like fucking pissed for hours and hours on end trying to solve the problem and like, people aren't ready for that in a lot of cases.

But for me, it was like going into it. I knew that I was committed to solving the problem. I wasn't committed to making the money and that if I solved the problem, the money would follow. Whereas all these people see the opportunity and they get the dollar signs in their eyes. And then as soon as the fucking wave of problems hit, they quit because they can't.

And they're like, it's just, it's so many problems and it's going to be such a, like a painful, shitty experience trying to solve it. Then they don't have the pain tolerance to do it.

Greg Hickman: [00:37:29]

100% and they it's what I'm guessing is it's probably for many others, a piece of their whole puzzle where it's your whole puzzle. And so like, the amount of bandwidth and attention that they can spend on actually building out a lot of infrastructure in the systems is a fraction of what you're able to do, which is why it's like, okay, your system is pretty bulletproof, at least from what I've seen so far. And it's like, all right, plug and play. Sweet. Let's take that. Update it. Got it. Cool. Next thing. Let's go. It's like it's it was just, it's been super seamless. And again, I think it's like when you are specialized in, you're constantly focused on that one kind of sphere like being able to create those things is a lot easier than when it's just one of your, you know, whatever offerings.

Mike Mark: [00:38:20]

Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And then, there's that whole concept as well, like the cost of delay. Right? So it's like in like that, the classic diagram of focus, everyone knows that the three little lines going all around and it's like, if you go to the one, it goes way further. And so it's that same thing too.

It's like, you're getting pulled in all these directions. You ended up going nowhere. Whereas you just go on one, it's going to really like start to produce the results. So I guess, what are you looking at when it comes to scaling your marketing and like booking the calendars out now?

Greg Hickman: [00:38:53]

Right now we're really just looking at, I mean, in regards to like, what's the challenge or like, what are, what things are we doing?

Mike Mark: [00:39:00]

Well, yeah. How are you going to solve the problem? I guess like maybe, maybe the way you answered that question is by how you're defining the problem and then how you solve them.

Greg Hickman: [00:39:07]

Yeah. So, I mean, we've kind of, at this point, reverse engineered everything around like number of, number of apps, that we need, taking into account our no show rate, which is low and like of the percentage of which apps are qualified.

which for us right now is pretty high as like 80% on average of our apps are qualified, at least initial, initially qualified, probably slightly lower after that. But, so I mean to hit, hit our goals, you know, we have a specific number of apps and so we're like, okay, well, as of right now, like Greg could probably increase that number by X percent.

And just his own skill set alone in ads, we know that we're leaving money on the table from all the leads that we're generating, that haven't booked. So we're bringing in, you know, you know, more of like a sales development rep who's going to doing some outbound stuff. You know, talking and engaging with leads coming in through our webinar and our Facebook group, commenting and all the different, the things that we do on social.

So like I can see that person adding, you know, another 40 apps a month. Possibly one or two of those people, you know, could easily help us hit our goal. Like I'm trying to figure out how do we hit that number with as few things as possible, because there's tons of stuff we could do, but I'm really thinking it's scaling up my Facebook ads a little bit more a specialist, or sales setter, SDR, whatever, want to call them over and as different term, that's kind of setting those people.

I want to expand into YouTube, probably in the next, the next 90 days, for sure. I mean, our YouTube channel is at like 3000 subscribers about, so like I already have a good, like building a presence on there. So I think naturally being there from an ads perspective would be good. So there's like, there's three hires, just like in what I just said right there, that could be helpful, but that's like the initial thing that I'm doing.

And I say all of that and it's like, but being consistent, doing all of it, you know, do cause it's really, all of those are kind of little things. I mean, have a big impact with like training people. It's like doing some of that unsexy work. It's like, okay, like you have to be an operator. And when I look at all the people that are like way far further ahead than I am fundamentally, they're just really good at operations like sales and marketing can get you far.

But like, if you look at the most successful companies, they're really good operators or have really good operators. And like, I feel like I need to become a little bit better of an operator with my team around those roles and helping them be able to do their job. And I think the biggest challenge is just staying focused on only doing those things.

Cause there's like a hundred cool, shiny things that you could do that I would love to probably do, but are really just a waste of time. So staying focused on those, I think is, is really the next, the next piece.

Mike Mark: [00:41:54]

Yeah. I mean, I think like it's funny cause I, this is, kept coming up as the theme of the conversation, but it's, it's the challenge, right?

It's the challenge that like, there's all the stuff you want to do and then there's the stuff you need to do. I don't know. Have you ever read the book, the effective executive?

Greg Hickman: [00:42:11]

No, but I'm going to read, down to two.

Mike Mark: [00:42:14]

That one's by, Peter Drucker. So, Peter Drucker is kind of like the management god, right? And, the, the, the question is like the number one question that he has in there is what needs to get what needs to be done. And he says that executives are always concerning themselves with that question of what needs to be done in the organization right now. And then figuring that out and then doing it and making sure it's getting done.

And then just like what needs to be done, what needs to be done, what needs to be done. And, I think the other thing that happens too, is like, I don't know if in your case you didn't experience it this time at all. Whereas some people experience it massively because you, when you solve the bottleneck this time, you know, very obviously what the bottleneck is next time, right?

The harder part sometimes is when you solve the bottleneck and then you have no idea whether where the fucking bottleneck is. You know?

Greg Hickman: [00:43:09]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:43:11]

It's like, I can't, I got no idea. I got no idea where this thing is. And then, cause it's not quite showing its face. And then that at that point you almost need to do something like a vacation test or whatever to figure out where's the business break. And then how do we reinforce it there?

reg Hickman: [00:43:26]

Yeah. And I mean, and not having data is like, makes that even harder. I mean, like, you could feel what you think the bottleneck is, and then you can look at the data and be like showing that it's completely in a different area. And so having the data is powerful too.

I mean, thankfully we track everything coming all the way through, you know, and our, some of our metrics have even been enhanced by some of the systems that you've provided. And so it's like, okay, like we can look at the vitals and be like, all right, like that's actually the problem over here. Like I want to do this, but will that actually change that number over there?

No, this thing over here is going to change that number. So we should probably look at that thing over there, first. But yeah, most entrepreneurs, I think even, yeah, I think blank its statement, I think most entrepreneurs are even flying blind on what data they even have. And so they make these like emotional gut decisions and nobody makes really that good of decisions.

Like, so it kind of turns into this, this weird cyclical, cyclical problem.

Mike Mark: [00:44:28]

W one of my favorite instances of that, it's like we have these clients and I love them, but they were in a situation where they're like, they're going to pivot change their entire business model, right? They're going to go from selling high ticket products to only selling courses from webinars.

And they're all like our sales team's not doing good. And this is just, it's so stressful. We can't, we can't handle this anymore. I'm like, okay guys, I'm with you. Now what's the data you're basing that decision on. And they're like, well, you know, it just feels like they're not taking calls. I'm like, have you looked at the numbers?

Like, well, not really, no, no, no. I'm like, okay, what do the numbers tell you? And then they looked and it's like, their team is closing 20, 25%, like one reps closing 33%. That's like the team's hitting the numbers. They just weren't feeling it so their emotions and then, with the data of saying we're out of line and like, I think, something that, that maybe, I would like to ask you for the audience here.

Cause I think that a problem that we get with a lot of clients, and this was actually our problem too, is most people's tracking stops after the sales made, right? Like if they track their marketing usually pretty well, like it's easy to track marketing cause you've got your leads, you got your apps, you've got your ad spend and whatever, right?

You track your sales. It's easy to track that. But then like people make the sale and then there's no data for the majority of people. And we were like super guilty of this, like. To be honest, better than most, because we had data, but we didn't have good enough data. And so like, I just couldn't handle it.

So like what would you, like when you're looking at someone's systems and fulfillment and structuring their business and helping them make sure they could get a repeatable result that scales, like, what are some of the fulfillment metrics that you have your eyes on?

Greg Hickman: [00:46:18]

Yeah. So, I think for everyone, service is probably going to be a little bit different, but in this last intensive, we just did a whole training on how we track client success. And what we really come down to is like, the main thing is, for the lack of a better name, call it like a red, yellow, green system. So like we need as a team every Monday as a part of our team meeting and we kind of look over it, all of the clients active and we put them either in red, yellow, or green.

And so we know based on our software that we use are like WordPress learning, management, whatever. Like when they complete certain trainings and modules, like we can be like, all right, they're at module seven that means they're this far along, and they've only been in the program for X time. Like they're moving at a really good pace to finish everything for them to hit all the milestones that we have.

So I think it's like one understanding where do they need to be at what time in order to achieve the goal that they came for. So I like having some yardstick to measure that. And then the red, yellow, green system sort of layers on top of that and says, Okay, well, like what signals, are you looking for to determine if this person is like off the rails, needs help or is like totally on track.

And then if you see those signals, what do you do? And so again, I think everybody, because your fulfillment result is probably delivering something different. You'll have to identify what those signals are going to be for you. And then what are the appropriate actions? Cause one thing that I did notice by failure, is like common signals, like course creators that talk about like, Oh, like they haven't finished all the training or whatever, or they're not showing up to the calls or whatever.

Cause we have someone on one, some group and so we track attendance of every single call and who's there, who's not. And we'll see like some clients that like crush it and have all of the results, but don't attend a single call because that's just not their nature. Like they don't like that environment.

Like they'd rather go heads down, ask a question when they need it. Otherwise they're good. And like, most people that I talked to they're like, yeah, would be panicking like this. Person's not going to pay them. Like, they're going to be off. Like, they're going to be gone because they ghosted. But like, that's just how they choose to operate.

And so it, it said, Oh my God, I see that they haven't attended. Automation sequence triggers. It says what's wrong. Like I'm assuming that something's wrong. Yeah. So sometimes yeah, you might think is a red signal is not really a red signal. And then you could kind of project a problem that isn't really a problem.

And so I think going through the repetitions enough time is understanding like, Hey, when this happens, we reach out in a non concerned way as a touch point and let the response dictate if there's actually a problem or not. Like, Hey, haven't seen you on any calls yet. Like, are you struggling? Like, do you have any questions?

Like, we'd love to help, but otherwise if you're good, just let us know and like, Hey, totally good. I don't really like those. I don't really like those calls. We're awesome right now. Like we were having so much fun. This is super valuable and it's like, Oh, like if I had sent an email, like. Are you okay? Are you okay?

Like they were like, what are you talking about? You know, and so, I think, like installing a red, yellow, green system for like what signals you might want to be looking out for maybe it's attendance, maybe it's, you know, they're off, not hitting milestones correctly. And then creating like a game plan or a playbook.

I'm like, what do I do if I see them go from green to yellow or yellow to red? If you just do that consistently, I think you'll probably see a tremendous result in your client's success. And also probably, d like deemphasize all of the amount of weird, like negative, emotional energy that you have thinking that clients are like not going to make the second payment because they haven't attended any calls or whatever that throws you in these weird dark loops.

Mike Mark: [00:50:04]

Yeah, dude, it was like, so shady. I took, so I took a week about 10 days off, around Christmas, and then I was off and like, you know, the huddles, cause we huddle and we're like big proponents of a daily huddle as a team. And so the huddles were, are kind of like touch point where we knew everything with every client.

And like, that was how I got my tribal knowledge almost. And without it, like, I just would have like anxiety, like all day, dude, I'd be like trying to be, be with my family, like enjoying my niece and nephew and stuff. But my head's like, thinking about like what the fuck's going on with this client what's happening with that client?

What's it like, Oh my God, is this thing blowing up? I wonder. And like, I would never know. And then the part of our issue too, was we had different comms systems. So I had no optics on comms at the level I needed to. So, I like, I would just always be like freaking out. And, we fix that. We did actually what you're talking about.

So we changed our com system. So we have optics, we've run a red, yellow, green system with a weekly meeting on Monday. We track attendance on calls. We track like progress through modules and systems like that. And, ever since doing that, like, so I did a two week vacation test since we had the baby and it was just like, all right, I'm going to pull out and see what happens and like what breaks.

And it's like, I came back and dude I'm like blown away. Like I thought there would be issues, but like the, they killed it. Like they knocked all these projects out and I'm sitting here like, fuck you guys don't need me anymore.

Greg Hickman: [00:51:35]

Yeah. Yeah. It must've been a great feeling too.

Mike Mark: [00:51:40]

Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty exciting

Greg Hickman: [00:51:41]

For them too, for them too.

Yeah. I think having that, like the optics around that is super important. the, I think, and this is why I love the kind of this hybrid model that we have is like b because it's priced appropriately, we can still be more hands on than if it were like DIY.

Mike Mark: [00:52:00]

Yeah.

Greg Hickman: [00:52:00]

And the DI, or the hands on high touch parts of it while still are fairly leveraged, they give you the other side of the data that's more like sentiment. Like, are they happy? Like how are they feeling? Like something that's more, you know, you know, qualitative versus quantitative that like we can weave into the fulfillment process. It's like, all right, like they're totally fine because, you know, they said these things, like, we think they're good versus, Hey, the way they're saying this thing is a little bit weird despite how far are they off. Like, they might like, let's make sure we look at them next week, like to see if they've got, if they're about to go yellow. And so I don't know, there's that touch point. Like, I mean, we have weekly calls with your team. It's like, that's awesome. You know, so I'm sure there's plenty that, that the team can come back and be like, yo, Greg's freaking out. He's, you know, super emotional on this, but you know, I think he's gonna be fine.

Mike Mark: [00:52:54]

Here's our game plan. Now we're going to go do this, this and that. And like, yeah, it helps also add that feedback loop. So we know what's up with the situation. Yeah. And like, It's weird, people have different styles as clients, you know?

And so like some people style is like, don't say anything until it's a full blown fucking emergency. And then they come at you with like a tidal wave of issues. Other people will tell you early and be like, cool. And be like, Hey, you know, it's not even a big deal. But I just thought you would want to know with your product.

This thing I think happened, or this is how I'm feeling. It's like, sweet, thank you. It's all like that varying level of people's communications, we almost had to standardize it so we could have that feedback loop. Otherwise, without it, we were just like, never knew if they were about to like, get hit with some massive issue or someone come at you like super mad about some shit that they just never communicated or activated in your product.

And it's like, just ask a goddamn question. It's not like, just ask the question. I'm not, not crazy here.

Greg Hickman: [00:53:58]

Yeah. It's it's and I think that that flexibility for everybody, like whatever the red light green is, and then like, what are the top three actions you're going to take based on which one they're at. Like you install that and the next, the next decisions will be pretty obvious.

And then obviously you can layer in automation and do cool tech things to help make sure that that's, you know, captured and those things don't fall through the cracks. But I mean, you got to figure out what that, what that system is for you, first.

Mike Mark: [00:54:26]

Yeah, yeah .Love that. And I think that's a good note to end on because like, and just to emphasize too on what Greg is saying, like, I know I said it once, but just to say it again for anyone out there watching this, like we implemented that exact thing almost like two or three and how it feels running the day to day business, not just for me, but for the entire team in general. It's like such a massive difference. And also the experience for the clients is significantly better because now, like before what would happen is clients would come to us with problems and then we'd have to be like, Oh, well, so tell me more about that problem.

And then we have to find it and that the problem exists and what, like actually trying to figure out the problem. And now it's like, we know the problem in advance so we can come to them and say, Hey, here's this problem. Here's what's going to be done. Here's what we're doing. Here's what, you're what we expect you to do. Here's the game plan.

And so it's not this like, we, you never know what's lurking around the corner type of thing, but, you know, and you're proactively communicating it and as a client and a service provider, it's a way more fun relationship and a better experience.

Greg Hickman: [00:55:34]

Totally, totally. Yeah. Client and clients will feel like taken care of because they have that ability, you know, and they know that you're checking in on them and they know that they're like when our, it was sort of Meta showing our clients what we were doing and they're like, yeah, Like, Oh my God. All of those times that you've reached out, like totally makes sense now. It's like, yeah, exactly.

Mike Mark: [00:55:56]

Cool. I love that. So I guess if anybody has more, that they want to learn about productizing, systematizing, scaling, like especially a complex expertise, like what you've really been able to help your clients do, how would they find you or go about connecting with you and sort of what, where should they check out or learn more?

Greg Hickman: [00:56:18]

Yeah. So I'll, I'll give you, I know this is like, not what you're supposed to do, but I'll give you three things that you can do. One is I have a YouTube channel. If you just searched Greg Hickman, there's like hundreds of videos that if like you watch them, you'll either be like, all right, I'm sold. Like we should talk to Greg or I don't like Greg at all, like watch those.

I do have a specific, like 27 minutes. It's a, like a mini webinar that walks through the three steps that we actually do focus on that I think pretty much everyone has to focus on first. That's it altagency.com/M as in mom, W. And if you really want, just email me, greg@altagency.com. If you have a question or whatever, happy to answer any questions, if we can, if we can help point you to the right direction, happy to do so.

Mike Mark: [00:57:00]

Cool. Let's see anyone have any questions before we wrap up? I'd like to see if anyone out there has got any questions. Happy to answer any quick questions for you.

Just give them a couple seconds and then we can wrap it up if no questions.

Sweet. I think we're good. I mean, there may be questions later and if there are, I'll just tag you at Greg or somebody else, might tag you in here, but, yeah, thanks for taking the time out, and.

Greg Hickman: [00:57:30]

It was fun.

Mike Mark: [00:57:31]

Yeah. It, like, It's been really cool to see. And like, in your case, that's, to be honest, I'm having more fun working with you than a lot of other people, because, when someone actually has their fulfillment dialed, it's way better to scale their sales. But when someone has marketing's really good, but their fulfillment shit, when you scale their sales, it's like, it kind of sucks working with them, partly because everybody in the sales team like, alright, shit, are we even selling a good product? And then like the chaos that ensues of, you know, they celebrate all these sales and make all these decisions, but then all their clients blow out because they can't support or fulfill them.

And it's like the, the collateral damage that comes from that is usually not nearly as fun as like, shit now I gotta book more calls.

Greg Hickman: [00:58:15]

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:58:16]

Yeah.

Greg Hickman: [00:58:17]

Yeah. we've, we've done a lot of work on the fulfillment side. To, in some cases to our detriment, because it took away from when we should have been doing some of the sales and marketing stuff. But obviously now we've been equipped for, for doing this. So it's the right timing for sure.

Mike Mark: [00:58:32]

Yeah. And interestingly, like I see the people that scale the best are the ones who get their fulfillment down first then move into marketing as life. And then they pour, like, you just go all out and like, yeah, people skill marketing first and they'll do good.

And they have just good enough fulfillment. But, usually they're just so loud that like they polarize our audience in a way that they can keep selling a shitty product. And then the market just forgives them, which is weird, but, I don't think that's as fun of an organization for anybody involved. It's pretty toxic, you know.

Greg Hickman: [00:59:02]

Yeah. I mean, we're actually kind of the same way. So I mean, we always talk about like systemizing and simplifying kind of like the delivery model and the outcomes, so that specialization kind of piece of it and getting a few clients under your belt in that area first. So if we can like systemize structure, your onboarding your, how you're going to fulfill and then provide some of the tools to have a more systemized, repeatable sales process.

Like that's the, where we start. And it's like, okay, you go and flood yourself with 10 clients and you can't even fulfill, like, who cares if you can do lead generation? Like, it doesn't matter because you're going to have to refund people or, or turn them down because you don't have the capacity. And most agencies, like, we call it the scale factor is like, scale factor.

And an agency is like, well, what's your bandwidth? Like, what's your capacity on the fulfillment side? And so if you're going to install any system or any automation, it should be where you spend most of your time which is really sales or fulfillment in a traditional service agency model. Whereas like, if you're just selling a course or scale factor is always going to be in lead generation because there is no fulfillment.

And I think agencies come in and they're like, well, I need, I need more leads. And they haven't set up the infrastructure for the streamlined fulfillment and then they just eat it and it sucks and so kudos. Start from the back.

Mike Mark: [01:00:25]

Yeah. You gotta work your way back.

Greg Hickman: [01:00:26]

Sounds super awkward, but let's start with the fulfillment.

Mike Mark: [01:00:31]

All right guys, we're going to wrap up hope you guys enjoyed this. If you got any questions, just leave them here and also be sure to connect with Greg, actually check out his YouTube for sure it's like bomb. I'm low key secret fan. So, yeah, go check them out on YouTube. And then any questions you got, we'll be sure to come back and answer them. So thanks for tuning in y'all.

That's it for this week's interview. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did enjoy this interview, we do one like it every single week inside of our free Facebook group called Seven Figure Agency Owners and High Ticket Coaches. So if you're an agency owner, coach, service provider, and you're really wanting to scale to seven figures and beyond, join us inside the group. It's coachingsales.com/group. Again, coaching sales.com/group. See you on the inside.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:00]

Well, I say you've got some people who just jumped on if you've jumped on and you can hear us all right. What up Gary? What up David? If you guys can hear us, give us a quick comment. Drop a question below if you've got a question as well. What up Ryan? Good to see you here.

So talking with Aleric, he is pretty much the go to, when it comes to YouTube ads. We actually tag team a lot of projects together where Aleric will basically break their business because they got too many appointments from YouTube ads and then they got to desperately get off of the phones and then he'll kind of tag us in. And so, and vice versa, we'll break their business where they got all these sales reps and now they want to push their calendar harder and we'll tag Aleric in. And, so like I know you're working with Jay and Samera and, they've been just like crushing it. So, I'm excited to have you here.

What's up, Ryan? Can you hear us? I see Ryan says, “Hey”. So I guess everybody knows that YouTube is kind of the hot thing, right now, but I think a lot of people are, sometimes you get into the Google ads manager and it's like a little daunting. Facebook is so familiar and, they, they don't know where to start or kind of how to leverage YouTube ads. So, I guess the big question is first of all, why YouTube ads? And I know that like you see some pretty interesting stuff with YouTube ads. So, why YouTube ads in the first place?

Aleric Heck: [00:01:25]

Yeah, that's a great question. And obviously a lot of the people that we work with are similar to, you know, the people who are in your group, right? You're selling high ticket product, you know, coaching, consulting, you have a program or service. And one of the big things that you see with that, right, is you, you're the face of that business, where you have somebody who's the face of that business. And because it's an expert based business, you're oftentimes getting people who are looking up a solution, trying to find a solution.

And we all know Facebook ads work, right? But the problem is they work to an extent, you know, they, they get kind of go up and down, they rely on an algorithm. As we know, there's a lot of competition. It's very much a red ocean. So not only is YouTube ads, a blue ocean, there's less advertisers, less of us, you know, kind of marketing, consultants, coaches over there.

But it's also the way the platform works, it's intent based. So, if somebody is looking up, you know, how to get leads, how to get sales, how to get in shape, how to get fit. You know, if they're looking up these different things that obviously have a high ticket offer for, you know, how to find connections on LinkedIn, right? How to start selling your product, how to, you know, whatever it happens to be, people are searching that on YouTube and you can run your ad in front of those videos, educate them, get them excited and to see you as an expert and then get them to take action off of that.

It's very different than on Facebook, people are just kind of scrolling through. It's very much interruption based, whereas on YouTube, not only is it intent-based, where you're running in front of specific videos in front of people who are actively looking right now for a solution, but you only pay on YouTube if somebody watches 30 seconds of your ad.

Instead of paying for every impression that you get on Facebook, you only pay if they watch your ad for more than 30 seconds and they can skip it after 5 seconds with 5 to 29 seconds. So they skip the ad. You don't pay anything. You only pay if they watch it for 30 seconds, which means they're interested.

So they have intent, they're interested, they're likely to sign up, take that next step. And those are just, that's just the therapists. And obviously we'll dive a little bit deeper. We have certain ways that we recommend doing it. I'm excited. I love drop in what I would call, you know, value bombs, knowledge bombs, and I'm excited to dive into it.

Mike Mark: [00:03:39]

Okay. So with YouTube ads, I guess, like what does somebody need in place before they consider even running YouTube ads?

Aleric Heck: [00:03:47]

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So honestly, what I would say is you do want to make sure that you have a funnel in place and you have some type of offer, that's first been proven, at least with a few, you know, a few sales that you've had on your own. But you don't need to wait until you've set up Facebook to set up YouTube.

You can start them. You can start the interchangeably. We have, we've had people who really only did organic. I think they dabbled with Facebook, never really worked for them. And they see smashing success on YouTube because of the way the platform set up. So I think a big misconception people has, is you have to master Facebook to do YouTube.

I mean, it's a very common misconception that people have about anything, right? That, you know, if something that you're doing right now, isn't working that you're going to try and master that first before doing something else. But in reality, that's a fallacy you should really, you know, maybe if this isn't working over here, go over and focus on what is working, what actually is going to bring in those, those, those leads and sales.

Mike Mark: [00:04:43]

So they need a funnel, they need a converting offer. What else would you say that someone really should at least have in place or consider having kind of put together before going live on YouTube ads?

Aleric Heck: [00:04:55]

Absolutely. So I do recommend some type of webinar, VSL training. Now we do have some limited trainings on how some of this stuff works, but obviously our core expertise is YouTube ads plugging that into, you know, a business. And so really having that funnel that goes from your ad to your, to, to some type of webinar, VSL, and then to an offer. Interestingly, what we've seen on YouTube ads, and a lot of people have been saying, you know, with Facebook and everything, they're like, the webinars are dead. You know, people aren't showing up to webinars anymore, but that's actually more on the platform as opposed to, webinars themselves, right?

And obviously there there's a lot of people still doing very well with Facebook webinars, but these days more and more, you know, the show up rates are decreasing. I've seen people excited about, you know, 25%, which is pretty low, right? On YouTube consistently between us and our clients, we're seeing between 50 and 60% show up rates. And on my webinar, it's an hour and eight minute long webinar, our average watch time is 53 minutes.

Mike Mark: [00:05:55]

Wow.

Aleric Heck: [00:05:55]

I'm in with the offer to, yeah, to book a call at 45 minutes. So it's crazy and it's because think about it, people are already on YouTube to learn, they're already on YouTube to watch a video. So if you can hit them with an our webinar while they're in video consumption, learning mode, instead of just scrolling on their phone, like they're actually looking to learn, that's when you can get somebody who's much more likely to show up and then watch a whole webinar.

Mike Mark: [00:06:19]

That makes sense. Okay. And it's interesting cause like, yeah, in our experience, YouTube ads, I mean, sorry with Facebook ads, webinars don't work as well. Like I just see it across the board with clients, for the most part it's too long of a system, drop off rates are very high, especially when you're getting mobile distribution and then the people aren't showing up to it, but it makes perfect sense.

Like I know for me when I'm on a Saturday night and I'm like, Binge YouTubing, it's like, and I'm studying either something or I'm like maybe getting my, my rap fix for the night, but I know like I'm there. And I'm usually when I'm logged into YouTube, it's like a couple hours at a time or longer even sometimes.

So, that's really cool and interesting to know that webinars are still working. Do you see an optimal length in terms of video length of, of whatever that sales mechanism is?

Aleric Heck: [00:07:07]

Yeah. So if it's a webinar, typically you do want to keep the offer at least to that, like to that 45 minute mark. And that's kind of the classic that they'll tell you that on webinars. And then, and then kind of like reiterate that after the fact. The only reason ours is an hour and eight minutes is we have a 10 minutes, we call it our testimonial super cut. We literally have a 10 minute long video of, you know, like over three dozen of our clients, just, you know, talking like doing it and doing a magical ball or a testimonials. It's awesome. It's great for proof. If you have a lot of testimonials, you can put it together in one video, you can also run that on YouTube ads. We'll talk about that later. I'm getting ahead of myself as retargeting but, that's what I would recommend. If it's a webinar is I would go in with the offer around the 45 minute mark, and then obviously kind of keep stacking you like getting people to book a call or whatever, like reminding them for a few minutes there.

And then if you have a super cut or you have some testimonials, just kind of playing that on the backend, but the bulk of the content should definitely be within the hour or all the content. And then the 45 minute Mark should be when you get people to book a call. In terms of a VSL, the optimal length that I've seen is honestly, in that 15 to 25 minute mark. So I have a VSL as well, and it's interesting in that, you know, it lead, even on, on YouTube, obviously lead cost is going to be lower for VSL cause it's, you're not, not selecting a time, there's not all these different things. But the application costs, is ,is much better on webinar across us and our clients with YouTube ads versus, versus VSL.

You can have people stay for that long webinar. And those people that stay are more likely to submit an app. But the VSL is also, obviously if you're doing, you know, kind of a Facebook, YouTube kind of play, you might want to have a VSL too. So VSLs typically, 15 to 25 minutes. Those also work very, very well on YouTube too.

I don't want that to be a misconception. It's just, compared to each other. If you can get somebody to actually watch the whole thing. A webinar's almost always going to be better than a VSL, if you can get them to watch the whole thing, that's just the trick though. Can you get them to watch the whole thing?

Mike Mark: [00:09:07]

Yeah. Yeah. It's the old “what's focal is causal”, right? The more, the longer they're paying attention to you, the higher, the value is that, is created. So if you can, you can get them locked in then, yeah, you're going to do better, which makes sense.

Aleric Heck: [00:09:20]

Exactly.

Mike Mark: [00:09:21]

Now, one thing I'd be curious about is like, what do you see in terms of costs as they relate to Facebook? Right? So I know most people that we're working with are spending on Facebook. So what do you see the patterns are of say, cost per lead, cost per application, and cost per acquisition from YouTube to Facebook?

Aleric Heck: [00:09:38]

Yeah, absolutely. So typically what we're seeing is the cost per application is much lower on YouTube compared to Facebook. The lead cost, it does depend sometimes the lead cost is around the same, but the quality is not as similar as Facebook. Facebook gets, you know, a lot of, you know, looking at lot kind of people just kind of like, Oh, that's interesting. I'll sign up. So you do tend to have lower lead costs. If you like at scale.

But on YouTube you have the people that are going in that remember they've watched a 32nd video or at least 30 seconds, it's a longer video, talk about that, like usually we'll do three to five minutes, but they've watched at least 30 seconds. They're in the intent mode. They're, they're watching videos.

They're trying to learn, they sign up, they're going to show up at a much higher rate. And so what we've seen is the cost per webinar view, or the cost per if you're, if you're tracking people who get to, let's say the booking page, right, if you're on a VSL, that's going to be lower on YouTube and same with the application cost.

So I'll give you one example. We have, Lucy who kind of is in the consulting kind of, coaching, coaching space and she was over on, and she's in England solid, so, it's based on pounds, right? But, over there, she was around 140, 150 pound cost per Facebook application. Her applications on YouTube we're less than 60 pounds. And so.

Mike Mark: [00:11:01]

It's crazy.

Aleric Heck: [00:11:02]

Yeah. It's insane. And get this, her, her, her sales team was fighting and this is in her testimonial. This is part of our match up to her sales team was fighting over the YouTube leads because they were higher quality.

Mike Mark: [00:11:17]

Yeah, and I know they're putting up crazy numbers. So we put Jay over there. I don't know if you know Jay, he's one of the guys on their sales team, but I mean, dude was doing like a 25, 30 grand a month in commissions. So he's putting up like 250 grand a month as a sales rep more so, definitely things were rocking on that.

Aleric Heck: [00:11:33]

Awesome. That's like another, another example, right, of tag teammate. It's literally one of those things where we legitimately have people have the problem where they have so many leads that they need, that they need sales people, that they need people to, to, to go through and, and, and crank that up. And, and honestly, I had that same problem as well, and I'm sure we'll, we'll, we'll get to that as well.

And, and, and using you to find, you know, the, the, the best salespeople, because that's what it's all about. You want to make sure you have the, the backend to cover the leads coming in, because you get to a point where like, Oh my God, there's so many applications. I mean, we had, you know, another example is like Ahmad, he had the exact problem.

Mike Mark: [00:12:12]

Yeah. Yeah.

Aleric Heck: [00:12:12]

So it's crazy.

Mike Mark: [00:12:13]

It's exactly who I was thinking about actually, when you said.

Aleric Heck: [00:12:15]

Exactly, exactly. There a video, he's like he made it, he made most hilarious video too, where he's like, warning, warning folks, you know, don't work with Eric, if you want any free time, like he's to your calendar is going to be. And obviously it was kind of funny tongue in cheek.

Cause he's like, you know, we have all these, these people come in. I don't have any time anymore. If that sounds like a good value proposition, then, then go sign up with them. But it was kind of funny, obviously, you know, helping get him, get him some, some sales and people and all that stuff though.

Mike Mark: [00:12:46]

You know, when he talked to me at first, he was like, Dude, I can't, I can't handle this man. I'm dying over here. Like I need someone right away. And the other interesting thing about his offer. So like, just for anyone watching, so you have a little bit of context. Ahmad works with kind of more higher end like real consultants, right? Like real consultants, but like people who are in the corporate world. So it's not as much like in our realm of kind of like packaged coaching offers and what, not that we are accustomed to.

But more like big, you're going on site, you're working with teams of hundred plus and kind of enterprise level consultants a lot of the time. And, he helps them attract and get more clients. And the interesting thing was that he couldn't get Facebook to work, to save his life. And, it was super frustrating. He couldn't scale. And then he actually went to you and then it was like overnight. He was like, “dude, this thing's just rocking”. And it like really cranked up on him.

Aleric Heck: [00:13:44]

Yeah. So in that 50, 50, 60K mark, to a 100K. Consistently a 100K from, from the, the YouTube ads. And then, then the bottleneck though, once you get to that 100K and by the way, that also that's, that's pretty far to go selling yourself, up to a hundred. I did that as well. I, you know, I built up to the a 100K and then I was like, alright, I need to these salespeople to the, you know, to scale this beyond that point, you know. But that's like, like you can, you can have, like, I would actually say you probably want salespeople before that because that's like crazy. You're like grinding it out but you need it. If you get to that point, you, you absolutely need it cause you can't do that. That volume can't sit and you can't scale me on that, and, as a, as the owner.

Mike Mark: [00:14:25]

Yeah. And I think that, as an owner, you start to like, as you push that much volume, start to see places where you want to fix your product and then you don't even have the time to fix your product. So it's like, eh, that is a really difficult feelings sometimes while you're there. So, one thing, I just kind of want to like see this and I think this would be a good thing for anybody watching. So, with YouTube ads, right? So we run YouTube ads, just light traffic, not like much cold traffic acquisition.

And for me, my, one of my concerns is, and I'm sure like anybody watching this is going to have some level of the same concerns, but it's just that, the ad inventory seems really low for the problem that we solve. And so, my question is like, can I really scale cold traffic, YouTube ads to the level that like, I've seen a pretty low ceiling on Facebook ads. And so I'm wondering, could I scale how, far could I actually scale YouTube ads?

Aleric Heck: [00:15:18]

I love that question because that question answers as well, a lot of people who are watching this might be thinking about it. And I think I know some, some guys on my team who can talk with you about that you might've brought in, but, but, but in all seriousness that's legitimately what are different, you know, is with our YouTube ads program because there's a huge misconception out there. We'll talk about bus, two of them. One is with the ad itself. We'll talk, we'll actually do it in reverse than I usually do. You know, when I hop on, you know, interviews or things like this, we'll start with the targeting.

Cause that's what you're asking about, right? The biggest mistake that people make is they follow, you know what, everybody, who's just kind of learned about YouTube ads is teaching, which is the placements methodology, right now. Don't get me wrong. This does work at a small scale and it is low hanging fruit. And this is delicious, low hanging fruit, but it's not scalable to only select individual videos. Even channels, but especially individual videos that you want to run your ads in front of, because the problem there is, you, you have to constantly swap out videos that you're never going to be able to have enough videos in one campaign to really get scalability.

And so what happens and what you're talking about is running placement ads, where you're selecting the specific videos that are only the very, very specific ones that people are watching that are looking up, you know, how to grow a sales team or whatever it happens to be.

The people watching that really low hanging fruit. So, it's a good idea in the early stages to run something like that. But when you're looking to scale, that's, you know, honestly, and obviously what we recommend is starting off, you know, with something like us, because we're going to set it up from day one for that scalability. But the way that we set it up is in a process called 3D YouTube ads targeting, where we actually have a three-dimensional approach.

One of the biggest things people do when they start advertising on YouTube is it's two dimensional, right? They just do placements and demographics. We call Facebook ads two dimensional's as well because it's demographics and interests, right? There's no intent on Facebook. Over here, people are doing demographics and they're doing intent.

But there's nothing about who that person is. So, so people, when they try to scale up on YouTube, they'll go into keywords and topics and you might have even done some of this. The problem when you go into just keywords and topics, if it's too broad, now, all of a sudden you're getting, you know, you're using like, you know, sales team, you're using some of these keywords that are, are pretty broad and you're attracting all kinds of people, corporate people, whatever it happens to be.

And that's probably what you experienced. So then you're like, Oh no, I got to go back to the safety of placements. But there is a way to take that broader, keywords, topics. These are collections of videos instead of just choosing one or two specific videos or a few specific videos, you're choosing these keywords, these collections, and layering it with affinity, URL and intent audiences.

So YouTube has audiences that you can layer. And that's the third dimension that a lot of people don't even know that, that you could do on YouTube. So imagine this, right, now, you're taking some of these a little bit broader keywords topics, right? Instead of placement that you're taking these keywords and topics, so they could be topics about sales, sales, management, sales, a sales team.

They could be keywords that are, you know, sales teams, how to find salespeople, things like that. If you just ran those on their own, you might get some big like corporations, maybe not, not the type of people that you're looking for, but then you layer that with audiences and there's some incredible things you can do with audiences.

For instance, you can set up a specific affinities where you just put in keywords that Google knows about a person. That's a very basic one. So you could actually put in click funnels. You could put in, you know, entrepreneur is kind of a, that's a, that's a little bit too broad to be completely honest, but there's that type of thing, but you can get more granular.

You can actually put in what's called URL affinity targeting, where you could put in clickfunnels.com. So the, now these are people that have either been@clickfunnels.com or a similar site, right? So there are some similar sites built in there, clickfunnels.com, maybe Kartra lead pages, so they're in the online kind of marketing space during the click funnels space.

And now they're looking up sales team, how to find a sales person and you target people who are in the top 20 or 30% of household income earners. You used to be able to do that on Facebook. You can't anymore. It's all a zip code. You could do actual income targeting on YouTube top 20%. So now you've got somebody the top 20%, they're looking up how to grow sales team, how to find a salesperson.

And they're in the click funnels ecosystem because they've been on that or similar sites, maybe expert secrets.com, whatever it is. That's how you pinpoint the perfect high ticket buyer. And that's how you scale because there's some extra scalability over here with the people looking up those broader keywords. There's extra scalability over here with people involved in click funnels, but you're getting the cross section of those layered. That's more scalable than if you just pinpoint only a few specific videos.

Mike Mark: [00:20:19]

So help me understand something because something's not quite making sense to me. How, how is the cross section more scalable? Right? Wouldn't it be if they have this and they have that, wouldn't that be a smaller subset than the actual, kind of like either or situation?

Aleric Heck: [00:20:36]

So that's a great question. So we're actually not, and I love that you're asking this too, because this could be what people are listening, you know, or thinking. So this is different than placement ads.

Placement ads are where you say this one video, this second video, let's say you have 10 videos. 10, just 10 different videos you're going to run your ad in front of that's where a lot of people start. Because quite frankly, that's where a lot of, you know, low, you know, low end courses, kind of online free content, the old point, people towards placements select these certain videos. That's all you're running in front of.

What you have to do to scale is you have to get into what are called more keyword targeting. So it's based on what people searched on YouTube or the tags that a video has, where like the title of a video. And that's a lot broader because instead of these 10 videos, maybe specifically on how to get a sales team, you get things that are maybe a little more broad.
So they might be more about like, you know, sales, but you're layering it with people in click funnels who are in higher income brackets, you know, you're reaching the right person. So essentially, you're targeting a collection of videos with a keyword or with a topic, like one of the topics could be sales.

If you just ran that on its own, that's going to be way too broad, right?

Mike Mark: [00:21:44]

Yeah.

Aleric Heck: [00:21:46]

But if you layer that with people who are in ClickFunnels and they're in a higher income bracket, so, you know, they're a business owner, right? Decision maker, you combine those three together. That's how you pinpoint the right person.

I'll explain an example for me. So for me, I am, I do have like some very small placement campaigns that aren't really scalable getting in front of videos on how to set up YouTube ads. But there's not that many videos on that on YouTube, right? There's like a dozen of them. And maybe a couple of them are mine.

It's kind of funny, right? So there's a button you to these different videos. But what we found success at, with, with us, and this is the same method we apply to other people, but this will be an easy way to look at it is we'll take top 20% of income earners. So we know they're like a business owner of some kind their businesses, you know, at least doing well enough that they can invest in something like this.

And then we layer that with people looking up, how to run Facebook ads, how to run ads, online advertising, you know. There's even a topic for advertising and marketing. Now, if I ran those on their own, it's too broad, right? We wouldn't, we wouldn't get as many leads as we want. We'd be able to scale it however much we want, but we wouldn't get as many leads.

But what we're doing is we're layering that with people who have been to clickfunnels.com before, with people who have an affinity towards YouTube ads, maybe they they've done, what's called a custom intent. So they've searched recently on how to, how to use YouTube ad, how to use Facebook ads, whatever it is.

So we're layering that, you know, so maybe the easiest way to think about as somebody in the click funnels ecosystem, they're looking at Facebook ads and they're a top income earner, that's perfect. That's exactly who we can serve. So we've created essentially a triangle and we're finding that person in the middle, but because the triangle is built up of three pieces that are broader, right?

All the people in the top 20%. All the people like or are into click funnels. All the people who are looking up, how to run ads. We can scale that much more efficiently than just the few videos that talk about YouTube ads specifically.

Mike Mark: [00:23:42]

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool. That I think, that was awesome. And I think a lot of the people here may have had that same kind of question or concern to hit that. I guess, from there, the other question I have is like, what are some of the other big misconceptions or like, concerns that you typically see people have when it comes to starting with YouTube ads that just, you know, like what you showed there? It's like, well, that's not really the case. So like, what are some of those big myths or misconceptions?

Aleric Heck: [00:24:08]

Yeah, that is a great question. Honestly, one of the other really big ones is that people think you need to have this big overly produced, you know, advertisement in order to get, you know, get traction on YouTube.

And honestly, that's the opposite of what you want to do, especially for all of us. We're we're, you know, coaches, consultants, we're experts we're course creators, right? We want to resonate and connect with people face to face. And if you just feel like a big Hollywood ad, you've got a big green screen studio set up, spokespeople, all this other stuff.

The problem is it's really hard, hard to nail that, right? So it ends up being a little bit hokey if you don't and when you do nail it, you're just creating the type of ad that everybody tunes out. Think about it if you're watching, you know, TV, sports, or whatever it is, right. You go into the other, other room when a commercial starts playing, right?

Because you've been attuned your whole life to tune out these overly produced commercials. But if somebody is on YouTube, And they're looking up how to get leads, how to get sales or, or in your case, right how to grow my sales team, or they're just looking up, you know, how to improve sales because they're a business owner, the top 20%, they're in ClickFunnels. They might not even know that they need a sales team yet. That's why, if you're only running placements in front of a sales team, that's, that's not going to be a scalable.

You could just run videos with the sales, click funnels and top income bracket. And tell them that they have this problem or, you know, show them that they have this problem that they need a sales team. Because if I have, learned that earlier on, I probably wouldn't have gotten a sales team before I, you know, grinded myself to a 100K just all on my own, you know? So things like that, right? And so essentially, if you're reaching those people and you, you don't want to reach them with an overly produced ad, you want to connect yourself kind of like how we are right now, we're just talking.

And people really resonate with this because you know, we're having a conversation. We're talking about real things that's going to help people, you feel natural. So all you really need is a gimbal like this, right? This is, that you would put it up like that. So this is a gimbal that will stabilize your phone, a little microphone, which I don't actually have handy with me right now, but a little microphone that you can attach, you know, to, to, to your iPhone and get a little bit better audio. And so, that stabilizes your phone, you've got a little bit better audio and you can record an ad, literally today, right? You know, once you create, once you create a script, we'll talk about how to, you know, the winning components of a script and all that stuff. But you could create an ad that you could run and literally make millions of dollars off of, with just an iPhone and a gimbal. And we've had multiple clients do that.

So that's, that's all you need. That's a huge misconception when it comes to comes to the advertising, is, is that you need this big overly produced people trust natural. They trust you as an expert getting on screen, talking to them and that's the type of content that's already on YouTube.

Mike Mark: [00:26:48]

Interesting. That's cool. Yeah, like I see that too, right? Like, the, the ads that, that are the ones that I actually, am like, Oh man, let me sit and actually watch the thing. It's when it's like so conversational and it's just, they entered the conversation in my mind right then and there. And it wasn't like they spared me the rags to riches story.

They spared me the like all the flashy, like here's my Lambo and here's this thing. And it was just like, You know, like, yeah, do you want this and that? Well here, let me take you into my computer real quick. And then they show you it. And you're like, Oh man, I like this go right through that. Yeah. So you seeded it and I think that's like the perfect segue to get into it is what are the winning components of the script and, what are the sorts of things that someone needs to have in place before hitting record? And then actually getting that YouTube ad going?

Aleric Heck: [00:27:41]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is really, really essential. I'm going to dive into all three key components of that winning ad. So this is where I gotta be careful with what I say about being natural, being natural. Doesn't mean you go in with no plan, you just hit record and you just kind of go all over the place, right? Being natural means you can use a gimbal, you could use your iPhone, you don't need a big production studio. You don't need to overthink it. But when it comes to your script, you do want to make sure that you have something that resonates with your, with your market, with your audience. And so there's three key components.

There's a hook, educate and call to action. Let's talk about what not to do. What not to do is what I've seen a lot of people. And this is also the issue that you run into, right? Cause obviously we'll, you know, we'll talk about like our, our, our process is more of a program it's done with you. So we're helping people hands on, you know, go through this, setting up, you know, campaigns together training, but we also have copywriters that help our clients write the scripts.

One of the biggest problems I've seen out there, you know, with agencies. They're like, well, we do all kinds of ads. Maybe we'll help you with YouTube too. I really know that much. There's oftentimes just doing placements, but nobody talks about what goes into a winning ad, right? And that is so essential.

The creative is so important. And so the mid big mistake people make is they'll create these 30 or 62nd ads because they've either seen it before. Or they've seen like these big campaigns, like Geico for it or whatever, you know, on Facebook, a 62nd ad, because you also have text, might work. What we recommend is a three to five minute long ad that actually shows you as the expert actually gives value and information that gets people not only, you know, wanting to sign up for the webinar, but making them need to sign up for the webinar or VSL or whatever it. Doesn't remember.

It doesn't have to just be a webinar, you know. You already have a VSL, you can take a high performing VSL and transfer it over to YouTube. And we've got clients doing incredibly well with VSL. So I just want to loop back on that earlier, but, so the way, the way that this works is you have a hook, right?

So you're capturing people's attention. You're pulling them in, but you also want to push people who are a bad fit away at the same time. So you want to pull somebody in who's a good fit, but push somebody away who's a bad fit. The reason for that is you want people to skip your ad in the first five to 29 seconds if they're not interested. Because that's another way that you don't have to pay for them if they skip your ad. Right. And so obviously the targeting, we want that to do a lot of the heavy lifting, but anybody that accidentally falls into that, because we are a little bit broader on our couple of things in the layering, you know, it works out really well.

There's always gonna be a few people who get in who aren't interested or aren't interested right now. You want to get those people to skip. So you're only paying for the people, genuinely interested. Pulling in the right person pushing away. I'll give a couple examples of a couple of hooks that we've done.

Obviously we've got clients that do all kinds of different books, different niches, and excuse me, different areas. But one hope that works, worked really well for us and still works really well, but there's another one that's working even better. And I'll give that in a second, is, is the following.

What if you could ethically hijack your competitor's traffic and send it directly into your own funnel? Well in this video, we'll show you how you can do just that using targeted YouTube video ads, let's hop over to my screen and like what you were saying before. And then I go into the screen, I teach them, we'll talk about the educate section.

And the reason that it works really well as a few reasons, it captures people's interest. They're like, wait a second. What, what can you do with this? Right? It also pushes away people who don't know the jargon, right? Funnels, hijack, ethically hijack, no competitor's traffic like using all of these different words.

People who are in the online marketing coach, you know, click funnels ecosystem, they're going to skip the ad. They're gonna be like this guy's talking like alien language. We don't, you know, they don't even know what it is. And so that's pulling in people by using that industry language that they understand, pushing away, people who don't understand it and intriguing them enough to watch.

The other one, and this is the one that's working the best breath right now is really, really simple, but it's an us versus them. It's a provocative statement that people have to watch to see what I'm going to say. And I just come out and I say, “YouTube ads beat Facebook ads. Every time in this video, I'm going to show you why let's hop over to my computer screen”.

Right? It's a bold statement. People may agree or disagree in the moment, but you can't argue with the fact that agree or disagree, you're going to keep watching and you're going to, you know, you're going to be interested in what the argument is to back that up. And, and so that's the type of thing. That's a couple examples of some hooks. So you could do kind of these bold statements. You could do other things. We recommend split testing like four or five different hooks. When we have clients come in, our copywriter can help them map out like different, different hooks to use. But once you have the hook, now you've captured people.

The big mistake people make, like I said before, is they'll do short ads. They'll just do those hook. And then they'll instead of saying, let me show you, they'll say, okay, go sign up for my webinar and we'll teach you. But there's no substance, right? You're not actually giving people a reason to show up.

It's your show up rates are gonna be bad if you don't give a little bit of education, right? What you want to do is provide value in the ad. This is one of the best parts of YouTube because after 30 seconds you've paid the same amount for a view, however long it is, right? So if you can provide value and capture people's attention, really like educate them and get them to see you as the expert.

They're much more likely to show up on the webinar. So what we like to do is give you two or three golden nuggets on your ad. So one of them that I do is I let people know that you only pay with YouTube ad if somebody watches more than 30 seconds, right? A lot of people don't know that. So it's a golden nugget. People find that really valuable. I also shared, or some of the basics of targeting YouTube. It's actually kind of funny. I actually show some of the basics of what we just talked about. Isn't the method for scaling it's placement ads. But it's the easiest to demonstrate, right? To get people into, into the rest of my funnel.

And then in my webinar, I talk about, start talking about 3D YouTube ads on a scale, things like that. And so I give this demo, I give this information. Now people want to learn more. They need to learn more. They want to take that next step and sign up for the webinar. And then you have the call to action. That's what gets them off of the video, into the funnel. You gotta make it stupid, simple. Go here, click this button. You register for the webinar and we'll show you exactly how this works.

Mike Mark: [00:33:54]

Love it. Okay, so I want to transition, but before we transition, so for, here, I want to get into kind of like, your actual journey as a business owner, more so, in going to seven figures and well on your way to eight figures.

But before we get into that, there's just a couple questions around YouTube ads and everything we've covered so far. So, one of the big things that Joe Giglietti asks is what's the typical number of paid ad views required to get a click to the landing page. So effectively what's the CTR that you would have as a KPI?

Aleric Heck: [00:34:28]

Yeah. So, obviously it's gonna, it's gonna vary. Typically honestly, we, we look more at conversion rates and leads and conversions. So we're typically looking at is a click through rate. The click through rates, more based off of the way it's set up in there in Google, because Google is based off, everything is more based off of an impression, which you don't actually pay for it. You pay for the views.

So typically, in impression click through rates, we're looking to get, you know, one and a half, like 3%. Sometimes it can be higher than that. Sometimes it's lower and you can have the metrics work out on the leads as well. That's off of impressions. Doing the mental math, that's going to be higher per view.

You know, honestly, that's going to be more like, you know, 5 to 10, like it's going to be higher per view. Views are more than 30 seconds. So if you can get, like, let's say you have like a hundred impressions, right? Which is people that see your ad, you might have 10 people that view it. And then you might want to have, from that, you might have like one or two people that will click on it, or one to three people maybe.

So that overall that's like a one to 3% click through rate from the impression, but you're actually paying only for the views. And so that's where it can get a little tricky with that. Sorry for the complex answer. I'm, I'm kind of analytical like that. So I'll give you the more, more, more analytical answer there.

But I like to look more so at the lead metrics, then the, then the click through rates, but typically on the click through rate, it gives you, you'd want to look for between, you know, like two to 3% if that's the best, but over 1%, absolutely. Because if it's less than that, then you're going to need to change your creative of that.

Mike Mark: [00:36:02]

Cool. And I know Joe's definitely not mad at you for getting analytical. He loves the numbers. So, alright. And then another quick question that someone had was Ryan Heiss. I have two ad words, accounts, both not spending anything, despite everything set up correctly. Have you dealt with this issue?

Aleric Heck: [00:36:17]

So, it depends on how it is set up. There's a couple of things and I'd have to, you know, to, to really know the exact, is where ad with any troubleshooting, right? You know, you kind of have to see exactly, exactly what's going on, but honestly, it's probably not a, it's not something that it's definitely not something that can't be solved and troubleshooted.

There's a couple of key things that I would do is if you're setting up a TCPA campaign, I would try and switch it to maximum versions. And regardless if it's not TCPA or max conversions, I would also run a CPV cost per view. It's a manual bid ad to get some conversions into the campaign that's train the Google tag for what a conversion is, and then run the lead at. So one big problem some people have, and we have a lot of our clients that will start with lead ads and CPV ads. The CPB ads will usually turn off. They do not perform as well as the lead ads, but you need to have some times those ads wanting simultaneously to get conversions so that the lead ads know what's going to work best for a conversion, not all the time, but that is that's something to troubleshoot in that case.

Mike Mark: [00:37:22]

Yeah. And for people who are familiar running Facebook ads, it's effectively, you start with like a traffic objective to then figure out what the conversion objective is and then moving into that. Yeah.

Aleric Heck: [00:37:32]

Exactly.

Mike Mark: [00:37:33]

Exactly. Okay, cool. And then, they said, do you see higher consumption rate of… Lee, we chatted about that, I think, but maybe we could touch on it real fast, higher consumption rate of VSL or webinar on YouTube versus Facebook ads. And then have you tracked the difference on this before?

Aleric Heck: [00:37:50]

A hundred percent? It's a lot easier to track the consumption rate on webinar as you know because we, we, webinar just gives you all the stats and yes, you can track the VSL, but not all of our clients have easy ways to Wistia or whatever to kind of track that.

The consumption rates though, you can, you can see just by the number of people on a VSL that actually book a call like Ahmad, a great example, right? Not as many people booking a call, he was running a VSL on the VSL for Facebook versus YouTube, going very well, but in terms of webinars, we actually do have the hard numbers.

I have heard from a lot of people that are in that 25, 30% on Facebook show up rate, our average across us and our clientsof last time that we surveyed it between 50 and 60%, ours is around that 60% mark. And then in like the fifth, it was 58% at one point kind of fluctuate around that, you know, 55 to 60% show up rate on our webinar and our average webinar consumption time on an hour and eight minute webinar is 53 minutes where we have the offer to book a call at 45 minutes. And that's from these, these YouTube ads.

Mike Mark: [00:38:55]

Yeah. That's just nuts. So now transitioning from here into the actual process of scaling your business, you know. I know, like you've been going at this and the, especially in the past year, you've hit some quantum leaps. So describe at least in the past year, sort of some of those sticking points and then the shifts in the quantum leaps that occurred.

Aleric Heck: [00:39:18]

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And actually it was basically about , it was, it was a year ago that I had hit, or a year and a little bit ago. So you're in like a month ago. Last May was my first, you know, a 100K month, you know, last year. And, I ramped up to that all, you know, all of my, be my own like adviser and you know, we were running ads and the thing was to, I was like these, you know, cause obviously I'm the ads guy. I'm like, I can scale these ads up at time.

And so obviously I needed the, the, the salespeople. I'm sure we'll, we'll get into that. But, you know, honestly the big thing initially for me, in the marketing is always, I think I've actually seen like business owners, there's three main things. Now typically, it's not like the client success side, although I have seen a few, but typically though, those are like the three main things with client success, marketing and sales.

Typically it's not client success. Usually, you know what you're doing? You know, you're an expert, you've got all that blocked in. Sometimes you can build out operations and systems, but it's either the marketing or the sales. And that's why we were talking, you know, when we tag team clients, they just blow up because if you get your marketing dialed into the sales dial, then so for me, it was initially perfecting my sales.

But by this point, exactly one year ago I had done, I had gotten up to a 40% close rate on my calls. you know, we were basically taking a lot, I was taking a lot of calls, you know, and, and getting people to come in. And it actually, by that point, you know, a little bit less, we were more specific on the, on the people I would talk to you.

The big thing that shifted from there was bringing on that first salesperson. And, I brought on, and we were in talks I also had in my network was the first person that I brought on and, you know, David, and it was incredible. And, I saw it go from that 100K to then, you know, 150, 180, 200. And that was, that was insane. But then it was still, I was still taking a bunch of calls. You is now taking a bunch of calls. I was still on the phone. And so I remember at the exact same time, you know, I actually flew out to, and I might begin a timeline a little bit off, but within a one month period, I flew out to, to Paris.

And, there was an event with Jay Abraham. And he told me, cause I had a hot seat, you know, with, with, with him in front of the room and everything like that. And he was telling me in a much more eloquent way than I'm going to stay now, by the way. So I'm not, it's not exact quote, but he was basically telling me that I, you know, I need to trust my team and my process and become the CEO and trust my team to do the sales and that I should bring on more salespeople and I should increase my ad spend because I was like, well, you know, I'm getting a 10 X, you know, as on my YouTube ads and I'm actually, I'm hearing, we might've even been 12 when I was talking to like, I'm like the row as like, it's so insane. And, and, but that's also contingent on me closing 40%, my sales guys close less than that, but really if you look at it, if you want to grow and to scale, you know, both on the closing percentage, and then we also do say the exact same thing on the marketing side, your return on ad spend, right?

As you scale up, as you bring on more salespeople, right? You're going to be able to hit higher highs and overall bigger profit margin, profit numbers as well, maybe not, but profit numbers as well. But based on building up your systems, scaling your ads. So that maybe the, the, the relapse is not as high, but you're making more revenue and more profit and same thing with your sales team.

You're not spending more time on every single call. And so that's when we got in touch and, you know, we brought on, you know, shortly thereafter brought on Joseph. And, I think, you know, we tried somebody else as well.

Mike Mark: [00:42:51]

Even before that. I don't know if you remember, but, David was only doing sets for you.

Aleric Heck: [00:42:56] Oh yes. Yes.

Mike Mark: [00:42:57]

He wasn't doing any closing. And then that was kinda like the, you were like white knuckled hanging onto the rain still.

Aleric Heck: [00:43:06]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:43:06]

We started off at, different than most people would start off working with us, but we started off on more training side of things to get David to shift into the closer role.

Aleric Heck: [00:43:15]

Yes. That's why I was trying to put piece together. Cause I know we brought on and it was December that we brought on Joseph's but like what was going. Yes. That obviously, and sorry, just that, you know, kind of a tip of the mind there, but, absolutely. So that was incredible because what we were able to do is, you know, increase David's closing rate, replaced me on the calls, pull myself off.

I could then focus on expanding, you know, what we're doing, not only for our marketing and to scale our business, but also to grow our team and help our clients more and build out more client success. We built on, I built out new modules. I built out a whole like retargeting machine 2.0, there's so much things that I could do to improve the customer and client experience, client experience, that I couldn't do before when I was on calls, like literally all day. Yeah, that was incredible. And if you want, I can kind of pick up.

Mike Mark: [00:44:05]

Yeah. Yeah. I think some of the interesting things that occurred at least then I'd love to hear your take on it. But, I know for a little bit like the the process of getting David into pocket was like very nerve wracking for you.

Especially in those first few weeks where you'd be like, hitting me up, like, yo, what's, what's going on? When's this going to click? When's this going to click? And, it was like a few talk you off the ledge kind of moments. So I'm just be curious to hear kind of your experience through that. Cause that was a, I think it was a big moment for you.

And then you got the trust with David, you had to kind of almost do that, relearn it with Joseph. And then now I've totally seen, like you've shifted as a leader and how you like trust the team.

Aleric Heck: [00:44:43]

Yeah. And I think that's really, the big thing is, you know, becoming this whole past year, right? Has been becoming about becoming a CEO. It's been about becoming a CEO. And trusting the team, trusting the process, you know, actually having, not micromanaging everything, right? And I think there's a lot of positives to wanting to perfect things and, and really caring about, you know, everything being weld, like detail oriented. But the opposite side is you do have to take a step back and let your team, you know, let your team do things and, and succeed and, go through the process.

And, you know, I knew that it was going to be what I needed, but obviously in the moment it was definitely scary, right? You know, it's different, especially when the closing rate's a lot lower than what you know. You, you know, and, and all of that, but that process and, the way that you were able to walk me through, it was incredible.

And, and that's, you know, obviously a testament to yourself and your team, Mike. But, you know, it was just great to be able to have somebody in place. And I think that's also, that's the feeling, I think, on the other side and, and you get both right. That's the feeling that people have when they can get their marketing in place and their marketing, right?

Because maybe people are running these placement ads or they're running Facebook ads. But, you know, the issue with Facebook is the scalability or the results going all over the place and…

Mike Mark: [00:46:06]

Banned.

Aleric Heck: [00:46:07]

Banned. Exactly, exactly. All of these issues. But then when you get onto YouTube and then you scale up and you get these campaigns that are scalable and longterm, that's where, you know, there's this exciting degree. And so obviously, yes, there's a little bit of testing at the beginning. We have a lot of clients who get sales, even, you know, during that testing period, that's what we strive to have happen, right? It's the same thing with, with, you know, as you're testing your new closer, but once that's dialed in once a closer dialed in. Once the, you know, your, your marketing is dialed in, that's when you have a machine working and that's when business really gets fun and there become so much limitless possibilities.

Mike Mark: [00:46:45]

Yeah. So I remember there was something that's interesting and I'm sure like you have the same experience with your clients, which was a it's the way I described it. I think we actually mentioned this on another interview. We did, but it's a lot like a circuit, right? And you have a circuit, but there's a lot of openings in the circuit.

And so you've got to close that one part and then you got to get to the next part and then close that part of the circuit. And then you've got to get there and close. And then it's like almost only once the circuit closes the lights, come on, right? And I remember with David, there was like, you'd hit me up.

He'd be like, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? And I'd be like, Hey, here's what we're working on. Here's what's going to happen. Here's how it's going to go. And I remember telling you up front, like, it's going to be three to four weeks before you see the shift. And you're like, in those three to four weeks, you're like, Oh my God, like super antsy.

And it'd be like, Hey, this is what we're working on this week. Here's what we're going to focus on. And then again, it was like, it was like, almost like bang on, that third week was when he just like, boom! Turned into an animal and then he just went like crazy since. So, and I mentioned though, it's the same thing, right?

You're testing your ads, you're testing your ads, you're testing your ads. They're sitting there seeing the money going out. They're kind of white knuckling trying to hang onto the rain still, but then it's like, once it clicks on the ad side, it's just like, you see that wall of appointments, like what Ahmad had. And then it's like, Oh, okay. We've got a whole different set of problems now.

Aleric Heck: [00:48:07]

Exactly. That's exactly right. And then you have, then you have new PR cause obviously, you know, once we had, you know, David dialed in and just crushing it and going so well, I remember we had, we had, we had a conversation to where I was like, alright, you know, we're going to get to the holiday season.

We're gonna, you know, we're gonna look for that second adviser in January. Like no way, you know, we're doing, we're doing this now. And so that we can hit the ground running. And that's exactly what I would tell somebody to wi, with YouTube ads and, and, you know, I think you even brought that up as well. It's like, you know, get this, get this, get this dialed in now, and then hit the ground running.

And that was just incredible cause we found, you know, Joseph that way, who, who who's been been, you know, obviously incredible and, and really, you know, a big part of the team and we've been growing it ever since. Now we're at, you know, four adviser or well, one's in training now. And another one that you guys brought over, we've got three main advisors. We've got one in training. So four advisors currently running at four specialists, you know, three of them, kind of our main specialist, one training. And it's just incredible the ability to continue to scale. And, I might be getting ahead of, you know, where you want me to go next, but it's just, it's just great.

Mike Mark: [00:49:15]

Yeah. And so, I noticed a distinct difference once Joseph got in, you kind of like got it where you're like, okay, I kind of can see this thing. And there's still the occasional, like, Holy crap. This is like, you're seeing it at scale. It's so emotional, right? Like it's the, you'll have these two weeks where you're like, where's the deals, where's the deals, where's the deals. And then it's like that next week, it's like, here's the deals. And it's like, almost like a whole month happens in a week and then starting to get accustomed to that pattern in that flow.

Aleric Heck: [00:49:44]

Exactly. And I think, I think though it is, we we've been talking about a lot of the similarities between marketing and sales. There are big differences as well. And I think that's also where somebody, you were actually joking, somebody else in the chat, you know, who also agree with being analytical, right? So somebody who's a little more like, you know, I want to look at the exact numbers, there's a human element to sales. So with numbers and with marketing, You can go in and we didn't even talk about this as much, but you can go in and specifically see this keyword, this particular video you're running an ad in front of this caused a conversion.

This one didn't it's black and white. You can turn off. Not really always, but sometimes there's gray somewhere, somewhere like, okay, is this one good enough, where it isn't, but like basically you can see the data and make an educated decision and turn off what's not working. And typically the results, because this is like leads and applications.

You know, maybe the applications are a little more clumpy, but in general, you know, they, they they're there like every day. But then at least the leaves you can see, okay, everything's tracking well, you have all the metrics. With sales, I think, you know, it's different because it has that human element. And I think it's really good, obviously the way that you guys helped kind of bridge that gap, because I'm sure somebody coming from the human element of sales, there's things you could do to like encourage a sales team to close deals.

Whereas, you know, with your marketing, you can't just like, be like, okay, you know, you know, or whatever, like what's going on? How can we, you know, so the marketing is more consistent, for better or worse than with the sale, it's more human element. But I think the measure of the two, obviously that's what really builds, builds the business. So.

Mike Mark: [00:51:11]

Yup, marketing sales alignment. It's crazy. And then the, the thing though that you're talking about, I think like a big difference between the marketing and sales and we've like had a lot of conversations about this is the cycle time, which you kind of hit on, but like you, your ads cycle so fast, you can get the data in a day.

But with sales, oftentimes, especially as you're starting the scale process, you can't get the data from month. Sometimes it's even longer, like, and then you have to make a change and then observe for another month. So your cycle times are so much slower. It can drive you nuts. And that's like a big part of the sales thing.

And then the other thing is that, you know what you mentioned, it's like, you can look at the data and then see what's there. On marketing, you can do the same with sales. It's just super time-intensive cause you got to listen to the call and then you also have to have the exact experience to know. Okay, on the call, this is where it went off tracks and here's how we're going to coach it. And here's how we're not going to overtrain this person, but we're going to give them just enough that they're going to keep progressing through this until like finding that balance of giving them just enough sales training.

That's going to be the core deficiency. It's a very time intensive process that when you're running a business, oftentimes you don't have the time to listen to all the calls and then figure that out.

Aleric Heck: [00:52:21]

Absolutely.

Mike Mark: [00:52:23]

So one thing I wanted to ask you about, so is the setters, the appointment setters, right? You have a team of three now almost four setters. You got someone in training. A lot of people don't even know that we do appointment setters and we introduce them.

Aleric Heck: [00:52:36]

Oh my gosh!

Mike Mark: [00:52:37]

So I just wanted to ask you about the appointments that are, is kind of like what you're seeing is working, what your experience has been with the appointment setters and like how you're leveraging them?

Aleric Heck: [00:52:46]

Yeah. And that's, that's been incredible, honestly, you know, just the, the, the value that you guys add in the, the appointment setters. It's just, it, you know, it, it's an insane degree of value because it's not just bringing the advisors, it's bringing the appointment setters.

And the other thing too, is I've heard from like everybody else in the industry that it's like the most high turnover appointments setters, all high turnover, et cetera. You know, and yes, there are some trialing at the beginning. But what's been insane, is incredible, is we've gotten some incredible people, these specialists, you know, setters, right. We call them specialists in our business, but you know, setters is the more common term, you know, are incredible. They're incredible people. They're awesome. They're great, you know, valuable and awesome team members. And, they're highly skilled and they're coming in, you know, from, from you guys.

That we can get them on and we can have them come in and consistently get these sets, get these people over the line. They're excited, they're eager. They're a big part of the team and they're incredibly valuable and we can show them, listen, like you're a big part of the team because you're helping set these deals that are, you know, that our advisors are gonna be able to close your triaging.

But at the same time we get in return. These people that really care, because I think the problem was with, with a position like that is, you know, if you don't have the right people, kind of like you guys finding them, you know, theoretically you could get, you could get like a random person, like newer to sales, but they're not going to be the person that's longterm that actually cares about it, who's going to do a good job. You want somebody who really does care and can actually put in that effort. And that's what we found. So we've got, you know, incredible, you know, specialists, specialists on our team, you know, we, we had started off with Corea. Absolutely awesome. You know?

Mike Mark: [00:54:35]

I know that guy.

Aleric Heck: [00:54:36]

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and more recently, you know, Chris and Oberto. It's just, it's been great getting them on the team and, really incorporating them in. Because you know, they're calling a lot of people, but they're setting all the, you know, a bunch of appointments. We added phone number, you know, phone call leads to the top of our webinar. And that's been a, that's been working really well. Calling, calling every lead and getting those people, you know, some trainings, warming them up and then getting them on an advisor calendar.

Mike Mark: [00:55:04]

Yeah. And I think that the other thing that you're experiencing is like, as you've gone from, what are you spending on ads now that you're at like 450 a month? What's your typical monthly ad spend?

Aleric Heck: [00:55:13]

So, we're at like the 115, 120 kinda mark. Honestly, that's, you know, it's, there's a degree of like, kind of the, the, you know, virus and some of the other stuff right now. So that's, that's being completely open and honest, but when you look at the scalability we could on that level, be hitting those 600K and, you know, bringing in healthy profits and everything too. So I think the important thing is when I, when I talk about like row assets, these actually I'm thinking, by the way, when you're talking about building up an advisor team, right?

When you're on your own, you could be doing 40%, but then you're doing, or even 50% of you, if you're really sales oriented, you could be closing like 50%, right? But is that really how you want to scale up. You know, early on running, running my ads, like, you know, 12 X, 10 X row as for a long time. And it's the same thing when we get a lot of clients who come in here too. They get like, they're like 8 X, 10 X. When you want to scale to the hundreds of thousands, you're going to tap into colder markets, but you're going to have much higher revenue and profit at the end of the day, when you calculate all of your everything.

So I just say that too, because it's the exact same thing you're talking about, right? When you're scaling your team, when you're going into different things, that's really important. So you know, about one, you know, 110, 120 part of that, you know, is we do have some people that we're stacking and then we'll do, we'll do 450 off of that. And you know, the goal next month is, or this month is to do 500 or on track. So it's going to be awesome.

Mike Mark: [00:56:43]

So, the point though, that I was, I definitely want to emphasize is like when you're at a hundred, 115 grand a month, if you don't have an appointment setting team, like thinking about just how much opportunities falling through the cracks, like people that just didn't book, they forgot to book, then something happened and then they're able to take all that opportunity and make sure that they're talking with your advisors. It's like complete game changer at that level of ad spend.

Aleric Heck: [00:57:10]

Exactly it really, it really is. It really is. It's, it's awesome. And you're also building that pipeline. So there is, you know, obviously there's a lot of people and we're hitting records. Clients are getting records. Everybody's going to, you know, or not everybody, there's a lot of people in our space we're hitting records right now, despite what's going on in the world, you know, the virus and everything. But there is a degree where there are people who are going to be pipeline for the, for the future. These are more if you cross over. Cause we had a lot of, you know, local, we had a lot of like local, like roofers, solar businesses, you know. Different things like that, that maybe are not like coming in right now that are going to be ready in the future.

Now the people that do come in, it's awesome. And, and we're able to get their ads running. And it's interesting, like we have solar people who are crushing it even, you know, cause you can't go door to door. So then you run your ad and you, you know, you sell it. But there are some people with that objection.

So what you're doing is you're still creating that pipeline and having your specialist handle it because your advisor, if you look at it, right. As much as you want them to be following up with everybody. Like if they very often like, like, like, you know, it's one of those things where even if they haven't even had a call yet, which sometimes happens, how are they gonna know to follow up with everybody?

They have all of these leads coming in. All of these phone calls every day, all day, every day, you need those specialists to be able to, to maneuver those relationships. And you really have a bank. Like each of our specialists has people that will eventually be a call and then, you know, become a client, ideally, that they have pipeline for follow ups themselves.

Mike Mark: [00:58:42]

Love it. I definitely want to be mindful of time where we're a little bit over here. So if anybody wants to find, you wants to know more about getting YouTube ads, scaling with YouTube ads, where can they do that? and then how can they get in touch with you?

Aleric Heck: [00:58:57]

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I put together a page with a few gifts for you guys, just, you know, for listening to these interviews, great primer for everything. If you go to adoutreach.com – A D O. U T R E A C H, ad outreach.com/gifts, you'll actually see a little page. I'll just kind of thank you for being on the interview and, and, and listening to everything. But underneath that, you can see that there's a link to our webinar, our YouTube ads webinar. Remember I told you our habits watch time is 53 minutes.

Yes, that's the YouTube ad, but also we provide value and content on the webinar. You can't force people to stay that long without value. So we've got a lot of value on the webinar. We have YouTube ads for high ticket training, that's on there as well. And a link to our Facebook group, which you're going, of course also searched directly.

It's YouTube ads for entrepreneurs. We're posting trainings. It's kind of like your Facebook group that, you know, we're streaming it. Now we post trainings and post all kinds of different things. Great way to interact with us. And when you guys are ready, feel free to, to book a call, you know, at outreach.com/apply, it'll be on that page as well. And you'll be talking to somebody that like helped a trainer bring in. So it's, it's all.

Mike Mark: [01:00:04]

You'll be talking to us shortly, cause they'll have…

Aleric Heck: [01:00:07]

Better be ready, you know, killer killer combo. It should be a comma. That's awesome.

Mike Mark: [01:00:14]

Well, thanks for joining us Aleric has been awesome. And then I think there's been a ton of stuff here for anybody that's looking to get this going. I'm just scanning the questions real fast. I would say Eddie, I see your question. Jump back in. He actually hits that like in detail earlier. So, I just say catch that on the replay and that looks like that's it. So, we'll wrap this up. Thank you guys for joining. I hope you got a lot out of it. If you would just comment whatever your big takeaway was in the comments below if you've been with us throughout this.

And then also Aleric, I don't know if, if someone were to reach out to you guys, Through the comments, would you potentially reach out to them and just kind of chat them up if they had questions for you specifically?

Aleric Heck: [01:00:56]

Yeah. If you guys have questions post it here and, it might not be me immediately getting back to you, but I'll make sure that myself or somebody from our team will get back to you and we can answer the questions and go from there.

Mike Mark: [01:01:08]

Sweet. So if you guys caught this replay and you got more questions, drop them below and then we'll make sure that you guys get all your questions answered.

Ravi Abuvala Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:00]

What's up fam? I am here with Ravi Abuvala. We got already a few people live with us. What up Houston? What up, Forrest? So if you guys don't know who Ravi is already, what he's been able to do in a really short amount of time has been pretty spectacular. I mean, well, Ravi, you were in Medellin at what point? It was about a year ago?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:00:21]

Literally just, just had a, one year ago today of Jeff and I was sitting in the WeWork in new Colombia yesterday, so, yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:00:27]

And then, so where was your revenue level when you were there?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:00:31]

Oh, we were doing probably consistency consistently, like 30 to 50 K a month, I think, around that time.

Mike Mark: [00:00:38]

And then where are you right now?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:00:40]

And the month of April, we did close to $400,000.

Mike Mark: [00:00:45]

That's awesome. and that's, that's crazy. I mean, that's true. 10 X without being corny about it.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:00:52]

So you just said that. Yeah, I guess.

Mike Mark: [00:00:53]

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's, if you guys are on here, I mean, that's truly amazing to go from 30 grand a month to 400 grand in a month.

And especially to do it at a point in time where it's the midst of a global pandemic, right? And everybody's panicking. People are literally shutting down businesses. People are depending on government handouts in order to be able to survive. And in here you are having record month over month growth.

And the cool part is, is that, so much of what you do inside of your business isn't actually being delivered by your team members as opposed to you. And so you're also just, I want to highlight this for anyone here. You're running two separate businesses, actually, right? I am. Yeah. So what are the two separate businesses and then kind of what's the revenue breakdown of each of those that contractures?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:01:42]

So I'm essentially in many in Columbia doing the 30 to 50 K a month, and that was, I'm not just making numbers up and that's why there's a huge swing for 20 grand. It's because like, it would literally, I have an advertising agency called prospect social. That was my first ever online company. And I scaled that to seven figures, but in the majority of the life cycle of that company, we're working with real estate agents and the churn rate, if anybody hears where real estate is insane, so it would literally be some months, that'd be okay, someone's even 20 K.

I mean, I would just be, it was an unbelievable cycle. We transitioned over to a lot steadier, a business model on that. At one point, we had over 200 real estate agents.

I had almost 20 employees in that company. It was insane. And then it was just too much. It wasn't the lifestyle that I thought I wanted. So I scaled that to a different model where we essentially sell leads to the guys that sell leads to real estate agents or the guys that sell leads to lawyers or doctors or whatever it is.

So we sell to lead aggregates. So instead of having 250 agents and doing, you know, a 50 to a 100 grand a month, depending on what the packages are. Now that we have, I have really 10 to 12 clients that are buying. Thousand two thousand three thousand four thousand dollars or 4,000 leads a month from us.

And then while I was in Medellin, Colombia, I actually was posting on my Facebook page, I think it was a week ago, another, like this time last year. It was a photo of me in front of a whiteboard that I had my roommate, Jeff, taken me. And it was the highlight of what essentially would become scaling with systems, which is when I originally started working with you, Mike, and got the amazing team that you gave me.

And so I was doing zero in that, which is my coaching program where we place virtual assistants. But now fast forward to about a year, prospect's social does about, it's actually the majority of the revenue share. But we're at a lower profit margin, so approximately social does about 260 to 280 K a month but it's only with three employees, myself and account manager and an ads manager.

And then I have Scaling With Systems. And that pretty much makes the other, revenue share of that up. But just for everyone that's listening, when people hear 500 K a month, when I started hearing like 500 K a month, they'll say like, so my advertising agency, we run at close to about a 20% profit margin on that.

And then for scaling the system last month, I just, the numbers were about 65% profit margin on that.

Mike Mark: [00:04:02]

Nice. Yeah, and I mean, you and I get this because of the perspective that we have, where it's like a hundred grand a month isn't that much money. Right. And even like, like I feel like even several hundred thousand dollars a month, that's like not that much money.

Like, and you know, in my head, I have this concept that if things start to really change at a million a month. But I really don't even believe that. I think I'm probably going to get there. And then it's gonna be like, Oh, that's not even that much money.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:04:28]

My idea that like, you know, you have to, I mean, I would literally, so I keep a journal and I have like 15 journals and like I remember I read, I'm making $5,000 a month.

I mean. I remember when $10,000 a month seemed like life-changing money, and then you really realize that after tax that $10,000 a month is really nothing, right? That's the work you're doing that it's $20,000. That is 50,000 there's a hundred thousand then it's half a million, and then, yeah, I agree. I'm on the, we're on the track to a hundred a million a month right now.

That's what we're doing as well. But yeah, I mean, realistically speaking, after you take out all expenses and everything and then your profit margin, it's not even a crazy amount of money. Yesterday was a good bit amount of money, don't get me wrong, but for the goals that I'm sure you and I both have.

It's like, you know, it does, it's not enough. Right? It's not enough. And money, I think number one should be impact and money should follow. but, you know, I always say it, and I still talk about it in my program as well. Like, unless you're a fraud, you can't do half a million a month or a million a month without having some kind of value or impact on your clients.

Mike Mark: [00:05:24]

So, I want to kind of ask you something about that. When you say impact, I feel like impact's one of those corny words that people use. So what they, what do you mean when you say impact?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:05:37]

I love that. And yeah, call me out on my bullshit. If I say anything that you're like, yeah, this guy's a fraud. So for me, the impact.

I didn't, you're right. I'll be, I'm going to be totally transparent. This whole video, a year ago when I was running my advertising agency, when I talked about impact, it was with real estate agents and real estate agents. And honestly, I, that was the corny rubbish, right? That was like the, Hey, let me say it for a PR.

Talk about impact. In reality, I really didn't mean a whole lot to me, right? I was, I was in a kind of a poisonous industry. I was making money, but I was in kind of a poisonous industry in this life cycle. And, now though, the impact that I have, in scaling with systems, and even in my advertising agency as well as like, we're working with fewer people that have more money and like, so I know you were about to have a kid, right?

We're just talking about a second ago, which is awesome. So, Taylor and Joel, they joined our program a few months ago and like, he was having a daughter and he posted inside of our Facebook group. He was like, today, my wife had an emergency C section. I had to get rushed to the hospital and went in there.

A beautiful baby girl was born. That's where I got the Ravina joke from. I told him he needed a name, her really on it, but a beautiful baby girl was born and he put it up a really beautiful post in our Facebook group and it was like, you know, shout out to Ravi Abuvala and the Scaling With Systems team because this whole time our closures had closed two new, new, real estate agents.

They got onboarded, and we started the fulfillment process. And the entire time I get to focus on my wife and my brand new kid and make sure everybody's healthy and I know that my business is running in the background. So like that kind of impact where I know these people's names and I know that before they were working just like 8,000, 120 hour weeks and not really moving anywhere to now be able to, I mean, they're talking about going Halloween, like trick or treating with our kids.

He's like, I don't know, the last time I went trick or treating with my kids. And then the other side of it with us as well is, part of scaling was systems. As you know, as we place virtual assistants from the Philippines and we like a training center there. And as of, literally beginning of April, we hit 500 virtual assistants place.

If for our clients, in North America, the UK or whatever it is, which it's really easy to get caught up in the, Oh, like US-based clients and they're doing this and they're doing that and they're making a hundred thousand dollars a month. But the cool thing about what we're doing over in the Philippines is we're taking people that were working at AT&T, Amazon, these big companies where they are just nobody, and they're just a number for them.

And if they don't hit certain metrics on a monthly call sheet, they won't pay them that month. And like, they don't have really any skills and we're not talking about the ones that aren't Upwork or fiber who know how to do it. We're actually taking it through a whole training process and allowing them and teaching them how they can work from home, just like we want to work from home right now as well.

And so, like, just recently I'm getting emails that are like, you know, thank you so much from these Filipino virtual assistants, that's like, thank you so much, the whole call center that I worked at for five years is shut down right now. But because we joined your program and were placed with the client, and that client is still in business because they're an online business, they're still able to work and feed their family right now, even in the isolation.

So that's the kind of impact that I'm talking about where I'm like genuinely like it actually makes me emotional thinking about our changing lives here and, and in the Philippines.

Mike Mark: [00:08:44]

That's cool. Yeah, and with the people in the Philippines, I mean, people on the outside who have no idea or any concept of what you're doing, they will attack you and say stuff like, you know, you're taking advantage of people in third world countries and blah, blah, blah, and like they don't really understand what these people have to go through on a day to day basis.

It's like, they'll drive four hours to go to that BPO work center. They'll work a 12-hour day and then they'll drive four hours back and they'll get paid less than $2 an hour to work at the BPO center. And then here you've given them the opportunity where, yeah, they're making $3 an hour, but they're doing it from the comfort of their own home.

They bought back four hours of their life commuting. They're working where they have a lot more flexibility and control over their schedule. They're able to spend the time with their family. They before that was nonexistent. Their kids did part of it probably didn't even know who they really were almost, unless it's the weekends and like when you can really see that change too.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:09:43]

Yeah. It's insane too because, and you've nailed it. And I know you've worked over there, cause he even said BPO. Most people don't even know what a BPO is. So like, I know that you know, the industry over there and yeah, it's like, you know, my, our, essentially call center virtual assistant for my own company, and she worked for ATNT and she was sick for three days and she missed her call quota by three, by three calls.

And they didn't pay her that BPO didn't pay her for that entire month. Right. So it's just.

Mike Mark: [00:10:08]

Insane.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:10:08]

It's insane how, yeah, you're right. For people on the outside, they don't think it's [inaudible], but like we are, I'm not, not me, but my team and everybody over there is literally changing lives over there. And the coolest part about it is like, so my birthday was last Sunday, and, we, my team in the Philippines, they're on lockdown and it's illegal for them to get together.

But on, if you guys look at my Facebook, you'll see I posted something. We had a daily meeting with our team the other day, and they got together like 30 or 40 of the people that we've placed before in the local area and the training center, and they literally threw a party for me in the Philippines with a birthday cake and all that stuff.

And so it's like, you know, if you're on the outside, they're like, Oh, you're taking advantage of these people, but I dare you to message these people and just say like, do you feel like you're being taken advantage right now? Because we're literally training them on skills that, that eventually they could even start their own business that they want as well.

So just like anything else, most people that don't understand something, they just make assumptions. But if you actually dig a little bit deeper, you can see that it's really incredible work that these people are doing and who was part is we placed them with really great people in the United States or the UK or Canada, that like you're building a real business with real people and it's just a lot more refined that way.

Mike Mark: [00:11:16]

So clearly you have the virtual assistant thing down to a science. What are some of the most common mistakes people make when they go to hire virtual assistants?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:11:26]

Yeah, great question. So the first thing that I noticed is like if you go to like Upwork or Fiverr or anything like that, you can get incredible people there, do not get me wrong.

And I actually still, people think that I'm like, I ban those sites. I use those sites all the time. If I need like a one-off graphic design or I need like a one-off something where like it's a specialized skill where it wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense to train somebody on it, then I'll pay five, seven, 10, 15, $40 on Upwork or fiber to get that thing done one time.

But the issue was that. The people in Upwork and Fiverr, there are business owners, so they're not your employee, so if you go under or whatever it is, they don't really care to be honest with you. They have plenty of other clients that they can move to and work with. You know, it's like, I used to work, we use closers.

I didn't work with me full time. Right. I was just like one of the closer’s clients. And when that's the case, they're not as invested in, dedicated to you. And one of the biggest things I've learned about having like fully dedicated employees under the virtual assistants, closers, CEO a COO, is whatever it is, is that in their free time, they're thinking about ways to optimize your business and thinking about ways to make yourself better and researching stuff.

And the free time of Fiverr VA's or Upwork VA’s, wherever it is, they're thinking about how can I make money from somebody else? so I just think there's a huge different mentality shift between those two types of people. If they live and die by your check, they're going to do everything that they can to increase that profit margin for you and for your company, et cetera, et cetera.

So that's probably the first thing that I see is going out to those instead of getting an in house one. And then the second one that I see just way too often is, just they think it's the virtual assistant's fault, but more often that's not. What I see is, people not having a really clear set of instructions on what they want them to do.

I mean, more often than not, I talk about it in my video sales letter. It's like, getting a virtual assistant and hiring one before you actually know what you want them to do. And then getting upset at them for not doing it right is like telling a waiter that you don't really care what you eat for dinner.

And then when they bring it out to you, you throw it in their face, right? It's like, how am I gonna have any idea what you want? And so the secret in that is like. Come up with, we call them KPIs. Obviously, you know what it is, key performance indicators and it's like deciding what do you want them to do? And we don't like to do like emails sent out a day, cold call Sunday cause those are really just like pump and dump numbers almost.

We like more like how many quality conversations did you have, how many appointments were booked, you know, that those kinds of numbers. If you can say, Hey, look, I'm hiring you for, I want you to generate 10 appointments a week using cold email. Here's the way that I want you to do it. Do you have any questions about that?

They say, no. Then you can start working together and build a relationship. But most people are just like, I want 10 appointments a week. Alright, go. And the way the Filipino culture works is like, they're very prideful people. And they also never want to upset you. So they would rather not ask you for help and not send it when they don't know how to do something cause they think that you might get upset at it. So you just have to make sure the lines of communication are super clear. And we've even gotten to the point where like my virtual assistants will correct me when I make mistakes, which I always mentioned them.

I'm like, thank you for literally showing me that I did this wrong, like, and I, and I built that trust up over a year and a half with these people. So yeah, just having really clear expectations, really clear communication, and then hiring someone who's an employee in your company, a team member, a family member, versus just like an outside contractor.

Mike Mark: [00:14:41]

Interesting. And. I really liked the idea of what you're saying with someone who's fully dedicated to you. That's like, it's interesting for us because in the sales side of things, there's like this messaging that's being put out there, and that's kind of [inaudible out that these sales reps needed to go get their own business.

They need to not depend on any one business owner, but. It's not about, and this is kind of what I said back to the person when we were talking about, it's like monogamy is healthy, right? Like there's a reason why have monogamous relationships exist in the world. It's that because it's healthy and if you find a situation where you're both far better off in this situation than any other situation, is that really stupid and dependent and slavery?

No. That's a choice. They chose to be there and you chose to be there and if you're both making that choice to be together and to contribute towards the greater cause. Right. Cause it's also about like, like what you pointed out is that. They're spending time thinking about ways to grow the business, but, and especially if you make the business about something more than you and your own financial interests and your own financial freedom, like most business owners, you guys, if you're in here, you probably started your business to become financially free and you sat with the calculator and the napkin and you calculate it.

If I get five clients and they're each worth five grand, then I make 25 grand a month, and you did your client money math, right? But, after a given level, you can't retain people to want to spend their waking hours when they're in the shower, when they're driving, when they're on the weekend, when they're doing stuff that's outside of their typical working hours, they're not going to contribute that time towards your financial freedom.

They're going to contribute it towards something that's meaningful, that's bigger than all of us, and you have to be a leader and show them that. And I think when you talk about it Ravi, you do a great job because it's like your team members can see. And even I want to highlight something you did, which is you deferred the credit.

You know, like I gave them, well, my team gave these people the jobs and you even corrected yourself when you started saying that because it's like they can see the impact of the work that they're doing. So they spend their waking hours trying to figure out how to do more work and do it better and faster and create more leverage. And it's just like, so.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:16:58]

Well said. That's honestly one of the best ways I've heard of a breakdown of that and I'll even add onto that as well. One of the number one questions I get is like, Ravi, how do these virtual assistants work for you for $3 to $5 an hour and you're making 400 grand a month, right?

Are they going to steal your sauce? Are they going to run away? Whatever it is, and it's because we've, like you just said a second ago, we built a family and a company that's not, if it's AF, if everyone there is after $5 then the sales guys are going to be gone soon. The virtual system is going to be gone soon.

The account manager's going to be gone to them. If everyone's just out for dollars, then yeah, if it's a purely money-driven company, then yes, you would have an issue with only paying someone this amount of money with, but like it's, you know, the messages that these people get every single day, even the ones in the Philippines, the one that they get from the people that they're working with, to place them with jobs.

I mean, it's emotional. We'll read them on our date, on our weekly meetings every single Monday. Some of the emails we get from other virtual assistants, and so that's like so fulfilling for them. I mean, they're like, they're like people in there, in the Philippines, in [inaudible] city. They're like regarded very highly because of what they're doing for our clients and in our clients and like our sales reps, like some of the incredible guys that we got from you.

Like they get messages from guys that are like, I cannot believe we broke through this like, and, and my, my guys non-included inside the program and not, I didn't ask them to do this, will like get on a one on one call the people that they close and help them with sales training and help them with whatever else it is because they just thoroughly want to see them succeed.

I'm not paying them any more money for it. Like that's, that's the truth. I'm not paying them any additional money for that extra one on one time, but they see the bigger picture and they see the value inside of it. And I'm just super, super blessed. There's a great book. I just made it to my roommate, Jeff.

But there's a great book called Good to Great by Jim Collins, and it's like when you can get the right people. So I am, I tell you what, I am literally, it's not that I'm trying to be like humble. My team is unbelievable right now. We have it so dialed in and like, the reason that is the case is because I read that book and I realized how important really great team members are.

And so like, yeah, that's, it really all boils down to that. It's like having a community and our culture at your business where it's like. It's not about money. Look, we all love making money. Don't get me wrong, but it's like the impact and the change changing the lives is first, and then it's like, great. And then we get paid at the end of the month for it as well.

Mike Mark: [00:19:13]

Yup. And I think that when you also spend time to educate your team members is another big part of it, right? Like, I imagine you spend a lot of time educating your team members. I didn't know internally for us, we, I do this a lot where I teach our team accounting, so even if they're not an accounting person, they understand that when we make a certain amount of money, they know where all the money goes.

They know who gets kind of what, and like they have at least some general idea that it's not like, there's a person who's running off with all the money and then they're getting there, they're sitting there getting screwed. They understand that like what we make in revenue trickles through the rest of the business, that the business has its own cash on hand demands and needs, and so we have to prioritize those demands and needs to make sure we have the cash on hand so that the business can then continue reinvesting into growth to continue getting better than everybody else, to continue beating our competitors to continue really like, actually doing the work that we're here to do, and when they all see that, it, I think you get a different person on your team then when you just kind of keep them in the dark all the time.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:20:23]

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. And on top of it, it's like, you know, like you just said it really well, it's going to go, it's not like anybody's running away with all the money, right.

Like, so the other day I posted on my birthday, we rented a bunch of Ferrari's. We drove around and like I posted like, should I buy this Ferrari? And everyone's like, yeah, I was never going to buy a Ferrari. I'll tell you the variety here, this like, right? Cause like I, that's not who I am. And that's not what I would do.

But it's like, my team sees that like, you know, we're putting all the money that we're making right back into the business and ads and hiring coaches and hiring consultants and working with people like you to make our process even better and more defined. So it's like they get it.

And like, even right now. I set the interpretation when, when COBIT hit, I set the expectation like, look, right now advertising costs are down like we can, our CPMs are super low, so what I'm going to do right now is I'm just going to put the pedal to the absolute metal and I don't want to go on the red, but the four one to one on, on expenses and cash in between buying assets and advertising and paying for like coaching programs and email lists, all that stuff.

I'm totally fine with that. And so I said the explanation in the beginning, like, Hey, we're going to be picking up speed right now and we're not going to be slowing down. And it's okay if we don't even make money this month because I just want to capture as much attention as humanly possible. And for the first two weeks, that's what happened.

Other than the last two weeks, it ends up being one of the best cash of months we have ever had so far. And there's just, cause I put it pedal to the metal on it. And my team was behind us the entire time. So yeah, it's a big part. My team in the Philippines, they pay payroll to themselves and they pay it to the sales team and they paid the whole C level executives.

She, cause she was from, Meljane and she was from me with me and my first employee from a year and a half ago. So she has asked my PayPal all my stuff. So she's paying out our top salesperson and she's paying out, you know, the virtual assistant that she works with. And so she sees the discrepancy and money there.

But also the other really great thing as well as like, I think people inside of our company, at least they understand like the value they add versus the money that they get back and like instead of saying, Hey, I want more money, I've had team members come to me and say, Hey, how can I add more value so I can get a percentage of profit or so I can whatever it is.

And they come to me, ask me for more responsibilities. And like when people come to me like that, I'm always like, let's figure this out versus someone just like, Hey, I want more money, or I'm leaving. Then I'm like, all right, well then this is obviously about money for you, so then you can leave.

Mike Mark: [00:22:43]

Yep. That's, that's an interesting distinction too because I, I do like, there are a lot of salespeople, cause you know, obviously, that's our zone of genius is dealing with salespeople.

A lot of salespeople come with this, like pay me more or I'm out of here, almost like a threat type of offer. And it's like. First of all, buddy, I don't respond well to threats. So that's not gonna work. And second of all, like, do you understand accounting? Do you understand the economics and the unit economics of the business?

Do you understand these things? Cause I don't think you do, otherwise you wouldn't be asking for more money. You would already know that you get paid more than the CEO of the company. Like in a lot of the sales reps that we work with get paid more than the business owners or the CEOs. They just don't know that cause they don't understand the math, you know.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:23:30]

And there's so much of a culture fit too as well. It's like the guy we, so I'm gonna give you an example. We hired another rep and we made the mistake and I didn't go through you. Right. This is somebody else that was like a referral from somebody else and like there's so much I know. I know, but this is, I ate it, right.

I'm eating my own words right now. Cause like it was just, someone else was like, Hey, this is the guy who's looking for work and we needed somebody. And it was like, just be quick. And so I did it. And like, you know, it kind of crashed and burned and it crashed and burned on my own face. And like, we spent a lot of time and energy investing in this guy and like, he wasn't, never turned his camp.

And these are little things, right, but never turned his camera on whenever we're doing our daily meeting calls, never asked any questions, never gave any opinion, never laughed at any jokes, never joined in any of the Slack channels, like banter or whatever it is, like totally removed himself from it all.

And then, we were doing payouts and, I usually do payout at a certain time, but because I was traveling, I didn't get to do it to later on that night. And the first message I've ever gotten to him from him for 30 days, it was like, where's my money? Where's my money? And I was just like, ah, this is just the wrong kind of fit right inside of our culture here.

So like I let them go because it was just like. Like, I was going to pay the guy, trust me. I've never missed paying any one of my employees. And I was traveling, I was on a plane. But, it's just interesting how you have to, and you don't really understand it until you have employees. And like until, and I think Mike, the cool thing about you and I is that like not only do we have our own employees, but we're dealing with other employees of other companies as well, right?

So we have a super unique insight onto, what makes really great employees. I think I'm really blessed for both. We're really blessed to have that observation. And so like, before, I probably would have kept that guy on just because he was producing cash and I was like, yeah, whatever. We still want to make money.

I'll deal with it. But now it's just like I would rather have fewer people make less money and just have more fun and more of like a cultural and family fit and like, let me just get as many bodies on this company as humanly possible so we can just suck in as much cash as possible.

Mike Mark: [00:25:21]

Yeah, that's an interesting distinction you've made cause it's like, we do have a lot more data on what makes teams work and what makes teams not work. And like asking the questions as to, you know, from a leadership perspective, why did this break down? And from a team member's perspective, why did this break down? And I think like some of the things too with, with culture, culture is really interesting because.

Culture is so nebulous, right? Values are very nebulous and you don't really know what your culture is until you start adding people in and then you watch your culture reject them. Right? Your culture is its own organism in a way, and your business's its own organism. And it starts to eject people naturally.

Like they just, you ain't supposed to be here. And everyone knows it and it's, it's really weird.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:26:09]

I actually like it a lot and I've never heard of it. And so, like, like in a [inaudible] people, but that's so very true. And it felt like the guy that I was talking about, and he's a great guy. There's nothing wrong with them. Like, you know, but it just, it did feel like he wasn't supposed to be, it just felt like we were forcing the relationship almost.

And like, you don't have to do that in business. You really don't have to do that. And, and I think Joel Kaplan, I know he was just on here as well, like, him and I have done business a few times and a bunch of different things. And one time he told me like. Like with him and I literally buy stuff from each other all the time.

And like one time I was like, isn't that funny how like most people like giving away stuff for free to their friends and they said it really well. He's like, if you can't do business with your friends, then like what's the point of it? Right. And I think that's really true. Like, like I honestly really cared about all the people inside of my company.

Like I would have them sleep over at my house. Like everybody in the company, they could sleep in my houses and black out. Don't bother me at all. And for me it makes me love work so much more when that is the case, when I like just really care about those people and they really care about me. And then that makes me want to work more inside of it, which in turn makes us more money.

So yeah, it's an interesting cycle, but that's really, I'll have to remember that the cultural objection people, cause that's actually a hundred percent of what happened.

Mike Mark: [00:27:20]

Yeah, it's cool. It's cool to watch it kind of develop itself in a way, and then, then I feel like we aren't even creating the culture. We're just curating the culture, right? Like the culture. It's almost like we're like, gardeners that have to tend to this garden and the gardens growing on its own, and we're just here to kind of observe what naturally is growing and then help it grow in the direction that it's supposed to, as in like trim out things and kind of a, you give certain things a little bit more light in.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:27:52]

You're really good with damn metaphors. I'll tell you that. The funny thing is that I, some part of this like a high level mastermind, like eight-figure entrepreneurs inside of it. And I went to this eight-person event, the first one I went to and I just paid like, you know, it was almost 40 grand. And so we go to this thing and I'm sitting down there and the first day, the guy, the only thing he talks about is values, values, and culture.

And this was like a nine, eight, nine months ago, and I'm like, dude, get to the fucking ads. Get to the funnels, like can we get to the point? Part where it's like, you know what, what's the often paid secret? What's the email automation secret? And it really wasn't at the end of the thing. He was like, you guys should get these books and you'll understand this more.

And he talked about, this one right here, which is Sam Walton's, makeup, Making In America, Made In America, excuse me. And then, Jeff Bezos had The Everything Store. And both those guys are so, like so much culturally driven and values-driven inside of their company. That's how they're so successful in the end.

Even when, cause Amazon, you know everything about Amazon, like Jeff Bezos, they're high-level executives. They pay for parking at the Amazon campus. And they, for the longest time was Sam Walton when they were making multi like eight or nine figures. They're high-level executives were flying. Hmm. I'm a first-class and they did not have a private jet.

And so it's like, why would you when you know that the company's making so much money and you know that the owner has all this money, that it's worth all this much on this stuff, why would you agree to do a sit in a shared hotel room with six guys? That's what happened with Sam Walton when they went to the New York trade show. Six guys, six grown men in one hotel room, and they all float a coach over there.

And that's because you, you share the same values. And so like that's one thing that we're looking for inside of our company and is like, do they share the same values as us? Right? So like frivolous essentially, where it's like, I think that frugality breeds creativity, so it's like they're not just like, Oh yeah, so we have a 65 profit margin, percent Bravo, so should we buy a bunch of software or should we care a little bit more about like.

How we're spending the money that we have right now. How can we increase the profit share more and more and like honesty and communication and these things that are just needless buzzwords? You think that people just say to say almost like the impact or that we talked about earlier, but if you actually have an interview with people and you write that down and you hang it up in your virtual office or whatever it is, and you say it every single meeting, it does like just, it adds a fuels to that culture and just starts creating a culture and at some point of your company becomes big enough.

You can't do the hiring process anymore. Like it's just gonna be impossible to see everyone who gets hired at Amazon. So that's why it's like the first few people that you hire inside of your company need to really embody that culture and those values that you have. Because there's a good chance that those people are eventually going to hire the next set of people.

And if they are not in the same values that you are, then eventually those people are going to have not the right values. And then, but you keep them on board so that those people are not gonna have the right guys. And the next thing you know, you have this monster, this literal monstrosity. People that you hate to be around that don't share the same values, but you're literally so engrossed in it that you can't get out of it.

And so for us, I used to live in that culture, which just this like super boring word that like didn't really mean anything and I just want to make a million dollars per month, but now I know that I will never even get to the million-dollar a month Mark without the right culture inside of our company.

Mike Mark: [00:31:02]

Yeah. That's interesting. So in the process of you starting to evolve and starting to delegate more and more and more. What, what was like one or two major epiphanies that you had? You know, outside of culture and some of the stuff that we've talked about. What were sort of these like things that maybe you bang, like we're banging your head against the wall, banging your head against the wall, and then you made this shift and kind of had up, Oh my God, this thing's really working now?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:31:32]

So, and it's funny, I'm going to say them and everyone's would be like, Oh, that's so boring. But like, if anybody really knows what an epiphany is, it is just like, Oh yeah. Like it's like, it's like, it's like that was obvious the whole time.

Why did I not even really think of that? Right? It's like you just see something from whatever perspective. So like the first one, and I recommend everybody that's watching this, whether it's alive or the replay, whatever it is. And I appreciate you guys sticking around for this is, is like consistent and predictable lead generation.

So like one of the greatest things is, I know, I'm pretty sure you just got it. The same thing Mike, like your sales closers, should not be generating cold, new appointments, like absolutely. Like they should, that you need to think of your closers as like. Professional athletes, like professional athletes, they don't, they don't know where, they don't like look up hotels to stay at.

They don't look at the flights are going to stay at, they don't think about what food they're going to have, what exercises they're going to do. They just show up and someone else has all the work for them. And when it's time to perform, they perform. And that's really how we treat the people, the closures inside of our company.

And so like we have fully dedicated outbound sales reps who don't close deals, who generate appointments. Then we have ads and funnels and all that stuff as well. And so one of the biggest epiphany moments for me was having consistent lead generation separate from my closers and separate from referrals that are bringing in new business every single day.

So whether it's like sending three to 5,000 cold emails a day, whether it's LinkedIn, automation, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook ads, YouTube ads, LinkedIn ads, whatever it is, it's making sure, and this is something as the CEO of the company that I take on personally. I made sure that my sales reps' calendars are full every single day.

And so whether that is email blast, a warm lists, increasing advertising spend, you know, maybe lowering the barrier for people to book an appointment with us so we can have a little more appointments. Whatever it is, I just try to have consistent lead generation. And that is what has been the essentially J curve that has been our company.

And when we talk about a year ago, to now, has been that in two years, I have not had a day where we did not have lead generation going on. Right. And just over time, it compounds and compounds and our sales cycle is not like, you know, one call close. I don't want to say that those days are behind us, but I will say buyers are a little more aware and they are, you know, they do a little more shopping and have a little more questions, whatever it is.

So like our sales cycle can be five weeks long. And you know, if I just like do lead generation until we get somebody that's about to close, and then I wait for that person to close to do lead generation again, I'm just on this like roller-coaster ride. That's unbelievable. So that's probably the first epiphany moment that I had inside the company.

It was like, hire a virtual assistant or learn funnels or set up automation so that no matter what, your calendar is full every single day for either you to take calls or for your team to take calls.

Mike Mark: [00:34:09]

Yep. Makes sense. And I think, right. So most of the business owners listening to this too, they'll have this experience where if you've ever done 20 or 30 grand in a month and you've done it by yourself, especially, you know what it's like to be on the Seesaw where like one month, you're, you're making a lot of sales, and then you're like, Oh, snap, now I've got to go into fulfillment mode. And then you get 30 60 days later and then you got no sales and you're like, Holy crap, I got to get something fast to get sales. And then once you're on sales, you've got no work. And like you just keep going like this.

And if you ask your sales reps to do prospecting, it's the same thing. It's just a microcosm of that event, right? Because if they're closing and they're closing a lot, they're not going to be prospecting. And then if they're out prospecting, they're not going to be closing as much. And so you just have that Seesaw effect where you're like, eh, it's almost like a cartoon where you see them constantly trying to run back and forth either.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:35:04]

And. And my email list. I literally, I don't know if you saw my email this or not, or I'm on Facebook, but I just posted a photo that I drew the other day and it was literally like a roller-coaster like this, and it was like, you don't know when you're coming up the Hill right here and you're working hard on prospect and you're working a hundred possible.

They finally get to the top, you get a client, and then you started going down a little bit, and then you have the new fulfillment other then that client leaves you for whatever reason, right? COVID 19, their kid gets sick, they get a divorce, their house goes under anything. It doesn't have to be related to you.

All of a sudden that client leaves you and now you're back up on that prospect and didn't get in. And that was what my first like eight months in business was like. That's why I did $3,000 in my first eight months of business because it was just like I was doing everything myself and it was just this roller coaster ride.

I was 40 pounds heavier than I am now. Like I just wasn't healthy. I thought this entrepreneurship thing wasn't for me, and then it was like literally that epiphany aha moment, which was like. Well, what if I just get somebody else to do the stuff that needs to happen every day? Like the lead generation, that's easily outsourceable.

Right? Sales is not easily outsourceable. That's why you have a great job because you're really well needed. That's why we hired you inside of our company and it worked out really well because like that's not a really easy job to do, but, but someone that can send three to 5,000 emails that has the same messaging or LinkedIn messages, that's something that you can definitely have go out.

And even if, the quality is not incredible. If you can just get the quantity up in the beginning and then you can start running paid ads or whatever else it is in the backend, then you can really start getting some interaction. But most business owners, and I was doing this for a presentation an event I spoke at a few months ago, it's like the small business association said that if you are a Solopreneur, so you're the only person inside of your company that your company employees on average United States, you make $67,000 a year.

Right? So whatever that is a month, right? So was that five, six grand a month? And then if you have up to 10 employees, your average annual revenue in the United States is $5 million a year. So literally at the 10 employees, the difference is just the number of employees at the number that they looked at.

And obviously there's a bunch of different variables in there, but the point being like. You can not do it all by yourself and you will burn out so fast and to do it all by yourself. And I think the quickest way you can get places is number one, hiring people and the number two, hiring coaches.

Those are the two biggest things that changed my life and everything that I do cause the coaches part, like I worked with you, I knew plenty of people that could have been sales guys like, but I was like, look. And I actually talked to you when I was in, Spain. I was living in…

Mike Mark: [00:37:27]

Barcelona

Ravi Abuvala: [00:37:28]

Yeah, yeah. On the call, and, I forgot who referred you to me, but, you were like, I knew.

Well, I did my homework and I was like, this guy is awesome. And we got on the call and I was like, look man, I don't want to do the whole training. I don't want to find them. I've had problems with before, like, can you just speed me up to the end part? And you're like, yeah, we can do that. And that's literally exactly what I did.

And all the guys that you gave me, we still have a year later inside of our company right now. And guess what? The exact thing that I was talking about earlier about people like. Well, spending their free time working on your business instead of trying to find somebody else. That's exactly what the guys you gave me.

We just had our daily meeting this morning and like one of the guys like, Hey, this old offer, I used to work a while ago, they did this. I think you should do it as well. I was thinking about that yesterday on Sunday when I was on a walk and I was like, that's a fucking awesome idea, man. And I appreciate your feedback on that.

And like instead of him thinking about how am I going to make more money and how am I going to go start my own business using about how can you make our business even more efficient? So it all kind of plays together in that.

Mike Mark: [00:38:26]

Yeah. I, that's like the greatest thing ever when you hear that. It's like, yeah, I was in the shower, I was thinking about this or I was up, I was up last night, I couldn't sleep and I was thinking about this.

It's like, yes, love hearing that. Cause like that's a good indication that your team members are actually invested in the journey and like in going on the process of scaling with the rest of the team. So I think we're kind of touching on it. You said something about how like, hire out the predictable marketing stuff that's easily higher-out-able and then stuff that's not easily hire-out-able, like a salesperson.

Hunter S asks the question here, he said, I'm currently at about 50 clients. A full schedule for sales. So it sounds like he's done the predictable marketing thing, hiring a sales guy soon. Number one, where do I find the best? Number two, what kind of payment structure do I set in place? Recurring or flat commissions.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:39:22]

So, so your two options when it comes to closers, and I'll give you both of them. I'll give you the free option, the cheaper option. I'm gonna give you the paid option. So the free option is you just go on your social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and maybe an email list, if you have one and you say, Hey, I'm looking for a closer. These are the qualifications. If you go to my, you can even go to the ClickFunnels Facebook group and type in my name and you'll see I used to post hiring closers in there and you can just say, Hey, I want them to do this, this, this. They're gonna have this many appointments a week.

This is our company. Apply here. And you go through the application process. I've never paid my closures any kind of draw, meaning no salary. It's only commission-based. If there are too many closers out there for you to ever pay any kind of draw, in my opinion, you can find really quality people for just commission.

And so they kind of live and die by your company. and, and that's not so that you can have more money to be greedy. That's so you can increase what's known as a cost per acquisition. So you could pay more money for you to get a client versus if you have more and more expenses than you can't pay as much as your competitor.

So, so the first way is free. Just leverage your personal brand post out there. That's what I did for a year. I got a bunch of Dan locks people. I got a bunch of friends, whatever it was. And they just didn't have the right mentality. And it was, it was almost a roller coaster thing, again. And the worst thing in the world is to onboard a team member and trying to start with 'em and then it just like, it goes down and then there were…

Mike Mark: [00:40:42]

Four months later. Yeah.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:40:44]

Yeah. That's just so much time. And if you're spending money on ads too, it's like you're spending money for these people to mess up. Right. So it's like an absolute nightmare. And so that's what we did. And look, I got to almost 30 grand a month, before I, I started working with the paid version and the paid version.

It's just like for the virtual assistants inside scaling with systems, and it's just like a lot of other stuff. It's finding someone who finds and trains these sales reps and puts them through a qualification process and does all the bullshit that you don't want to, and then hand you over to the liver, the finished product.

And obviously Mike does that. And that's who I reached out to and the difference is this. And the choice between the two comes down to this. If you have a lot of money, you probably don't have a lot of time and that's when you hire someone like Mike to do the stuff that takes up the most time. I might find those salespeople, train the salespeople, make sure they're up to par, understand the commission structure, whatever it is.

But then if you don't have a lot of money, you probably have a lot of time. And so then you can do it all yourself, right? So if you're doing 50 clients, we're probably making a little bit of money. I don't think there's any reason why you wouldn't hire someone like Mike to kind of help you avoid that, the kind of roller coaster ride that you did.

And that's why I would recommend that. And then for commission, we pay a flat 15% commission for every single one of our sales reps. it doesn't matter who they are, what they do, and there's no draw on top of it.

Mike Mark: [00:41:57]

Cool. Love it. And one of the things, too, is it depends, obviously if it's, this is your first business and it's your only business.

If you have a lot of time and you can take the free option, then that means you probably don't need to hire out sales yet. if this is your second, third, fourth business and you already have another one that's set up, then that's a different situation. But even if you have a lot of time, you're probably better spent using that time for things like, you know, big JVs acquisitions, like even like million-dollar things, not, something like going and finding salespeople. So that answers his question. There are a couple more questions before we wrap up. But, this has been awesome. We, I feel like the conversations and like what we're talking about it, we've gone deep, like really deep.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:42:46]

Talking about cultures and values on this call at all, and then we got really into it. Yeah, it's been fun so far. Ah. Oh. So Forrest

Mike Mark: [00:42:53]

asks, when do you know that you're ready to hire a VA?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:42:58]

Awesome question. I made the joke that if you're thinking about hiring a VA, you know, for $3 an hour, you might as well just go hire a VA.

Right? Yet, I love virtual assistants because it's such a low barrier to entry inside of like the employer-employee relationship. They're probably going to be your first employee at $3 an hour. You don't have any health insurance, you don't have dental insurance, you don't have HR. So it's like, what do you have to lose? Like inside your company to hire somebody like that?

Like maybe a little bit of time but I, you learn so much about yourself and I put a really great post a while ago when I was talking about like, I truly believe you would go a bit better business owner when you have employees, right? Your, your people depend on you, right? Like during COVID, I didn't like, lay out and watch Netflix every day.

I told myself I wasn't gonna let go of any of my employees and we're going to figure out how to make more money now than we were before. So like, I kicked my shit in gear cause people were relying on me. So I think that you should hire a virtual assistant as soon as humanly possible. The only time I wouldn't necessarily hire a virtual assistant would be if like, you didn't, if you don't know who you're targeting, and if you don't know what you're offering, like then, then there's no point. A VA is not going to help you figure that out, but if you know who you're targeting, what you're offering and what your messaging should be, and maybe where they hang out, then the very least they can do is start sending messages out every single day or start getting you booked appointments.

Or even what you can do as well that I love about virtual assistants is it forces you to systemize your entire company. So like not only the lead generation process but the backend fulfillment process, right? So like, do you offer a hundred things to a hundred different people? It just depends on whatever they want.

Well, hiring a virtual assistant forces you to bring it down to one to two things. That's a duplicatable process. Copy and paste over and over and over and over again. And so like that's the benefit of it. And that's what I hadn't a prospect social. We used to offer real estate agents, website design, social media, graphics, posting, you know, ads, funnel setup.

And then we literally boil, when I had to train him, I was like, every time we sell something that I don't already have training for the virtual assistant, I have to stop everything I'm doing and then train the virtual assistant on how to do this. And is it just a one-off project or is this going to happen with more clients?

So instead I told my sales guys and I set myself, we're going to offer a one, we're only going to offer buyers and we're only going to run these two campaigns using Facebook ads. And I went from a six-hour set up for my backend fulfillment for real estate to 15 minutes. And it was unbelievable that a virtual assistant could do it.

So long story short answer to that question. It's pretty much now, honestly, you don't really have a whole lot to lose. And I just think it makes you a better and more efficient business owner.

Mike Mark: [00:45:25]

The other thing I think like what you guys do, that's really amazing. I was having a conversation about this like last week.

I think most business owners, they make the mistake of they go, shoot, I need someone to do this low dollar per hour activity so I could focus on higher dollar-per-hour activities. So I'm going to hire someone. to go help me get my laundry or schedule this appointment or book my travel, or schedule this thing with this doctor. Or like things like that.

And the sneaky little thing about that is it basically what you do if you do that is you accelerate your expenses. And like I did that at first. And most people I know do that first, they delegate all of these like things of like ordering food and booking travel and things that they don't want to do and basically I'm spending money to have someone spend money and they are able because now it doesn't require my time to spend money.

They can spend a lot more money, a lot faster. So it was like, this is actually totally not working.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:46:26]

And I've never heard that before. That is unbelievably true. I've never even heard that. That's awesome. Yeah, you're right. Like they should be focused on money to interactive hot, like spending money activities.

Mike Mark: [00:46:36]

Yeah. Yeah. Cause everybody's like, Oh, I don't want to do my laundry. I don't want to order food or whatever. But it's like, yeah, what you do is you've set them up to where it's like, okay. You already got the systems to train them, to onboard them, to get them going, and then you just point them at the thing that's going to generate more money.

And then like that's why your students get such good results is because they're, they're bypassing that mistake altogether and then they're bypassing the need to build out and like set up all these systems. So now they're able to just generate more money and they are actually stepping into higher dollar-per-hour activities.

But the low dollar per hour activities are getting done. So it's like the actual whole tide rises, so their boat gets bigger.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:47:19]

Yeah. And you definitely shouldn't hire a sales rep before you have consistent appointments. Like you should be your own sales rep for the longest time that you, in my opinion, the longest time that you possibly can be a sales rep and record every single one of your calls and understand all the objections and all of that stuff.

And so in order for that to happen, you need to spend all your time on calls, and so you need to have somebody else sharing with you all the appointments. Right. The biggest mistake that I see people make too when hiring sales reps, it's like. Oh, I don't like to sales, so I'm going to without any appointments, anybody on there, I'm going to hire somebody to be a sales rep, a commission only.

I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. Like, and the funny thing is, so we use Mike Mark inside of our program as like a really big referral partner. We send them a lot of business and like he denies a lot of the business that we send over his way. They're really particularly who they work with because it's like if you have a really great closer, a really great salesperson, they're not going to work with somebody that doesn't have a consistent set of appointments.

So if you think you're the, and that's the lesson that I learned. I thought that I was like, the best businessman in the world. Cause my first closers I ever got to convince them to do just commission on 10% only. But then I realized that if you have a closer that's working for you for just 10% commission and one appointment a week, they're probably not a really great closer or they'd have another gate somewhere else.

So you need to make sure that part of that site is down those lead generation tactics. That kind of sip is systemized and automated so that you can look at hiring the bigger generating delegation, which would be like six.

Mike Mark: [00:48:39]

Love it. man, this has been awesome. It's been a blast. And, it just genuinely, it's been really cool to see your progression from, you know, when we talked, it was like June or July, late June, early July.

If I remember, and I think you're at 60 grand a month and you were going to go do the whole digital nomad thing and like. Then you really shifted gears. You bunker down, you got the house with the homeboys in San Diego and like to watch you go from that 60 grand a month into 400 grand a month at the speed with which you did it.

It is really inspiring and it's like, it's just been fun to see. I think as you've done the journey, the crazy thing is like people think that in order to do that, you have to have a worse and worse life. But at every level I see you grow, you have more and more fun, which is like for most people, counterintuitive but it's really cool to see that.

Ravi Abuvala: [00:49:35]

I appreciate you saying that brother. Yeah, man. I live in incredibly less life and it goes back to the team members that you have, that like are they allowing me to live the life that I want to live and I allow them to live the life that they want to live as well.

And it's a really beautiful and healthy relationship that I have with my guys. And yeah, look, I will say this, we do a lot of business with Mike because I'm very, very particular with who uses references inside of our company, especially inside of our coaching program. Anybody I refer out, I'm pretty much giving my word that that person's going to deliver.

And I will say this for everyone listening to this right now, I personally worked with Mike Mark, he's not paying me to say this, but if you guys are considering working with them, considering booking call with them, I would 100% recommend doing it. I literally never have to worry about where my next sales rep's go and coming inside of our company and the guys that he gave me we're so freaking top-notch, and they came with so much more experience.

And if you're a great business owner, you want to hire somebody with more experience in something than you do. So like, I just saw it as an example earlier. These guys have worked multiple other offers that were doing three, 4 million a month, and so they're able to tell me, instead of me having to pay a consultant, they're like, Hey, that's what these guys are doing. Three, 4 million a month. This is how their funnel was set up. This other backend was set up, whatever it is, and I'm just going to use all that knowledge.

And as a business owner, I'm like, thank you for that information. Let me implement it myself. So I want to do a big shout out. It's honestly, this relationship has been awesome, man. It's been a blast doing business with you, sending business to you. You send business to us as well, and I appreciate everyone that listened on this live as well. I hope you all got some value out of it.

Mike Mark: [00:51:04]

So where can people find you, especially imagine they want to get a VA, they're ready to start to get some more of their consistent lead gen activities done, and they're going to take your advice here. Where can they find you? How do they reach out to you best?

Ravi Abuvala: [00:51:17]

Yeah. So you can either look me up on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn.

I'm sure Mike will drop down my name below. It's just Ravi Abuvala, if you spell here, R A V I A B U V A L A, that's my Facebook name, my Instagram name, and my LinkedIn name. You can shoot me a message there. Let me know that you came from Mike. I was like, don't know where people come from and we hook people up and they do that.

And also if you're just a little more curious about like the VA process hiring, it. We get, I give away a free course and like where to find great virtual assistants, all that stuff. If you just go to scaling with systems.com just as it sounds, you can go there and we'll give you a bunch of free training and resources. You can see some student testimonials, and a little bit more about what we do.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:11]

All right. So, I'm pumped to jam with you. Brett. Brett Scott, pretty awesome business. He is, helping realtors get more listings, get more sales, get more buyers, basically just grow their business through the power of advertising. And, Brett's been able to do some pretty amazing stuff.

Overall. He's booked a million dollars in sales over the past couple of years. In the past year, he's helped over 400 clients, which is huge and so I'm excited, Brett, to jam with you. Also, Brett's a client of ours. We're working together, helping him get his sales team up and running. And so it's been exciting to see now that he's got his fulfillment locked down, helping them scale the sales and just his journey throughout this process of scaling.

So welcome, man. Grateful that you joined us. I guess a place that I think I really want to start, like the thing that's like, the juicy interesting thing to me is, you hit a ceiling at a point, right? And I know you say you, you told me kind of before we were on air and I remember in our initial conversations as well to this, that you double back.

You kinda like how to get your fulfillment tight. What happened when you hit the ceiling? What was the cause of that ceiling? And like, let's go into that.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:01:25]

Yep. So for us it was literally chaos, right? Thinking about my response, the first one I said, it really came down to, it was just chaos, right? It was a, you're doing, you know, we, we didn't have essentially a machine built out of a factory line of like, Hey, this is the onboarding, and then you handle this and you handle this.

Pushing it along, that factory belt, essentially that machine. And so for us it was just, we had one person doing a little bit of the onboarding, a second person doing a little bit of the onboarding, and then everyone doing a little bit of client fulfillment. And I didn't, we thought it was really super dialed in until we got to 70 clients and we were adding four or five clients a week, and we're like, this just can't go on forever.

So we stopped taking clients. We essentially tripled our prices at that point, just to not take on anyone. And really, really fixed, the issue, which started with the onboarding but was the fulfillment, and it really came down to, we weren't productized. Right. We were just allowing our clients to essentially dictate.

You know, because I've always strived to like giving our clients the best service possible, and we just allowed them to just dictate what they wanted us to do. Ads that we know that is not going to perform for them, we would tell them, Hey, we'll do it for you, but set those expectations. We shouldn't have been running it if we knew it's not going to perform.

Anyway, so, little things like that. So we got really focused on what it is that we do, what it is that we're experts at that, and then making sure that every single person, in, on the team of fulfillment and onboarding has exactly one responsibility, you know, moving forward. Right. And so, that's really, that's really what helped us, was just noticing it was chaos and, and taking a step back to fix it. Right.

Mike Mark: [00:03:14]

You highlight something interesting, which is the dichotomy sometimes that exists between service and leadership, right? You are giving them good service, but aren't necessarily being a good leader. It sounds like because you were allowing them to lead you in what they wanted, and then you almost had to take back your own leadership and like reclaim your expertise and be like, no, we're going to do it this way, or we're not going to do it at all. Which sometimes it's hard to have those conversations, especially early on.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:03:47]

It is, but let me tell you, they respect you more.

Mike Mark: [00:03:50]

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:03:51]

Well, clients will respect you more, right?

If you say, yes, yes, yes, I'm going to do this. And then that one time you say no, even if you told them multiple times, Hey, we shouldn't be doing this. I mean, it's a struggle, right? Because they're used to you doing whatever it is that they wanted. So yeah, when we have those conversations with the clients that we're doing that with us, and you know, they respected us.

And we told them why wait, we explained. And then now moving forward, when we had clients coming on, this is what we do. This is what we don't do. You know, anything that's not on this list, we'll have that conversation but it's probably going to be a no, and this is what, yeah, cause this is what moves the needle forward. This is the result that you're going to get with what we're doing. Right. We have a lot of data behind it. So that was the biggest thing.

Mike Mark: [00:04:39]

It's interesting because we had similar issues sometimes with our team, which. It wasn't an issue for me. Like when I was doing parts of what we were doing, cause I am comfortable saying no.

And then like part of why I like working with higher-level people is I don't know why I have like something perverse inside of me where like, I would love getting doctors and like super smart people on the phone and then just making them feel like fucking idiots and like letting them realize that they're a fucking idiot.

Like I'd love it. I dunno, I got issues clearly but so for me, like when I'm dealing with high-level business owners to be like, no, this ain't how it's going to happen. Like it's so easy for me to lay down the law. But then with our team, they, I had to really coach our team to be able to start to do that and help them understand things.

And sometimes like, your team doesn't recognize the level of expertise that they actually have. Right. Like we have a, you know, one of our guys on our team, he's been a part of like I think a couple of hundred different sales organizations, which is, that's insane. Like, and I had to explain to him like, dude, you got to understand most of these people that are coming to us have never built a sales team, or they've built maybe one if they're like an extreme example, they've built a couple and you have like.

Either anywhere between a hundred to infinite times, the amount of experience that they have. And so like I had to really coach our team on reclaiming that leadership as well, which is an interesting thing and it's easy. It's easy sometimes for you to do it, but I think sometimes it's hard for your team to balance that saying no and wanting to please the client at the same time.

You know? How did you navigate that where you had to start to instill your team to have those hard conversations?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:06:24]

So I got so, so I definitely, and there are certain aspects that a hundred percent what, what you're talking about where like the team just wants or they don't know that they have that expertise.

They're not 100% certain with themselves, even though you are, and that's why you hired them and they fit the culture. Right. But for us, when it came to the ads, like my team, just my team, luckily just got it because they understood from my leadership that this is going to make our jobs easier.

Right? And give the clients the best results. We strive for that. Like that's like our one thing is clients' results are the only thing that matters. And so for us, it was easy for them, where it still becomes an issue and not even an issue. It's like if there is a client issue or if there are certain things that they haven't seen before, it's just instilling them in.

What I do is, I get on a call with them and so, our operations manager the other day was like, she took on a call, didn't really understand what was going on with that client because it, it was a, like a special kid. There was one little tweak to what we're doing right. But, which doesn't matter, but she didn't take ownership of the call.

And that's what I trained her for. I was like, you have to take ownership. We are the experts. You are the face of the company when clients are getting our calls. And so just letting her, instilling that she can take over the call and take ownership just like she was on a sales call. Right. You want to take, you want to take control of that call, not let it go derailed in certain ways.

And so just understanding that they do have the expertise, like you said, giving them, right, the competence that they need and giving them training, like really listening. Like I listen to the onboarding calls all the time, right? Even sales call, stuff like that. Giving them the advice and Hey, you could have said this, that this doesn't fit with our core values or whatever, and just letting them understand that.

But for me it was just giving them that confidence that they can make a decision. Right? As long as it meets our core values, that was the biggest thing. But they, my team, luckily, when we made that shift to like, this is exactly what we do, they bought in because they understood that it would be that much easier for them.

Mike Mark: [00:08:37]

So how long did it take you to make the shift? And then the follow-up question to that was, what was the outcome?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:08:44]

So it's an ongoing battle. It's one of those things that, so it probably took the initial change to our onboarding and client fulfillment, probably took about three weeks. Then we tested it out by taking some clients on that.

We broke it again. Then we fixed it. It's something you'll never 100% be satisfied or should be satisfied with. It's something like all pieces of your, of the value chain of your business should always. It's just finding where that one bottleneck is in your business, right? So for me, it took about three weeks of the initial one.

Then it gets quicker every time because we haven't really dialed in now, but it's only like, Hey, this thing is not working properly. Right now we're having an issue. with our onboarding notes, it's just not enough. Right? So our clients fill out a form, and it's just not enough. So, we filled out, you know, we did a new onboarding form and restructured the email to explain why we're having to fill out all this information before they, you know, before we start running ads and stuff like that.

And so, you know, just little things like that, little tweaks, but it's always something that's ongoing. And, and but I mean, if you have a good team, it shouldn't take too much. If you have systems or processes already in place. When you don't, then that's, I mean, that's a nightmare because now you're trying to implement systems and processes but luckily we already had those out. So was three months or three weeks, and then now it's like a week max, if we have an issue.

Mike Mark: [00:10:14]

That's pretty fast. Yeah, and it's, it's interesting to see sometimes where, there are the phases that you go through, right? There's the radical phase where you're, you're overhauling your stuff, and then there's the incremental improvement phase, and you'll probably go for a while until you hit your next point where it's like, okay, we got to radically reorganize the business.

And you're kind of constantly going in between these two phases. And so I can tell that you really understand the theory of constraints, and I want to highlight this for the people watching because a lot of the people watching don't understand the theory of constraints and working with you husband so easy because you do understand that theory of constraints and you come like, very clear on what your numbers are. You come very clear on what the data is saying and you also like just knowing the situation overall and what needs to be done. And so that's a big compliment to you because a lot of the people we're working with have no fucking clue what's going on, and it's OK.

You know, that's partly why they're here and they need our help. But the theory of constraints is, is this idea where effectively there's a bottleneck in your business at one time, and the constraint or the throughput of the system is determined by the constraint of the system. And then what we find, cause like with a lot of our clients who don't understand this, they're trying to attack multiple bottlenecks at once.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:11:38]

Right.

Mike Mark: [00:11:39]

And how have you done that before as well? Like have you tried to solve multiple bottlenecks at one time?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:11:45]

Yup, so, how I learned what you're talking about now is through one of my mentors and good friends, Austin Nestle and his team. And I was trying to figure out everything at once and real, instead of realizing like, Hey, what are the core functions of my business?

And where is the bottleneck actually at? Because you may think it's multiple things, but it's really one always is one thing always.

Mike Mark: [00:12:09]

Yup.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:12:10]

So, yeah, I did have that issue before where it was like, try to do it all like, Oh, we got fixed sales and we've got to fix. Well, it's just our marketing, you know? So, luckily I had, you know, well, I have the mentorship, I'd pay for coaching and stuff like that to learn that stuff.

And that is the game changer in your business, man, is really understanding where that one issue is and being able to fix it. And Austin always talked about move fast and break shit, right? You're going to break something, but how fast can you fix it? Right?

Mike Mark: [00:12:37]

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard too, because there are other problems, right?

And so you're focused on the bottleneck, but there's other stuff that's like in, it's in your peripheral vision or it's kind of in you hearing it on side of you and, and your brain wants to stop paying attention to the bottleneck and then like, look at it and focus and handle that. But you know that you can't.

And so having the discipline to do that, it's like completely against what all of your instincts are telling you to do physically in the moment. And that's where it gets really hard. It's like there's a co like a cognitive understanding, but then the actual doing of it is a completely another animal. So.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:13:19]

Yeah. It's a struggle cause you know, you, like, you're, you're, you've done it one way so long, right? You've, you've done it the wrong way so long. And so for me it's, I still, I still not struggle, but battle that, like really understanding what the bottleneck is in my business. Right. You'll never get it a hundred percent right.

Until you're an expert at it, which I'm not. Right. I just, I just know how to be aware of certain things.

Mike Mark: [00:13:44]

Was there a moment that you figured it out. That's what I was wondering, like when you say that, like was there, do you have like a, like an epiphany moment or you're like in the tub and the Eureka light bulb goes off?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:13:57]

So for me, the aha, the aha moment, when I was being taught this stuff, was when I fixed one thing and it completely eliminated everything else. Right. So, one thing that we were struggling with. Yep. So our onboarding process. Taking good clients, getting a client from paid to onboarding them, taking over their ads.

For me, that was a struggle. It would take us two weeks to get a client up and running and just because we didn't have anything built-in, I'm like, alright, well I'm sending them an email. We're doing this and we're doing that. And for me, once we figured out like our issues were the start and, what I, going through, the training that I did, it was like, like your onboarding is the number one.

Like that's the first experience your clients have with you outside of the sales calls. If you screw that and fuck that up, they're going to cancel at the end of the contract because you're starting them off. You're, you're in an uphill, uphill battle from day one. Right? And so for me, once we dialed that in and I sat back and I'm like.

Because I automated probably 80% of my onboarding with a click of a button from our CRM. Right. And, and once that figured, I'm like, maybe this, maybe this bottleneck, one thing, thing really works. So I just, I trusted in, and all of a sudden I said, all right, this is what I'm fixing. And I spent two weeks fixing it.

That was obviously, that was before, you know, the issues with the team and scaling back. But yeah, fixing that one issue. It took me about two weeks. And then once I really saw it in play, I'm like, Holy shit. Like there are bottlenecks in my business and one and that one will probably be 80% of the issues in your business and my experience.

Mike Mark: [00:15:49]

Yeah. Yeah. And so the interesting thing about the bottleneck being in one spot at a time that people struggle with is that, people think that you should just immediately know what it is and go into solving it. But, sometimes it takes you literally a month to two months to just be able to define what the bottleneck is.

And that's like, that's something my, my dad would, he would do. My dad was like a successful business guy, real smart, and he said that there would be times where he'd get stuck in his business and he'd just be like, all right, I got to go. And he'd get on the motorcycle and he drove around the country for a week, two weeks.

And then he'd come back and he'd, there's just like a moment where the problem finds itself and he would be spending the time riding the motorcycle, trying to define the problem, not find the solution, trying to define the problem. And then once the problem is defined, then you can figure out the solution.

And so like, sometimes people think that all the work in experiments that they do have to be building experiments, but sometimes your experiments are simply observation experiments. So that you can accurately define your problem. And then once you accurately define the problem, then you move into building mode. And that's sometimes a hard gap.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:16:59]

Yeah. Well, and, and, and it comes down to too, like most people don't start their business like a real business, right? They go straight into marketing and spend money, bring in revenue. Let's bring in rep and they forget to like the foundation of a business outside of your vision and all that stuff is, is your systems and processes. Right? Marketing should be one of the last things. Marketing and sales is one of the last things that you're putting together in your business if you're truly starting it from the foundation, right? And so, you know, for me, you're absolutely correct, and it is, for me, it's just listening to my team and my clients, right?

Listening to the issues. If something happens more than twice, there's an issue somewhere, but, understanding is that complaint or is the issue that happens twice? Is that really truly that, like the bottleneck, what is causing that problem?

Mike Mark: [00:17:52]

Yup.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:17:53]

But you can't just go straight into like your absolute crack. You can't go straight into fixing it.

You have to sit back and let it happen a couple of times you'll find you'll figure it out, you'll find it, you'll know where it is, but you have to understand where the flow of your business is, right? From sales and marketing all the way down to client fulfillment and after they're a client of yours, right?

So you have to understand that and what part of the business it is, right? That value chain.

Mike Mark: [00:18:19]

So recently your bottleneck moved into sales, right?

And then obviously we started working together to help you solve that specific bottleneck. But I'm wondering like what were your things that made you aware that this was now your immediate bottleneck?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:18:37]

When I figured out the marketing and we were completely booked on my calendar and my one sales rep, Mike, and we were completely booked and we were booked for two weeks at a time. Right? We were losing. So I was spending more money per booked call because I couldn't take on any more. Right? And so what happened is I had to open my calendar even more because I didn't want to stop the marketing, but I also didn't want to, you know, just spend money just to spend money.

So, you know, I opened it. And then what happened is, for me, as the business owner, sales became my day-to-day. And that wasn't like I wasn't focusing on the team, on the clients, on the high-level stuff, pushing the needle forward in my business. It was solely, and it was just draining me cause I'm trying to work the team, have team meetings, work with clients and do five, six, seven sales calls a day.

Like it just, it was, it was too much. Right? It just became too much for me. And, and I slowly. I'm like, all right, I'm going to cut down the marketing a little bit. And we just stopped growing because we weren't spending money. We were doing three calls a day versus 10 calls a day, and it just, it just wasn't enough.

Mike Mark: [00:19:49]

And then, so at what point did you say, okay. This thing makes sense. I want to get help doing it as opposed cause I mean, you've built a team already on your own. Clearly you're, you're not the first time at your rodeo here. Like, so what made you decide to get help on building the team?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:20:08]

for me, I did. I did. I do most of the sales myself. Yes. Do I feel like I'm an expert at hiring sales reps? No, because me, even myself, I don't, I don't know how to look at somebody be like, you're a great salesperson, right, because for me, I don't truly believe I'm a great salesperson cause that's, I talked too much.

I'll talk way too much. I taught myself out. I taught clients out or leads out of sales all the time, right? So for me it was like, all right, if I know I'm truly not an expert at it, why, why would I want to try to figure it out when I have someone like you and your team that have already figured it out and I get the support and all that?

For me, it was a no brainer. It just took me a little bit after having one conversation with you, it took me a little bit to build out the systems and process before we put sales reps into it. Yep. Right. That, that for me, that was the, that was the one thing that I got from our first initial call was like, yes, I'm physically like ready but I wasn't, and so for me, I just knew the amount of time it took me three months to build all this stuff out. I knew I didn't want to go another three months trying to train somebody.

Mike Mark: [00:21:22]

Yeah.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:21:22]

It was, it wasn't worth my time.

Mike Mark: [00:21:26]

And so, in the process now, kind of what's the before and after look like for you?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:21:34]

Yep. So, we're two months in, or almost like a month and a half in. We have four new sales reps, so five total. All of them have closed sales, except for one, but he's going through, he was moving from places, so he really hasn't taken on many calls but all of them have. calls. One of them has brought 15,000 in revenue, one by itself, and it's actually pushed, which he's wanting, Mike, my original sales, closed areas. One of your, it has been hired by you for a couple of different offers and, It's pushed him and he's like, lit a fire under his ass too. And it's like a whole, like just the camaraderie and the people that are there, it's, it's been a game-changer, man. Just putting the right people in the right places.

Mike Mark: [00:22:18]

It's cool when you see how you like, you believe that your person's at a certain level. And then when you add sort of new blood into the mix, just what someone's really capable of. Sometimes, we get accustomed to their level of performance, who, and we forget to expect more out of them.

And then you introduce that into the mix and then you're like, Holy crap. Wow. Like this person isn't even like really turned on the jets yet.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:22:45]

Yup. Yeah. Yup. It's great. That's exactly what happened. It's not that he was com, he was not complacent at all. I just think it did something mentally to him that maybe he was complacent.

I don't know. But, I know Mike, he's not, he's not like that. I just think the energy, right, that these guys are bringing, wanting to learn, wanting to be successful. I think it's more that he wants to show them how it's done and he truly does help them to, right. He answers their questions. If he has time, he'll jump on calls with them and do some training with them.

And so, like, he, I couldn't do it without him. And I think that, I think just the energy is really what, the new energy is really what, what changed?

Mike Mark: [00:23:31]

Yeah. I mean in like for, there was a time where I was doing CrossFit, right? And it was like I never knew how fast I was until I was doing CrossFit.

Because then it was like, now I want like I'm feed off of the other people. And then I was like, I watched as I just was like, wow, I'm actually good at running. And I had this story in my life the whole time that I'm not very good at running. And then I started like, like the people would be starting to get to the lead, and then I'm like, huh, I want to go a little bit harder, a little bit harder.

And it's that same thing like that, if I were running by myself, there's absolutely no way. And my brother was even just talking to me about this literally on Saturday where he was like, him and my cousin live right next to each other and they go running and it's like, yeah, well now with the quarantine, he won't run with me, so I can't, I'm not running as fast.

And he was complaining about it that he's not running as hard. Just simply because that like peer pressure is not there and that observer effect isn't in place. And so that's cool that you mentioned that, cause that's a big thing. and sometimes we don't, we forget about it when, especially when we're rocking with just one person.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:24:36]

Yup. And I think it gives them, they bring a new perspective to it too, right, to objections and, and stuff like that. And he's very open to that stuff, right? So I think I, you know, just have a new perspective of more, more that new energy, right? Like they look up to him because he's been working with me for two years, right? So.

Mike Mark: [00:24:55]

Where's the bottleneck now?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:24:58]

Right now, just, just the marketing, right. Because things have changed with, you know, with real estate, a lot of agents are not wanting to spend money. So just really making sure shifting and changing our marketing messaging and stuff like that, just, just adjusting to the times right now.

But, outside of that, I mean, nothing right now. we did go through that radical change of the onboarding process, right? So we put more like, you're using base camp now? I've been using base camp since I started and just building out like client tasks when they come on with videos and stuff like that.

So it's more like. Straight to the point of what they do. But outside of that right now, there really isn't a, that I could say a true bottleneck in my business right now, outside of the marketing. But that's something that's, I mean, you're always, always going to be adjusting now.

Mike Mark: [00:25:48]

But the thing that you bring up when you say like the marketing is the bottleneck, it's marketing's one of the weirder bottlenecks because there's like early phase when marketing is your bottleneck, you obviously know because you're not making any money.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:26:02]

Yup.

Mike Mark: [00:26:02]

Right. But later phases like where you're at right now, which is you have a sustainable business, you have consistent cash flow, you have a team, you have salespeople. You're making sales consistently, whether or not even sometimes you show up, the sales are going to happen without you. Right?

And, when marketing's a bottleneck and all that's in place, sometimes you don't feel it because you don't realize that you need marketing to push the rest of the organization or sales and marketing to push the rest of organization to break the next thing and figure out where that bottleneck is, or to like really at least get it to the point of discomfort.

And, when marketing is the bottleneck, it's hard because sometimes, everything can be comfortable and you don't like, you don't want to push because everything's working perfectly, and so it feels like there's no bottleneck, but really that just means that you could push your marketing harder and make marketing the bottleneck.

You know? and it's a bizarre feeling cause like at that phase sometimes, like we'll see people do one to two things. So a lot of times the people will get there and then they're just like, alright, I'm going to go chill, or I'm going to go new work on a new business, or I'm going to do something different.

Or other people are just like. Let's go and they spend way more on ads and go crazy.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:27:19]

That's where I'm at right now.

Mike Mark: [00:27:20]

Yeah.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:27:21]

Let's go, let's take over this shit. Like let's be the number one real estate marketing team in the world. Like that's, that's it, right? That's the goal. I don't know what number one means, but in our eyes, we're, we're, that's what we're striving to. So the neck will never feel comfortable.

Mike Mark: [00:27:43]

And so, I guess, what are you looking at now that you have Slack, right, cause you, you have a sales team, you have Slack in your sales team. And I don't mean the chat app, I mean the fact that there's bandwidth that's available and you can, you can push harder.

What are you looking at to kind of keep scaling past where you're at right now?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:28:05]

Yeah, so one, it's just it. So now it's more what I'm focusing my time as one, making sure that people know who I am, who we are, where before it was just straight up, like book a call, book a call, book a call. So we're spending a little bit more money on it.

That brand awareness stuff, that intent-based branding that Frank Kern teaches and stuff like that. This really gets our message out there and then, doing, obviously still booking calls. one thing I'm going super heavy on is email marketing. Bri. I did three emails and this is something I never have, I have a 10,000 email list and this is something that I never did. And the last two weeks I did three emails and booked 35 calls.

Mike Mark: [00:28:46]

Holy crap.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:28:46]

Right? Yeah. And so I'm like, all right, well now that is where I want to put some energy, right? Because we have a very hot, like a list that works, right? So it's a little bit different from strategy. I don't just like email. You can book a call when you want it, like no one giving them something, getting them into a funnel.

And the last page in the funnel is book a call, right? So it's not just your typical, like, content of trying to get them in like, no, like I'm getting them back into another sales funnel always. Is that, again, that's my theory on email. and trying to book them like, all right, it's working on the front, on the cold traffic, right?

People coming in, why wouldn't it work if I just send an email, right?

Mike Mark: [00:29:33]

Where did you get that idea from? Like what, what inspired that thought process?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:29:37]

Just seeing it work on ads. So like, Hey, here's an ad copy swipe file. then on the thank you page is like, Hey, we're going to email it over to you, but while we have you, if you, you know, if you need help with your marketing, so on and so forth, just book a call with us.

And so it was working on the front end and I just tried it, man. I'm like, all right, let me, let me just, let me just test this out, right? It's, it's an email. the worst, I ha, I mean, the worst that happens is I get some unsubscribes. And, the first time we did it, we had 12 bookings and then I changed up the offer.

Well, then I sent it to the UN, the Unopens and, I think we did like eight or nine at that time. And then, I changed up the offer, right? The free giveaway, like the PDF that I was giving away. So this was a followup script and then gave that away. And same, same exact funnel. It was literally a two-page funnel.

Here's your, here's your, and I actually made them re opt-in again. And then the thank you page of, just booking a call and the email, like I said, we're just doing that with marketing and we've been doing that. I've been doing the ad copy swipe file on the conversion script for, for years, since I started.

That's been my number one Legion, like lead gen, campaign. And I just. I was like, all right, let's take away as much friction as possible from our marketing because of what we're going through. And I saw that on the workbook and called for like 15 bucks on paid ads. And I'm like, all right, so if this is really working, it's got to work an email, it has to.

Mike Mark: [00:31:13]

So it's super interesting.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:31:14]

I took the same exact ad copy and put it in an email and just sent it out to my email list.

Mike Mark: [00:31:24]

That's interesting. I, ah, did you do something where you're like, you didn't send it to people who may be in an onboarding sequence, like a, where they're a new lead and they're kind of going through your initial nurture sequence, they got left out of it, or do you send it to them to?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:31:39]

This is, I'm telling you I don't do email. This, that's one. I wouldn't say, I mean, I guess it's a bottleneck because I've never done it. I've never had, outside of like the, I went through Sam Oven's course and I'd do like a VSL and I wrote some emails in there. instead of just straight, like a book, a call now, like I change it up a little bit and that works pretty well.

So, yes, if they were in that VSL, which is, I mean, a couple hundred, then I wouldn't send it to them or current clients. Outside of that, I sent it to whoever, even people that booked the call with us that told us no, we had somebody tell us no, and came back and ended up signing up with us, signing up with us this time.

Mike Mark: [00:32:14]

Due to that email. Yup. But this is so funny, dude. People are so funny because we respond to the ad and then we say no, and then we respond to the same ad again. So it's like we, we don't even know. Cause there's so much that's hitting us that sometimes we forget that we're responding to something. We've seen a lot too.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:32:32]

Marketing's right person, right time, right? I really think it's the right message to the right person at the right time with the right offer. That's all marketing is. So they just not weren't in the right mind space at that time. And then we came back with the same exact thing and it worked.

Mike Mark: [00:32:51]

Yeah. Yeah. So true. So I guess what are you looking at? Like where are you now revenue-wise? What's your target and kind of what, what do you see being this next gap now that your, your sales are off your plate?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:33:08]

Yeah, so we, being in real estate and the prices were at and stuff like that, we did lose a lot of clients in the first couple of weeks of Coro, of Coro, I mean, we lost about 70% of our business, putting it on pause or whatever. Yep. And, we're right back up to where we're at. So right under 50 grand a month right now. So trying to get back up to the 75, 80 grand a month, is the goal. and we're on our way though. We're on our way.

So it's one step at a time. What really, it was bad. So the first week of quarantine is when I brought your guys on. So like my focus, I was like, fuck it. If we're losing clients, we're losing. Like I did whatever I could to say, put some, a pause, reduce the fees of some people, like just move and adjust. but I wasn't focusing on that.

It was solely that one thing, what that might bottleneck was, which was sales. I invested into this, so I'm like, I can't put that on pause. I'm losing clients, but I'll get clients back, right? We'll adjust. So actually, we gained about 60% over the last three weeks.

Mike Mark: [00:34:09]

That's crazy. So what was it like, was that kind of frightening to make that decision at that moment where you're like, Holy shit, I'm losing business and nagging to go make this big investment?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:34:22]

So, I already have made the investment and then it started happening and I'm like, Oh shit. What's going on? Like this is, this is not like, this is the worst timing possible of not, of, of the purchase, cause that, you know, and working with your team, that was the perfect timing but I mean, there's things that you, I strive myself on.

There are things that you cannot control. If a client's going to leave you, there are things that you can do, and as long as you have those in place, but you cannot control everyone leaving you. And unfortunately with real estate, people are still purchasing, don't get me wrong, but when it was going through, I mean, we literally had somebody sign up one day and ask for a refund the next. Literally signed an agreement, did everything, asked for a refund the next day, right? So I think it was just a scary time that they were going and we actually did bring some of the clients that did end up canceling and ended up coming back as well. We've actually brought on three old clients that were pre, like from months and months ago.

So, it all played out, to be honest with you. And, the way we have our offer structured now and everything like that is, is it's going to allow us to not have to worry about losing clients. It's, it's profitable for the clients, profitable for us. and it's, it's, you know, I just adjusted and shifted and yeah, it was scary as hell. Right? Going from, you know, 50, 60, 70K a month to 20, like, that's not enough to pay for my ads and my team and everyone, like and they just dropped off, drop the money on coaching sales, like, you know, so, but we're good now.

Mike Mark: [00:35:58]

That's baller, dude. When was the last time you've taken sales calls?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:36:03]

Since I paid you. I literally stopped. I stopped. Even though we had calls, like I just stopped taking. I completely turned my calendar off. I'm like, I'm going, I'm, my focus is building this out and I haven't taken a sales call and probably two months now.

Mike Mark: [00:36:19]

What's that been like?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:36:21]

Fruits. I don't have to, like I don't have, so I shot myself on being done by 10 o'clock, right? Done by 10. I don't know who wrote them, maybe 10. I don't know. I got it from somebody and I really strive myself on doing that. And now, I wouldn't have like I wake up if I want to, but no matter what, I'm up by seven 30 and I'm done by 10 because now my one thing is so much smaller than, all right, I got to try to fit as much in before 10 before I got my sales calls.

Right. So, yeah, I still work all day, but my one thing for the day is always done before 10:00 AM. So it's a lot less stress, man. A lot more energy, a lot more motivation, just being, I'm able to lead the team now where before it was just total chaos.

Mike Mark: [00:37:09]

Yeah. That's, I feel like that's always a frustrating situation too, as the leader. Cause you know, you're not giving it your best and you almost feel like, sorry for the people that you're leading, that it's like, look, guys, I'm in this situation right now. Like, I know I should be doing better for you, but I just can't. And like that's a, it really is like, it sucks that feeling cause you, you want to do better, but you're in this place.

It was like, I only got so much energy and so much time in a day and I can't do that and like keep the ship going at the same time.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:37:41]

And it's funny cause that's with Kristen, my operation manager, like that's the, like I've had multiple conversations with her like that.

Mike Mark: [00:37:49]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like I. I'm sorry. That's all I got.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:37:53]

I'm only one person. I can only do so much. Right?

Mike Mark: [00:37:56]

The really interesting thing too, we talk a lot with like our clients to get them ready for this stuff is when, when they go into it, it's like there's this period where sales is such a big bottleneck of time, especially when it is the bottleneck.

A lot of people will try to do it too early, but once it becomes a bottleneck, it's such a big bottleneck. A time that once it's off of your plate. It's like so weird how much time you have back that normally what we see is people will feel guilt or shame because now they feel like they're not doing anything.

And then there's these weird feet and boredom is another common one. So like guilt, shame, and boredom are like the three most common emotions. Posts, getting that off their plate. And then it's like trying to figure out what to do with yourself during where now you know where you had five calls, seven calls in a day.

Now you got five to seven hours back, and then it's like, what do you do with yourself when you're that bored? And that's sometimes hard to come to terms with initially, especially because I feel like the thing that gets you to that 50 grand. A month is the willingness to do whatever it takes.

Right? Like that just, I will hustle, I will grind, I will put in the work. If I don't like it, I don't care. I'm going to do it. And then once you get to that phase where you're talking about you're done by 10 on your one thing, you have the rest of the day. Yeah, you could work. Sometimes you may not.

Sometimes you will continue to work, but like even then when you're working, it's kind of like, it's not as urgent or stressful as a sales call is like a sales call. You got a call on the dot, and if you don't call on the dot, you're leaving a bad impression. And then you have to be there listening every single second.

And that's that sort of like contract that occurs when someone books an appointment. It's very stressful compared to sometimes the other work and so that, that lack of urgency and stuff. We see it sometimes leads people to go break shit in their business and we've got to tell him like, dude, be comfortable being bored for a bit.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:39:57]

Here's the thing. This is where my mind goes with that, right? If, because that wasn't the case with me, like I knew I wanted to stop taking sales calls. I knew I didn't want to work 10-15 hours. Like, yeah, I wanted to do, like I myself at one point was working 45 clients by myself, right? So yes, and taking sales calls on top of it, where my mind goes is those that feel that you know, doubt or you know, they feel that like I should be doing something.

It really comes down to whether you may have not had a true vision of why you are growing your business. Cause you really start your business and want to grow your business to work and grind and do everything that you can all day every day. Probably not. Most of us don't. Most of us want to and start our, especially agencies to get to a point where we can do what we really do have the true freedom when we have the team in place, the fulfillment in place, and I could just sit back and have a call with a client here and there, think about high-level strategies and stuff like that.

So it really, really challenges you. I had a clear vision that I wanted to give myself and my wife a certain lifestyle, but I didn't want to, like I came from the real estate industry where I was working 10 15 20 hours a week, and I was at the mercy of my clients, right? Because they can only go see properties at certain times and right?

This property is not available in that like, so I was truly like this thing, answering phone calls, text messages all the time. And I knew that's not what I wanted. Right? And so when I started optimize real estate, it was really to get me to where like that what I wanted, but lifestyle, the true lifestyle I wanted, and it wasn't working 10 15 20 hours a day.

Mike Mark: [00:41:52]

Yeah. That's interesting. Cause, sometimes too, we want the thing that we do start it with the vision, but then in the process of pursuing the vision, we get so obsessed that we forget what that vision was. And, like I saw someone who's with us right now. I don't know if he's on Live, but he was with us.

Marquelle, Marquelle if you're with us, what up? but, like to hear his story and kind of what, what he's gone through is so cool to where like, he picks his kids up from school on, like plays basketball with them and like, now his kids starting a YouTube channel, a game or channel, he's like helping gamer channel and it's like, he does this thing, and he's done pretty much usually in the day by three at the latest. And like, he's not taking sales calls. These guys take sales calls for him. And, like I remember when Mark first got his sales reps from us, he went on a trip to the Grand Canyon and then like got a deal while he was at the Grand Canyon with his kids.

And it was like that. Kind of what it's all about, right? Like it's that that's what it's, you gotta have the reason and keep that in mind, especially when you get that freedom back so that you can then start to architect your lifestyle around it.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:42:58]

Yep. You got to have a true vivid vision, man. What, like not, not just like, yeah, this is what I want.

This is my goal. Like, no. What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it sound like? I know it sounds cliche, but. Writing that shit down and understanding like, this is why like in the next five years, this is where I'm going to be at and truly live it. Yes, it's going to change from time to time, right?

That vision that you have, you may hit something, may get that car that you wanted, but what does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? Because if we're not pushing towards that, it is just that obsession of the next deal. Right?

Mike Mark: [00:43:32]

Yeah.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:43:33]

Some people love it. Don't get me wrong. It's not some people, that's just what they're gonna do all the time. For me, it wasn't.

Mike Mark: [00:43:40]

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good note. cool man. Well, if someone wants to learn more about you, where could they find you?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:43:47]

So they can add me on Facebook, Brett, that optimized real estate.com. They can email me, that's pretty anywhere, man. Facebook's easiest.

Mike Mark: [00:43:55]

And I'll tag Brett in here as well. So that way if you guys want to check Brett out or connect with him, feel free. If you've got anybody that you know in real estate, send them his way. He's got his system styled in, so you'll know there'll be taken good care of. And then do you do any sort of like referral partnership for people who do send referrals your way if, if they might be in a different niche and want to pass them along to you?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:44:21]

Yep. So we do, we have two different things, right? If they just want to just, Hey, here's the client, if you close them, great, we do have a $300 referral that we give out once they close, we also do fulfillment. So if it's like, Hey, I want to get into the real estate niche and you want, you know, you want to work with this client but don't want to do the fulfillment, stuff like that. We also take on the fulfillment side of things, so yeah, so either-or.

Mike Mark: [00:44:45]

Cool. Love it. He says, do you close on a contract or do you close on a month to month?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:44:51]

A contract always. Three months, minimum.

Mike Mark: [00:44:53]

Three months, and then, afterward, do you transition into contract or do you transition in month to month?

Brett Ratkowski: [00:44:58]

Month to month. Our, our, our average client stays with us for eight, eight to nine months, eight, eight, 8.4 something months. So yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:45:07]

That's long, like, most guys in real estate are lucky if they get 60 days, so that goes to show how much better your systems are.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:45:15]

I am. So I have, I do have like, like I said, three-month minimum.

There are clients that just, we couldn't make them happy. I'm not, I'm not going to hold somebody to that if they truly are not happy with us. Right? So yes, we have that agreement. We stick to it. But if it's, if, I mean, I've even fired clients before, right? So if they're just not a good fit or we're not a good fit for them, you just have that conversation with.

But I've also been burned on the one month we put out, you put all this energy, and anyone that's spending money has commissions, all that. You're not profitable on month one.

Mike Mark: [00:45:52]

Yeah. There's no way. Yeah, there's no way, especially the cycle time to actually close on a home. It's just simply too long that you can never actually measure your ROI.

So he asked how do you close on a three-month? Cause that's what he's having trouble with.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:46:07]

So for us, that's just our pro. Like we just tell them it's this price, three-month minimum. Then it's a month after that. I've not had anyone. We have some people that are like, Oh, I just want to check the contract and they want to change it.

We just, we just pitch it as an agreement. Right? Cause it really, in the end, that's really what it is. It's an agreement between yourself and my, my, my team. This is what we expect from you. This is what you expect for us. The issue with, if it's real estate or whatever it is for the three months, is it really a good fit for you?

Are they truly your ideal client? If they're pushing you on a three-month commitment.

Mike Mark: [00:46:48]

Mm, that's a good question. And yeah, I think, to touch on that, that one is, is that actually your ideal customer? And sometimes your ideal customer isn't just a real estate agent. It's, you know, you have to understand them in more depth.

Like they're at a certain level, they've done maybe a certain number of things beforehand. And so, like. You have to get really granular on the psychology of not just the, the thing that they do on there, like as a job title, but the psychology of where they are. Are they a real estate agent just starting out or kind of wearing the journey are there? and then I think that's part of it, but I think that the other part of it is like, sometimes it's like. Zahid to answer your question, sometimes it's just, when we listen to it, it's the person being weak, right? It's like you, if you really know your product and you're confident in your product, like someone can ask me, Hey, can we get the salesperson, Lino, can we recruit the salesperson in two days?

And it's like. No, that's not how it works, right? Like, we need at least a week because we custom tailor it to your specific offer. If I don't have a week, I can't pretty much find you the right person, like, you know, and I'm not gonna adjust on that. So yeah. When you know your product and you know your process, you know it's negotiable and you know it's not negotiable.

And then the funny thing is that when someone's asking you, they're trying to sometimes just test you as opposed to actually say like, that's what they really want. And when you are willing to tell them no, because that won't work, then they'll buy from you simply because you said, no, I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to work with you on a one-month basis because there's simply not enough time to get things done. I mean, imagine when you get a lead, how long does it take you on average to get it from, from lead to close? I'm guessing like your commission doesn't hit until 60 days in. And so how am I supposed to expect you to even be able to see an ROI like no client that we work with can see an ROI and in under that timeframe, at least for it to be reasonable, like it happens on the rare occasion.

So no, I wouldn't work with you in that context. And like when you say no, people will freak out because it's like, it's just so attractive for someone to say, no. And like, we think that they don't want to say that, that they want us to say, Oh no, I could do that, but they actually want to hear you say no and they want to have you have a good reason as to why you say no. Like, yeah, no.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:49:22]

And is it really even an objection? Right?

Mike Mark: [00:49:25]

It's not. Yeah.

Brett Ratkowski: [00:49:26]

Is it really? It's not like it, you know, especially with real estate, like you said, knowing where they are in real estate is absolutely spot on, right? We don't work with clients under a certain price point. Right. Or not price point. A certain point.

So they have to have X amount of sales do a number of deals. Right. even if they're a brand new agent and they sold 10 homes in the last 12 months, it's not enough. We are just going to be another expense for them. Right. And so if you are another expense, that's probably what they're looking at us.

That those specific agents are looking at you as an expense because they don't have a belief in themselves. So why are they going to have belief in you that you can change them? Right? So is it really an objection to the price and your product, or is it more them explaining concerns with themselves that, but like you said.

Maybe just getting a note too, right? They, they're looking for that. So there's a lot of ways, but then it's a non-negotiable, you want to do business with us. It is what it is.

Mike Mark: [00:50:26]

Yup. And people love when someone's willing to walk away. Now, you know, if you're willing to walk away from the deal, it means that you know what you're talking about or you're comfortable and where it's at.

And to then the buyer signals that this is the reasonable point of where we would transact. You know, people will always test to ask for lower prices, and then the minute you're saying, Nope, this is the price, then they kind of will say, okay, let's do it. And if they weren't willing to buy at that price, and potentially it's not your ideal customer, so it's weighing those things like what Brett was saying. Cool. Well, we've run a little bit over. I appreciate you for taking the time to jump on with us and break this stuff down. I think that especially in the systems. Mindset and how you apply it. you're very far advanced compared to a lot of the people that we're working with.

And it's awesome for anyone who's here in the group to be able to hear how you think through problems, how you define the bottleneck, how you described your experience of going from bottleneck, the bottleneck, and like, I really want to highlight that for any of the people who here are and made it this far in the replay because.

If you go back through that one more time, like I have to say that that's a big distinction that we see the people who get to multiple seven figures and eight figures have that. The ones who can't get there don't have it. So, thanks again for joining us. I really appreciate it.

Episode Transcript

Mike Mark: [00:00:34]

Well, I'm really excited to introduce to you guys, Joel Kaplan. If you guys don't know who Joel is, he is a monster in the agency space. He is a strapping young gentleman from Caracas, Venezuela, but he's in the US for a while and, he has the fire in his belly that only an immigrant has.

And, he has gone ahead and built an agency where basically he only works one hour a week. he's pretty much completely hands-off in his agency. I think you said you have about a thousand clients, if I remember correctly.

Joel Kaplan: [00:01:08]

No, no, we have, we don't have a thousand clients. I think we've, we've closed over a thousand clients. If you count all the clients my students have closed, but, we have about 200 clients at our agency, so.

Mike Mark: [00:01:18]

200 active clients. But I mean, you've probably closed more, way more than that.

Joel Kaplan: [00:01:23]

Yeah, and through the students, we've closed thousands, a hundred percent.

Mike Mark: [00:01:27]

And that's one of the things that I, I, love most about just even our process of working together is how systematize everything that you do is, if it's not a systematized, you really don't do it.

And, you've been able to excel in how you've like really gone into the CEO mentality where a lot of people, it's like the hustler mentality gets them to 30, 50 grand a month, and then moving past that hustler mentality. Most people, they just. It's, it's so, there's so many emotions caught up in it. You know.

Joel Kaplan: [00:02:02]

I think like, if we, if you guys, if you just want to dive in straight to that, I think there's a lot we can talk about. But I truly believe that most people get stuck in being an entrepreneurial employee. And they never evolve into a CEO. And I was just telling you before we went live, Robert Kiyosaki, the King of wealth creation that's taught millions of people how to build wealth, talks about the fact that businesses that are assets are only assets if they run, even if you're not there.

And my whole philosophy is I want to build assets. I want to build businesses that perform, even if I don't show up. Now, of course, you have to be there at the beginning to nurture it, and it's like a little kid growing up. You have to be there to parent it until it's able to go out into the world and be on its own.

But eventually it should have the systems in place and the team in place to be able to not only run without you, but ultimately grow without you. And again, I'm not against going all in and being extremely in the business at the beginning. But if that's the end goal, then you're just stuck in your own nine to five.

And a lot of people become entrepreneurs for freedom, which is kind of ironic because then they just trap themselves even more into their own rat race. So, again, I'm not saying I'm against working really hard. As you said, I'm an immigrant and I truly do believe in hard work, but it's just doing it with the right vision in mind and knowing that one day you need to remove yourself from that business.

Mike Mark: [00:03:43]

So what keeps someone trapped there?

Joel Kaplan: [00:03:46]

That's, that's a really good question. I would say that it comes down to fear of letting go. Not trusting themselves in their process because if they trust themselves in their process, their ability to get appointments, their ability to close those appointments and get clients that our ability to fulfill, then they should trust their ability to take those processes and give them to someone else.

So I truly believe that it comes down to trusting that you can deliver, even if it's through someone else, and then your ability to let go. And if you don't work on those core emotional things that are holding you back, it's going to be hard for you to remove yourself as the bottleneck. I think also it's kind of like a catch 22 once you're trapped in the rat race that you created for yourself, it's hard to get out of it.

So you need someone to kind of beat you over the head and be like, yo, step away from the business. And I'd say the one last thing is something that we did it at was digital that helped us really automate our agency, which I have seen very few people do something called a vacation test where my business partner would force me and himself to leave and let the business fail.

Mike Mark: [00:05:03]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:05:04]

So that we could actually see which, which were the gaps, which were the holes in the business. And then ultimately that would allow us to come back, fill those gaps. And now those little pieces that were broken and if we weren't there, would be fixed. So that even if we walked away, they would still work without us.

Mike Mark: [00:05:24]

That's super good. That's really, really good. the vacation test. So if you are with us right now, just give us a comment below. I just want to check to make sure that you're with us. And the one thing I wanted to touch on with that, so we, we actually did that, right?

So on Christmas, I took a week off from Christmas to, to new year's, and I just was like, there's no. No fucking way. I'm going to respond to anybody during this time. You know? Cause like, it's so easy to get caught up in this. Like they need me mentality all the time. And so I was just like, I'm just going to ignore everything and then see what happens. And I did it for a week. Dude, I lost my mind. It was so like the stress and all the emotions, and I can see why people will tell themselves and they build the story that like, yeah, Oh, well, no, I have to do this.

I can't step away from it. But instead, like I think the difference that you have in your partner has, or like even we have is that when we came back it was like, okay. Why is this happening? And then you drill down to the root cause analysis. And then once you identify that root cause, it's like, ah. So here's what's the shift.

And like for us, I just kind of going to offer this for anyone who's here, and it may be your problem. It may not be your problem, but. For us, our problem was, so I delegated everything inside of the business at that point, right? Like I was pretty much hands-off and I could work at that point in time, like 10 15 hours a week as low as five if I really was going to be super hands-off and the business was still functioned pretty much fine.

All right. Just have to show up to my daily huddles and my meetings with the team to know what's going on. and then over Christmas, I tried to just completely remove myself from the huddles. And the thing that I discovered that broke for me was that, we have client success systems, but our communication of issues and things was based on almost tribal knowledge as opposed to scorecards and metrics at the level they needed to be. And all of our scorecards and metrics were reactive as opposed to proactive. And so once I realized that I was like, holy shit. That was big, like when I did my root cause analysis…

Joel Kaplan: [00:07:37]

And do you think you would have arrived at that conclusion if you haven't taken the vacation test?

Mike Mark: [00:07:42]

No. And the other thing is dude, I even doing it during Christmas. It was so annoying to me that I couldn't actually enjoy the time with my family because I was so anxious and stressed the entire time. And in my brain, everything was exploding. There were huge fires and all these things. And then when I checked on the business, they weren't necessarily real. But that feeling of anxiety to me was real in the moment.

And it was costing me the ability to have fun in those experiences with my family. And so I said, fuck that. I don't want that. And it gave me that, like for me, I tend to work best where it's like, I just have a fuck this. I'm not going to settle for it anymore attitude. And then I go into a sprint and then I just like install an overhaul. Everything.

Joel Kaplan: [00:08:28]

Yeah. I think honestly, people never take the vacation test, so they're never able to see the true weaknesses in their systems, and it's almost like their insecurity and letting go forces them to always be involved. So then not only do you never see the holes, but you also don't allow your team and your business to be self-reliant. Because if you're always enabling the system and hopping in and fixing everything, anytime anyone has an issue, anytime there are any broken things in your business, then guess what's going to happen? The business and the team is going to grow, expecting you to be there to solve all their problems, to solve all the issues, to fill all the gaps.

So like sometimes my team fucks up and they're like, Hey, Joel, can you help me with this? And I know the answer and I still don't give it to them.

Mike Mark: [00:09:23]

Yeah. There's a joke about that, right? It's like a, you just hire a smart person and then ignore them, and then they'll eventually figure out the question, the answer to the question on their own.

But what I want to know, what's one situations where you took the vacation test and there was a problem, and then what was that problem? And then like, how did you come about discovering that? What's like one specific example.

Joel Kaplan: [00:09:48]

Yeah. The one that comes to mind, I was on my honeymoon actually in Costa Rica. We had like seven campaigns that needed to be reviewed before going live for clients. And I was like, okay, our review system is fucked up cause it just relies 100% on me. I have to manually review every single campaign.

So then I build an SOP for reviewing campaigns that got it 80% better and then it would, it saved me about 80% of the time I still tweaked it. And then eventually I hired someone. Where their entire job was reviewing and optimizing campaigns.

So the first sort of priority was putting a system in place for a campaign reviewing, and then the second-order of priority was actually finding someone good enough where if there was a subtler mistake or more nuanced mistake that the system wouldn't be able to grab. The human ability would be able to capture and fix on their own. So then that's when we hired our first marketing manager, and all they do is review campaigns and optimize campaigns. And, and yeah, that's, that's a great example I'd say.

Mike Mark: [00:10:56]

The one thing I think I want to highlight here, for especially for some of you guys right now who are tuning in and you might feel a little bit trapped in your business like you can't escape or you can't get out of it, is a thing that you said that really stood out to me was I built a system that got it 80% of the way there. Right. And like, I think that every time someone wants to build a system, they try to get it a hundred percent there and then, so then they say, I can't build a system, therefore I just need to do it myself. And then it turns into this like a self-reinforcing logic that fails them.

Joel Kaplan: [00:11:29]

Yeah. One of our philosophies is 80% automated, 20% human. So it's like some point there is going to be a human involved and you can't expect it to be a hundred percent automated and over time, like here's another mistake that I see people make. They build version one of their systems and then, the actual human on the other end that was implementing that system improved or did some tweaks or over time it got better and now they want to go back and rebuild everything.

I'm like, no, your, your marketing manager knows how to do it and it's still automated even though it's them doing it. Just let them do it and fill in that 20% that isn't perfectly systemized and automated and you know what? If you lose that person. Yes, you'll have to fill in that 20% with a new person, but that still saves you hours and hours and hours of having to go back and rebuild everything.

Mike Mark: [00:12:20]

Yeah. So, yeah, that makes sense. so I have a question for you. About the 80% automated, 20% delegated or kind of 20% human. Do you delegate first or do you automate first?

Joel Kaplan: [00:12:33]

That's a great question. Core functions that are, that are necessary to like the assembly line of the business, which by the way, we try to see the entire service as a productized, as a, as a product that we sell and it falls into an assembly line. And I'd say anything in regards to that process is 80% automated and 20% human. Now. That is not delegated. That's just expected. We get a new client, then this happens and this happens and this happens. Then they're ready to go live. That isn't delegated, that's just automatically done. The things that are delegated or one time tasks or specific issues that came up.

And it is a bit more reactive versus proactive, but that's where that 20% is captured, where you're like, Oh, well this guy's campaign. He requested this specific picture of this specific change. So we're going to have to create a task that we delegate and, And it isn't in our process.

Mike Mark: [00:13:33]

It's interesting. So, the reason I asked you that, and I kind of want to trade notes here, cause I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. but like one of the things that I've noticed has worked particularly well for us is a, given there's a system, right? And it's mostly going to be a human system, right? Cause normally when you're figuring it, you're building something out, you're, you're the one who figured or built it out.

And so you need to capture it and then hand it off. So I can have the time to think again. And my philosophy is to almost always, not, not always, but almost always delegate it first. And then just give it to a person and then once that person's managing it, I know it's consistently getting done and then I can figure out how to automate it with the remaining brainpower I bought back.

Joel Kaplan: [00:14:16]

That's awesome. That's definitely not what we did. We did like the opposite of that. Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:14:23]

I'm trying to automate it takes too much brainpower. So then I'm like, I never get the system live. Cause there's always some little variable that's broken and the human configure that variable out but the automations can't cause they're machines, you know?

But the automations are more consistent and repeatable and they're more efficient. So I almost always try to get the human to do it first and then I problem solve and figure out the different variants of the problem and then I would automate it.

Joel Kaplan: [00:14:50]

I mean, in another, we were like super diving in. In a nutshell, this is my process. Let's say that I've learned how to set up Facebook ads for a dentist, and that's going to be my service. Now, like my first version of this is I'm going to hire a virtual assistant that can press the buttons for me. I'm going to record myself building everything out, right? And then the next time I have a client, a new client, I'm going to have them fill out a Google form with all their information. I'm going to give that virtual assistant the responses from that Google form, the video. Then they're going to go and implement it, and I'm going to have to review it. That's kind of like version one.

Over time, I start to automate more things. Like for example, next time I'll go from Google form to zap that sends them the actual task being like, yo, start doing this. And the third time all automate a little bit more and a little bit more in a little bit more. but the, the reason I said 80% automated is that I believe that even when it's in its most perfect form, it will require some tweaks here and there that you can't systemize and automate.

So. And what I will say though, is at least with your business, there's much more of a human element involved. You have to interview people. It's not the same every single time. The conversation is a little bit different every single time.

Whereas with a marketing agency, you should go after one niche and use one ad and stick to one service, whether it's Google or Facebook or YouTube ads. And that way, every single time it's the same or else you're going to, you're essentially going to hit a fulfillment wall and it's going to be very hard for you to scale.

Mike Mark: [00:16:37]

Yeah. It's funny what you're saying is so true because sometimes I'm like, I see our agency clients and I'm like, fuck, I should have just started an agency all along. I didn't do this to myself, but I guess I just don't, I don't know. I like solving complex problems and I'm kind of a glutton for punishment I guess, so it's more fun for me.

Joel Kaplan: [00:16:58]

What I tell people all the time is like the more, the less productized your services. So, for example, Gary V is a great case study of this. Like every single time he gets a new client, the commercial he films is different. The actual strategies he implements are different. Everything is different. So it's like every time he gets a client, he's essentially starting a brand new mini business.

Now, you may be wondering like, is that, can you actually automate that? Can you actually systemize that? I truly believe that you can, but it requires way more manpower and a dedication to really hire talented people that don't need to be systemized, and that can just figure things out on their own. And the problem is that most rookie entrepreneurs want to go and build that really customized solution. The problem is that it requires a crap ton of cash and investment and HR skills to really bring amazing talent that they probably don't have.

Mike Mark: [00:18:01]

Yeah

Joel Kaplan: [00:18:01]

So, Gary V has automated it, but it's much more human and way less systems than my 80 20 percentage. I think the 80 20 percentage works really well in the agency model. Where if you productize it and you just do lead gen for Kairos or lead gen for gyms, you can really automate 80% whereas, with a Gary V model or maybe your business, it's gonna be a little more human, a little less systems.

Mike Mark: [00:18:31]

Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot more human on our end and then with a human then you're trying to figure out like, I think that the difference between human is that the strategy, you need like frameworks and principle-based systems as opposed to tactical systems. And it takes a lot. You have to find someone who usually you're talking about higher talent, higher dollar per hour talent, and then, usually those people are harder to convince in the first place to join your team because they're kind of skeptical. and then it takes longer to get them ramped up then like, cause a lot of people don't know but we, we do help place like admins and sales admins and stuff as well with our clients once they're working with us.

Cause tracking's just if you're going to run a sales team, you need tracking. And if you don't have tracking, you can't effectively run your sales organization, right? And those are, they're easy PZ because it's repeatable and there are tactical systems, and sometimes we just joke with ourselves like, shit, we should just do this. This is so much easier.

Joel Kaplan: [00:19:29]

To get paid less low, it's a price 22 right? Like I always tell people, are you trying to build a super fancy sushi restaurant in Manhattan or are you trying to build McDonald's. McDonald's is repeatable. It's the same burger, whether you're in, Colorado here in Denver, or whether you're in Florida or whether you're in Manhattan, in New York. the sushi restaurant might be a totally different dish every single night, but it's going to be way more. Sorry, that was my dog down there. This is a coronavirus approved podcast, so they may, there may be some background noise from my house.

But the question you need to ask yourself is, what kind of business are you building? Are you going for more of the McDonald's type, which is just rinse and repeat. If that's the case, then you should be able to automate way more and depend on humans way less. But if you are doing the. For example, let's say let's go to the complete other end of the spectrum. Let's say that you are the one that does one on one consulting in person, and you build a customized strategy every single time for every new client that you get, but you're able to charge $50,000 a day.

If that's the case, then it's going to be very hard to automate. It's going to be 90% human, 10% systems. But then you get paid way more upfront. So I'd say it just depends on more of what you want, but for anyone watching this, if you are a traditional lead generation agency, you should be able to automate 80% and the only things that are very hard to automate are the execution of the set of the actual sales process. You can't like put it into a zap and managing the clients.

Mike Mark: [00:21:16]

I bet you need salespeople.

Joel Kaplan: [00:21:19]

Plug it in, plug it in,

Mike Mark: [00:21:20]

Shameless plug, shameless plug if you need salespeople. So it's interesting, just the overall system of what you're talking about. Cause then it comes down to that decision, right? What do you really want is the big question.

And, in your case, what you're describing is like, if you own an asset, which. You could classify your agency as is an asset, then now you have a cash flow producing asset. But if you make 50 grand a day, it sounds fucking awesome, but you're still a self-employed person. So when you stop showing up to work, the income stops.

And then so like, there's some interesting stuff. I don't know if you are, have you ever come across a cashflow tactics, Brad, given those guys? So they're super smart. I like, I like a lot of their content and, He talks about how like true wealth is measured in time as opposed to money, right? And so..

Joel Kaplan: [00:22:10]

How many days… if you stop working today, how many days you've got? Do you have until your money runs out?

Mike Mark: [00:22:16]

Yup.

Joel Kaplan: [00:22:17]

That's wealth.

Mike Mark: [00:22:18]

Yup. And, because of the way that your system's designed, like you have the time, wealth, not just the income wealth. And so for that person, you know, yeah, maybe they have a lot of savings, maybe they have whatever, but if they stopped working, it's gonna run out eventually.

You know, they might have years of freedom, but at some point it's going to run out. Whereas with the way that you design the system, your freedom is effectively limitless. But then. You, I think suffer from the same problem that I suffer from, which is a, like, I stopped, I got, I got to take a break from building my business. So I go build another business and it's like shit. Like every time I have a hobby, it turns into a business. I'm like, God damn it. I can't stop building businesses.

Joel Kaplan: [00:23:01]

I joked about this like once I realized, wow, I'm pretty far removed from my agency. I should've taken a vacation and instead I went right into a new business and all in and had a bunch of students to take care of like week one and had to start showing up and I promised like four coaching calls a week. And I'm back back in the middle of it. So,

Mike Mark: [00:23:21]

Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:23:22]

I think that's… I mean, at the end of the day, you just have to do some reflection on what you want. You know, if you ask Marcus, my agency business partner, what do you want? He really just wants an asset that he doesn't have to show up for. And once he automated himself from the agency, he was chilling. He went Paragon. He does professional, no, paragliding. You went to a bunch of competitions, took a lot of time off like so it just comes down to also what you want. I get fulfillment from coaching and that's why I got into agency coaching and that's why honestly, I believe one of the biggest reasons why I haven't been able to automate it is because I don't want to automate it.

I like it. I like showing up. It's fun. It's exciting. I get to help people, but it's kind of like a, like I said earlier, it's a catch 22 because. Then it forces me to still have a job and be trapped in my own nine to five and be an entrepreneurial employee. So…

Mike Mark: [00:24:22]

Yeah, but the thing is that it's a choice for you because you don't have to be there. You know, you signed up for it and then it's, it has a different emotional charge when you can any day say, fuck it, I'm going to shut this thing down and you're still going to be, I, you know what I mean?

Joel Kaplan: [00:24:41]

Sorry. I got excited, Mike. One last thing.

Mike Mark: [00:24:42]

Go, get excited.

Joel Kaplan: [00:24:44]

The other thing is, even though the agency coaching isn't systemized, I did consciously get a few coaches and I've created workshops with my students. So if at any point in time I do need time off, I don't, I'm not forced to show up. It's not like a job where I will get fired if I don't come into work. So, I think it just comes down to being aware of what you want out of that business and building it accordingly.

Mike Mark: [00:25:13]

Yep. so we got a bunch of people here and I want you guys, we'll be monitoring the comments. So if you have questions that you want us to go deeper on, drop those questions in the comments and then, we'll make sure to answer your guys' questions and riff on this stuff. So, please, by all means, if there's anything that you absolutely want to ask Joel, because I mean, what he's done is nothing short of remarkable. To be able to work an hour a week on your agency and to be able to have 250 grand a month coming in and 200 clients like. That's the type of stuff that you almost don't even believe when people make those claims. Right? It's like.

Joel Kaplan: [00:25:53]

I know it's kind of a catch 22.

Mike Mark: [00:25:55]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it sounds way too good to be true, but I mean, I know you and I know that it's legit, right? So…

Joel Kaplan: [00:26:02]

It's so funny cause sometimes we've joked about like the guarantees we want to make about the results we can get people. And then, you know, Mark, he does all of our copywriting. He's like, yeah, but if we make that claim, no one's going to believe us and then they're not going to opt it.

Mike Mark: [00:26:18]

Yup.

Joel Kaplan: [00:26:18]

That's fine.

Mike Mark: [00:26:20]

Yeah. That's, I mean it's pretty well,

Joel Kaplan: [00:26:22]

Someone asked that. Sorry, go for it. Go for it. Go for it.

Mike Mark: [00:26:25]

No, no, It's just wild that when your, your like your perception of what's possible gets to this point that other people like for them, it can't possibly be real. and I guess was there a moment in your trajectory where you felt like everything changed or was there like a moment when you kind of realized like, Holy shit and you kind of had like a look what I've built sort of thing?

Joel Kaplan: [00:26:49]

That's a great question, man. I'd say that there were many points. It wasn't just one. I'd say that back then, I thought like, I remember when I quit my nine to five, 20K a month, I was like, if I can just make 20K a month for the rest of my life, I will be fine. I just want to work for myself, and that was the, that was acceptable to me. And I think every single time I've leveled up as a human being and recalibrated my expectations of myself and my own goals, the ceiling has been shattered. So I remember writing down with Marcus, okay, we're going to hit 50K a month, and we're like, let's just go for it. Fuck it. We hit it. Then we're like, okay, a hundred K a month, and it's like every single time that we would hit those goals and it would reset our expectations. I'd look back and be like, wow. Like I never would have thought that I would have been able to get here, but every time that I expected that of myself, we were able to make it.

Now, the mistake that I see a lot of people make when it comes to goal setting is they make goals at the start that are not reachable. So then they never actually trust themselves in hitting those goals. So I'd rather have a goal that's definitely difficult. I like competition and I'm not going to say, Oh, I'm going to get one client that's a little too easy. But having a goal that's still within your region, within your control and within your abilities and your limits and your expertise, and just constantly hitting it. And then raising the bar just a little bit. And, with my agency and with my business, we just continuously did that. So then all of a sudden, 50K a month sounds like a terrible business. We're like, what? Just 50K a month. We need to hit a million a month.

Mike Mark: [00:28:36]

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:28:37]

So, and honestly saying this right now, just being very conscious about it and humble, one of the reasons I probably haven't hit a million a month is because I jumped from two 50 to a million a month in my goal setting. And just talking about this out loud and just, I'm literally just having this realization. If I had told myself, okay, I'm going to hit 350 K and then 450 K and then 500 and then 600 I'd probably be a little bit farther right now. So I don't know if that answers a question. I think it does in some way, shape or form, but yeah, I've had moments.

Mike Mark: [00:29:12]

The… The… the thing that you're describing though about the goals and like, it's weird, there's a sweet spot to them, right? And, so I remember when I first got into this sort of stuff, like I would write. You know, I, Michael Mark have made a $10,500 by October 31st, 2015 like I wrote it every single morning in the morning consistently, and it was a 90-day target and do the craziest thing was I looked on November 1st and I hit $10,700 on October, that that whole month. And I'm like, Holy crap.

And then I did it again. I wrote like, you know, I, Michael Mark hit 20 to $21,000 per month by, what was it, December 31st, 2015 I wrote every day. And then it was like, I missed it that month, but then I got it in January. I hit 22, and I was like, Oh my God, what is this thing? and just…

Joel Kaplan: [00:30:16]

That's manifesting, that's what it is.

Mike Mark: [00:30:18]

Yeah. You get obsessed, dude. You get obsessed. And, and, the thing was who it was like it was big enough, but then it was like small enough that I could feel it. And then I got stuck on 50 for a long, long time. I couldn't hit 50. And then, then, eventually it just finally happened after like, almost, it took me like almost a year or two years to hit 50. But it was just the model and the way I designed my model was broken. And then I had to redesign my model and then it worked again.

And then, like I had a hundred grand a month, like literally for a full year, a hundred K month was like, I just would think about it, all I'd talk about was the a hundred K a month, a hundred came out month, a hundred K a month. And then when we finally hit it, it was like. Wow. That wasn't that exciting. and then like it's so weird cause the more you get there you're like, ah, like every time you think you're, all your problems in the world are going to disappear at that next level. And then it's like you're just still the same person and it feels very much the same in a lot of ways. You know.

Joel Kaplan: [00:31:18]

Yeah. But what's really interesting in the stories you've shared is that you didn't, it's not like you hit 10,500 and then you wrote a hundred thousand the next month. You, you, you made it within your reach. And then what, what I believe happens is that when you put that intention out into the world and then you hit it, then you're essentially telling yourself that you can trust yourself and hitting those goals, and every time you level it up, you have that self-confidence that when you say you're going to do something, you can actually go out and do it.

Whereas if you say, Oh, I'm going to make 10 million a month. Out of nowhere and you never do it, then how can you trust yourself and even hitting 10,000 a month.

Mike Mark: [00:31:58]

Yup. So other big thing is just paying. I just pay the person who had done it. And then the best part about paying the person who had done it was not necessarily acquiring their knowledge, which that is one of the best parts, but it's not the best.

To me, the best part about paying the person was to be in a room and see everybody else doing it and then it doesn't feel weird anymore. Cause then you're like, that guy did it. That guy did it, this girl did it, this girl did it. Like if they're all doing it, they're not that much smarter than me. Like it's not like I'm just some idiot here, you know?

Maybe I'm a little bit slower than most, but yeah. I'm not a complete and total idiot. Right. So I think I can do this too. And like that, that effect of when you see a whole group of people doing something, it becomes so real in your mind and so possible that it was just like, I dunno, it was. That is always the biggest thing. Like anytime I want to acquire a skill, I go around everybody else that's doing it at a level that I want to be.

Joel Kaplan: [00:32:57]

I can see it. The gap or whatever gap is there. Will be what you need to do to fill that gap will become extremely clear when you can see where everyone else is and what they're doing to get there.

Mike Mark: [00:33:09]

Yup.

Joel Kaplan: [00:33:09]

Let's say that you want to get in shape. If you live with five other people that are in extremely good shape, you're going to be able to pick up on their habits, how they think, what actions they take, and it's just going to be easier to model it. I truly believe that as well.

Mike Mark: [00:33:25]

Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:33:27]

I that made me think of the, you know, the three things that I tell everyone to invest in, when they're starting out is knowledge, then direct coaching and then network. And the one that you pro like network is probably one of the most important and biggest ones because like you said, it just forces you to elevate. And then the other reason that I truly believe that you have to invest in yourself is because if you want to get an ROI. There needs to be some sort of investment.

And I, I've seen a lot of people, like some guy just posted in a group yesterday and was like, how? Why doesn't anyone just coach me for free? And what I was thinking is even if there were people out there that would be willing to coach him for free, he's never going to get a return if he's never willing to make an investment.

Mike Mark: [00:34:17]

Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:34:18]

So how do you expect to get ROI if you never invest in yourself? That's also like, another thing that I noticed in my growth first year straight up, I spent over $30,000 first year as an entrepreneur and most people their first year are afraid to spend a thousand bucks. Afraid. And I was like, I remember telling Marcus was, I'm like, we have to invest in ourselves. That is the one thing we're never going to hold back on.

Mike Mark: [00:34:43]

Yup. It's interesting for me, my, my experiences, I was a course whore, right? Like a huge course whore. And I would just buy a, like, if this was like a 20 to $50 course, I'd buy a hundred, $200. I'm like thinking about it. And then, A grand, like I'd buy occasionally, but they're on the payment plans for the course of the year type thing, right. Like…

Joel Kaplan: [00:35:02]

That's why you were not hitting 50K a month?

Mike Mark: [00:35:05]

No, no, it was before that even there was a, it was less than 10 grand. I was like at five, four or five and like just really scraping by and, I, I was just buying all these little courses and then it was like. I just got to the point where I was like, fuck enough is enough and I can't do this anymore. Like I got so sick and tired. Then I, there's like a high ticket program. I convinced the guy to let me in and I had to sell him to give me a payment plan and I split it up bi-weekly. I was the brokest payment plan ever. I was like, almost that guy who has five cards, but I'm just like, dude, give me six pay.

Joel Kaplan: [00:35:43]

12 months payments plan for a…

Mike Mark: [00:35:46]

A bi-weekly six pay was how I negotiated it. And Then sure as shit. I mean, I did not have the money. There was absolutely not the money there, and I had the knots in my stomach and all that stuff, and I was just like, I gotta make this thing fucking work. And then sure, shit, that was the time. Then I hit the ten five and then after that, like my life had completely changed. So…

Joel Kaplan: [00:36:08]

There's the other factor when you have to make it work, guess what's going to happen. You're going to make it work. When you don't have to make it work and you're comfortable, then it's going to be much more difficult for you to injure the discomfort that is required for you to get to where you want to go.

Mike Mark: [00:36:23]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a part discomfort, but part just the consistency, right? Like it's just, it's just the showing up every single day that only obsession gets you, right. Like, and so when you are so far invested in it, then it like, you almost feel like I have to absolutely get my money back. So you're going to do something every day to try and get it. And, that was when it finally hit. So, Alright.

So let's shift gears. how do you handle clients who are always behind every second. So are you talking about behind on payments, behind on deliverables? What are they behind on? I, I'm guessing he's saying behind on deliverables. So let's roll with that. And then, maybe, you can kind of chime in if there's, there's more that you want to add there.

Joel Kaplan: [00:37:08]

That's a great question. the way that you fix that problem is by niching down. Having one ad campaign that you run through one media buying platform, and that is going to be the simplest way for you to productize your service or in other words, turn your agency service into a product where every single time you get a client, it's the same thing over and over and over again. Now obviously, obviously at first, it's going to be hard for you to do that. It's going to improve over time. But the key to be able to keep to being able to deliver over and over again at rapid speed is to essentially turn your agency into an assembly line.

So if you actually take some time after this live and go on Google and look up “factory assembly line” and watch some YouTube videos on how those assembly lines work, you'll actually be able to see the process of what it takes to go from a tiny little lace to building out an entire shoe, for example.

And if you can take that sort of philosophy and thinking and bring it back into your agency, then you're never going to have to worry about when things are going to be due and how long it's going to take you to deliver them. Because every single time it's going to go through the exact same assembly line and it's going to shoot out the same exact product I service at the end of the, at the end of the line.

So. I'd say that's, that's probably the solution that I would give. And then also more short term, if you're just starting out and you don't have the ability to productize your service, what I would do is I would just set better expectations with clients and give yourself more time to execute and deliver on your services.

I truly believe that. Clients are only upset with you when the expectation isn't set. So for example, if you go out and tell a client, Hey, it's going to take us about two weeks to get this done, and they're not going to care that it takes two weeks, they're just going to be happy that you gave them your word and that you backed it up and you honored that.

Whereas, if you didn't say anything and it took you two weeks, they're going to be pissed that it took two weeks. So it's all just about setting the expectation and leading the conversation. And if I was just starting out and I'd have to, I'm having to worry about fulfillment clients, prospecting, everything, I would just give myself more time and set the expectation that it's going to take a little longer than you probably wanted to.

Mike Mark: [00:39:39]

Yeah. it's interesting cause I think that what you've done is really smart were, you've done so much of the leg work for them, right? So you don't, it doesn't depend on them doing work really much at all. And so you, removed them out of it, which I think, you know, from my perspective, I have this, sort of fundamental belief almost in the way I am designing products is, I imagine every user of my product is the stupidest, laziest, excuse us, complete and total piece of shit, right? And if I design the product to be able to work for them, it will work for everybody.

And that's like, I'm always trying to, like I'm, I'm always imagining that, you know, the client's not going to listen. So I can tell them something nine times and they're not going to do it. They're not going to hear it. They're not going to get it. They're not going to read their email. They're not going to do this. So I'm always trying to build in…

Joel Kaplan: [00:40:32]

For the record, I read my emails and responded to your emails, Mike.

Mike Mark: [00:40:35]

You did. You did. You weren't, you weren't an idiot. And there's probably a reason why you're an hour, an hour a week with 250 grand a month. But I just like to imagine that they all are. So then there's always contingencies, right? Cause the thing is that, like for most of you guys, imagine going to the grocery store or going to downtown from your house, right? And then coming back to your house, let's say there's a road that's closed. You can figure it out without your maps. Hopefully, if you're probably a little bit older than 20 something, then you probably can't, right? Like, and you know, the different detours, you know, the different ways home and that's because basically you have contingencies because you really know the domain or you know the territory. So if you only know one path to get to the outcome, then and you don't have the contingencies in place.

And that's where a lot of products fail. And so like I'm always trying to figure out like how can I build as many contingencies in place and then how can I study some of these things? And like other stuff that's really helped me is I've studied a computer programming. So, I don't know how to really computer program much, but I've studied computational thinking and systems. So, systems tend to be what's called a linear system, but a linear system is not the only kind of system. So most people, when they think about the factory model, or like the assembly line model, those are primarily linear systems and linear systems are easier to build than almost any system.

But the complication and where I think most people get stuck is because they're only thinking in, you know, if this, then that, and then there's like kind of two paths, and then they have this big linear system. But sometimes there's things like, you know, it's not just a, do this, then do this, don't do this. And it is, there's conditional formatting. There's branching logic. There's, there's, gonna be different kinds of things like, you're going to have repetitive until you hit a specific condition. And so like that's called iterative logic. And so you have to look at the different ways. And so I studied a lot of stuff outside of her realm and then try and bring it in. And that's one that's really helped us.

Joel Kaplan: [00:42:42]

Yeah. I guess my thought would be to make your agency service as much of a linear system as humanly possible.

Mike Mark: [00:42:49]

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:42:49]

That's how I would think about it. And I think that's how we did think about it. And knowing that by doing so, it's going to be a lot easier for us to scale compared to doing it through these more like through conditional format, formatting and iterative logic and all that more complex stuff, which is, I guess more of the Gary V model.
There's so many different factors, but for anyone that's starting out, I would try to productize it more in the simplest way for me to just be able to tell you how to do that is to focus on one niche, one service. So Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, pick one. Then one ad campaign. That's it. If you're working with a dentist, do $500 off Invisalign. If you're working with a chiropractor, do a $21 new patient special. If you're working with a gym, do a free week pass, but it's the same one every single time for every single client. And if they ask you to change it, you say, no. That's, that's the best way to get into a linear. I mean, again, I guess it's just different philosophies, but it goes back to what we were saying at the beginning. It comes down to the type of business you want to build, and we really wanted to build…

Mike Mark: [00:43:51]

I think it comes down to time too, right? Like, so, I think that you could build the linear system business faster, but I can get to the same outcome. It's just going to take me longer because it requires more skills and thinking and things like that. And so, like partly it to me, it's… I've always said that I'd rather be busy than bored and bored. Like I hate being bored. I love being challenged and I really like hard problems. And just like the part of the reason why I got into building sales teams is that it was the hardest fucking problem I had ever tried to solve. And it drove me nuts. And like, I just like, I'm the type of person that if you tell me I can't do something, I'm like. Fuck you. Watch me dealing with…

Joel Kaplan: [00:44:33]

…personality human beings that are very driven, it's like the hardest type of people to deal with.

Mike Mark: [00:44:39]

Dude. Just relentless or that. And so, because it's such a hard problem to solve, that's what made it fun. And that's where I get like the joy out of building the sales teams. But, I definitely like, I sit there and I see people with our coaching offers and I'm like, ah, I'm just such an idiot. I should just do that. It's so easy looking, but I really don't want it. It's just like one of those like the voice on your head, you know…

Joel Kaplan: [00:45:00]

It's a catch 22 like also like you want to build a, a more of an asset type of business. The margins are going to be lower just cause there's more people involved, more systems involved, things like that. So there's just, there's always two sides to the coin.

Mike Mark: [00:45:16]

Yeah. It's identifying what those trade-offs are and then figuring out for you, okay.

Joel Kaplan: [00:45:19]

You can do it. You can do it like me too. You can build your automated business first and then go into coaching into your more personalized offer, and then you get the best of both worlds. But that'll, that'll be hard for you to go back into the past and recreate that. So…

Mike Mark: [00:45:34]

Yeah. so a couple of extra questions we got. how do we handle refunds from clients?

Joel Kaplan: [00:45:40]

It depends why they're asking for a refund. Our, our policy is if we fucked up really bad, we honor the refund. Like, we do believe in the fact that we're going to be here for a long time, so we have to do business with integrity. And I'd say that at the beginning of my agency, my ego was too big and I probably didn't let that happen. And it caused me a few relationships that I regret. So now I tell my team all the time, if we screwed up and they want to leave, we do not force them to stay. We refund them. That is the right thing to do.

Now, if the client is. like if, if it's an easy complication that we can fix, we always try to fix it. So I also tell my team, don't go straight for the refund and refund them. Like we always try to find a solution. And then what I also teach them is to go for the win-win. So be willing to give up a little bit and let them also give up a little bit and meet you halfway. And that is always going to be a better solution. Both sides feel good. you meet halfway, you maintain the relationship, you maintain your brand, and you can continue moving forward. So for example, let's say they want a full refund for a few mistakes. What we would tell them, what I would tell my account managers to do is to try to tell them, Hey, we're going to fix everything.

On top of that. We're going to throw in a free Google review campaign and we're going to give you a $500 discount this month. The next month it'll go back to the normal pricing. Does that sound fair? And they're going to say, yeah, that sounds awesome, let's do that. And now you were able to, be a leader in the situation. You maintained your integrity, you maintain your brand, and yes, you took a small hit, but you're essentially taking a few steps back to take many steps forward. That's my, my philosophy on refunds.

Mike Mark: [00:47:26]

Some other things, just refund wise, like build them into your model, right? So if you are designing your cashflow model, then you build refunds into your model. Have cash reserves on hand. I know it's tough in the beginning, but if you don't have cash reserves on hand, then yeah, you don't want to refund. But if you do, then it's like whatever. and I don't know. For me, my, my sense has always been that if someone doesn't feel like they got the value, like I tell a lot of our clients, it's like, I want you to feel like you fucking ripped me off. Like, I want you to, I want you to feel slightly guilty at how good of a deal you got in working with us. Right? And, and if I can make you feel that way, then I know that, Hey, we're going to work together for a long, long time. and if you don't feel that way, then to me, that's like an energy exchange that I'm not trying to have. And so I want to try and figure that out.

And so, like. Aye. I've been in like, I sold timeshare. That's how I learned how to sell. Right? So in timeshare, it's the opposite of that. It's like you never get a refund. I got you locked into this contract, so fuck you. And like the energy in it is so bad, dude. It's so bad. Like you, it's like it's dark. It's like a, and you can see it in people's face and the energy and like, I just thought like. I don't know. I'd rather be free than rich and some ways. So like, you know…

Joel Kaplan: [00:48:43]

It probably ties great lessons looking back though, so.

Mike Mark: [00:48:46]

Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, it was…

Joel Kaplan: [00:48:48]

You're just winning the easy way. And now if it tells you how to win the hard way, like you're just, not only is it actually so much more, there's much more security longterm, but you probably ended up winning bigger, so.

Mike Mark: [00:49:00]

For sure. Yeah, it's, it's significantly better.

Joel Kaplan: [00:49:03]

Mike, can I say one last thing on refunds?

Mike Mark: [00:49:05]

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:49:06]

So I think a lot of people, in terms of the agency space, a lot of times when people ask us for refunds is because there was a mistake on the onboarding, or there was a miscommunication or that they thought they were going to go live on Friday, but instead it was Thursday. So a lot of the times, this idea of feeling like you've ripped me off in a good way, a lot of the times refunds happen from just stupid little mistakes.

So. And at the end of the day, the client hasn't even had an opportunity to see if they get value from our services. So that's why in the agency space specifically, I always try to just make it work and if, if they really want it, we're not going to fight them on it. And also, I, the last thing I wanted to throw in that I didn't say earlier is I always tell my team, if a client is disrespecting you, I do not need their money.

Mike Mark: [00:49:57]

Yeah.

Joel Kaplan: [00:49:58]

If someone is going to be an asshole. And there has, like I've had a client make my account manager cry, like you have to fight someone that deeply and intensely over a Facebook ad campaign. I don't want that type of client ever.

Mike Mark: [00:50:16]

I'm volunteering a refund at that point. It's like, Hey, actually I don't want your fucking money and I wish you good luck and that's it.

Joel Kaplan: [00:50:24]

No. I'm not saying you can't work with difficult clients, but there does. If a line is crossed, I tell my team they always can refund. So I wanted to throw that in.

Mike Mark: [00:50:31]

Cool. and that's, that's good to distribute the power downwards, you know? That's what I mean. That's why you don't have to be in it that much to figure all that stuff out. So, oh, Yanaki asks a really good question, actually. He says, ah, if I don't have a client yet. Right. So he's, he's in a kind of really, really beginning phases of his agency. Should he focus on setting the fulfillment line to deliver, or should he focus on the prospecting first?

Joel Kaplan: [00:50:55]

Yeah. The answer is, do not worry at all about fulfillment. The only thing that matters when you're starting out is setting and closing appointments. And the way that I would do it if I was brand new, let's say I don't have any marketing experience, I would try to prospect but get trial clients so that I actually earned the right to close people and have them pay me money. They have to keep in mind. When I started my agency, I had already been a director of marketing for a few years. I had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Google ads for local businesses, so it was a little bit different.

But if I were a brand new, just starting out, I would focus just on prospecting, but instead of trying to close the client, I would be building some strategic relationships where I would tell them, Hey, let me work for you for free for 30 days. Get my practice in, get my reps in. If you like what you've got based on this trial run, then we can work together and here's my price. And if not, no worries, but at least you're putting the reps in to earn the right to charge. And I think. A lot of newbs in the space want the quick, easy way to make money.

And the reality is you haven't earned the right to make money, and that's probably why you aren't. So everyone's always like, how do I get my first client in like three days? How do I close without social proof? What if I don't have any references? The easy answers for me to feed you some bullshit about how to close clients in a week. But the hard and ultimately right answer is for you to put in the reps and earn the right to be able to close clients.

And the way that you do that is by putting in the reps and not taking it the beginning but instead giving. So instead of trying to figure out how to close without social proof, go out and get some social proof instead of trying to figure out how to close without a reference. Go and build a strategic relationship with someone where you work for them for free, and then they're willing to be a reference for you whenever you need it. If you haven't been able to land a client and you're spinning your wheels, then go out and get five free clients, get your experience, figure out how to deliver results, and then they're going to be happy to pay you.

So, that being said, my answer is still not the focus on fulfillment first. You're still focusing on starting those conversations. You're still focusing on setting appointments and getting in front of business owners so that you can pitch them on this longer-term relationship where you do a trial first and then close them as clients.

Mike Mark: [00:53:30]

Yeah, that's super good though, dude. If, if you haven't earned the right to get paid. And that's probably why you're not getting paid. That was a bomb right there. cause everyone tries to, they try to skip the thing. They don't want to take the stairs. Right. They try and figure out the direct elevator to the top and they don't wanna take the stairs, but it's like you can't skip the stairs, right? Like the only reason that I know our shit works so well on the inside is because of how many times I've failed doing it and how much time and energy invested into figuring out this problem, right? And it's like if I had tried to skip that altogether, which the best part is people are trying to skip it all the time, especially our competitors. And like, their shit sucks. Like just a fucking flaming bag of shit.

And I love it. It's like my favorite thing because it's like, for example, everyone knows the HTC guys suck. Like it's just, it's known. There are some good ones. Don't get me wrong, they're not all bad, but 99% of them suck. Right? And it's because all of these guys tried to label themselves sales professionals without ever earning the right to be labeled a sales professional. They've never actually put in the fucking work, and they've only done it inside.

Joel Kaplan: [00:54:53]

I didn't even close myself. I didn't even call myself a closer after closing a hundred thousand dollar deals, like one time deals. So I think like a lot of people don't realize the fact that… I started my agency at like age 24 I had been doing Google ads since age 18.

Mike Mark: [00:55:09]

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Joel Kaplan: [00:55:11]

Yeah. I started doing Google ads for my family's business and like a lot of people were like, man, that's so true. A lot of people want to get right to the top without taking the stairs and it's just not going to happen. What I will tell you is that the path up the stairs is faster if you actually start taking them and walking up. But if you start figuring out ways to skip around that and magically show up at the top, it's going to take you a long, long time. So instead of trying to figure out the hack or the secret, which a lot of people are trying to sell you that, what I would tell you is it doesn't exist.

And the fastest way to get up is just to put in the work. So. For example, like even my business partner, Marcus, was when he moved out to Colorado, he went to a BNI and he said, I have no idea how to do marketing. I'm going to find someone who does, but I'm starting a marketing agency. Whoever wants help with marketing, I'm going to do it for free for the first five people, that's what he did. And then all of a sudden he had five people that he could test out marketing with, and then all of a sudden they were like, Oh, this is pretty good. And then he found me and then we started getting them results, and then they started paying us.

Mike Mark: [00:56:17]

Wow. Interesting. That's cool.

Joel Kaplan: [00:56:20]

Yeah.

Mike Mark: [00:56:20]

Sweet. Well. I know we're just about at time, so let's see if anybody's got some last questions. You guys, if you've got any questions, drop them in here. If we don't get to them now, then we will circle back and hit them in the chat later. Joel, if they want to find you, where can people find you?

Joel Kaplan: [00:56:38]

People can find me in my Facebook group. It's called marketing agency secrets. Especially when you show up to the live with Mike Mark that I'm going to be doing some point in the next few weeks. So that's the best place.

Mike Mark: [00:56:51]

Love it. Okay. So you said marketing agency secrets, that's where they're going to find you.

Joel Kaplan: [00:56:55]

Yeah, I can drop it in the…

Mike Mark: [00:56:57]

Drop the link down below for them. so that way you guys, if you want to jump in there, you can check out what Joel's got going on. I mean, I can tell you his systems are super legit, love clients that go through his stuff. Because their prospecting is really locked in.

They are booking appointments consistently, and then when it comes time to actually get them off the sales calls, they have the right foundations in place. I mean like bah dude bow. I don't know if you know, but bow literally doubled his revenue last month and he's on pace to do basically the same thing again.

Joel Kaplan: [00:57:28]

Bunch of our students are loving your reps. Luis, he is. He's crushing it too.

Mike Mark: [00:57:33]

And he's been out for like almost two weeks, three weeks. He's had stuff going on personally, and like, he's been out and he's getting deals closed while he's out. It was pretty Epic to see. so. Thank you guys, for joining us. we're going to wrap up now. If you've got questions again, just drop them here. You could also pop over to Joel's group, check out what he's got going on over there, and then, we'll circle back and hit your questions if you want to leave him here.

But thanks for tuning in, everyone. Appreciate you guys. And we'll keep more of these come in. just if you guys are watching this on the replay too. Drop hashtag replay if there's anybody else that you want to see in one of these, drop someone that you think we should bring on the next interview. And then I'll keep you guys posted for when we do the interview in Joel's group, so you can join us over there and we'll probably end up talking about something completely different.

But it's been fun. Joel has a lot of great insights and to be able to hear that, you know. Love this stuff, man, and I just appreciate, appreciate you a lot, like a lot.

Joel Kaplan: [00:58:34]

So appreciate you too, man. I'm going to be hiring Mike Mark for the rest of my life. So if you’re thinking about using Mike Mark, what are you waiting for?

Put that on a, on an Instagram clip or something.

Mike Mark: [00:58:47]

There you go. That's what I'm talking about. All right, y'all. Thanks for tuning in.

Joel Kaplan: [00:58:51]

Peace out.