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Omnichannel
The Marketing and Business Podcast For Online Entrepreneurs! Learn the best approaches from experts as well as the psychology of what it means to be a human in business!
Omnichannel
Turn Your Knowledge Into A Million Dollar Launch
Ever felt trapped in a job with no growth in sight? Meet Evan, a former Target staffer whose career trajectory took a 180-degree turn into the realm of digital marketing mastery, and now he's spilling his secrets. Our candid conversation with Evan unveils the metamorphosis from retail to revolutionizing subject matter experts' bank accounts through dynamic sales funnels. He not only reveals his three-step plan to digital wealth but stresses the undeniable value of genuine connections with potential customers.
Taking action is the heart of today's discussion as we dig into the art of transforming resistance to selling into profitable ventures. We share insights from a staggering $1.6 million launch, all thanks to the strategic use of webinars and lead magnets. The chat navigates through the challenges and mindset shifts needed to excel in the ambitious world of digital entrepreneurship, alongside the pivotal role of storytelling and AI in business growth. Taylor's tale of copywriting wizardry that boosted his wife's salon business further underscores the transformative power of compelling communication.
But this episode isn't just about making money; it's about making a difference. We explore how monetizing passion and expertise isn't confined to influencers with massive followings but is accessible to anyone with a niche interest and internet access. Plus, we look towards the future, contemplating the profound benefits of instilling entrepreneurial skills and a growth mindset in the next generation. Whether you're seeking a side hustle or dreaming of a digital empire, this episode with Evan serves up the inspiration and actionable advice to fuel your journey.
9-5 might be just something they do to pay the bills, but they might be super passionate about something and if they're thinking about that thing on vacation, that's a really good sign that they can become a subject matter expert and they can blow up online in a pinch. And so you have to know what you're talking about in order to get your responses. Even then, you need to be able to read this and put your consumer hat on and be like, okay, if I read this, would this move be in a working level funnel, getting my first client because I took action and I talked to a business owner, that was it for me, that gave me so much confidence, and I'm like, oh my gosh, anybody can do this.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome back to the Omicrona podcast. Today I have the amazing Evan with me sharing his story from going to work for Target for 20 years into turning his business into. What exactly do you turn your business to? Comma club winner multiple times helping experts monetize their expertise.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, helping subject matter experts is what I call them People that have amazing knowledge for specific things online. I help them turn that knowledge into high converting funnels to help them sell their knowledge.
Speaker 2:That sounds amazing. So can you tell me a bit your story, by the way, like how do you go from Target to a subject matter expert?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so I've worked retail basically my entire life until about five years ago. I started at 15 at McDonald's. That was my first job, so it was either food service or some form of retail. And after I got a degree, target allowed me to promote to a senior team lead level and then I got to an executive team lead level and I just did that and I ran teams and I was in basically every position that you can imagine at the store level.
Speaker 1:And then the next step for me would have been to go up to Minneapolis, which is their headquarters, and my wife does not like the cold, so I was not going to go to Minneapolis. So I knew that I was capped and I did that for many years and I started working 60, 70, 80 hours, especially during Q4, very busy time in retail. And then one day I saw this online course for digital marketing. I had never done digital marketing and it intrigued me. I'm like, well, shoot, that could be good At least. At the very least, it would be a good side hustle, right, like I could make some side income maybe.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people take these courses and they try things online and it doesn't work, whether it's affiliate marketing or dropshipping. I mean, they see ads for this stuff all the time. Well, I had never really seen ads. You know only if you're in this world you see ads for it all the time, but if you're in retail, you're really not seeing the ads for things. So the first ad that I really noticed I bought the course and it was amazing.
Speaker 1:It showed me the foundations of how to do digital marketing for brick and mortar businesses, chiropractors, medspots, roofing companies, helping them generate leads and this was back in 2018 and very quickly I realized I was pretty good at it, because there's a three step process you got to learn how to prospect, you got to learn how to close deals and you got to learn how to do the fulfillment, building out the funnels. It's pretty simple. It really is. The people make these things so much more difficult than they are. If you can put the right offer in front of the right person at the right time, you can sell anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah that sounds amazing. Do you remember what the first course that was? You know, you said it was digital marketing course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was actually a program that a guy named Douglas James put out and back then it was called the Expert Academy and now it's Industry Marketing Academy and he's still rocking and rolling. Douglas James has been doing this a lot longer than me. He's probably been doing digital marketing for small business for at least 10 years and now he has evolved into oh man, defi, into cryptocurrencies. He is buying businesses. He's doing a whole lot of things and he's kind of one of my mentors that I follow that every time he moves up, I'm like four or five rungs down and I just like, okay, maybe I'll get to that next level. And now I have a really good support system of mentors that are doing insane numbers.
Speaker 1:You're talking, when you start this business, most people think, hey, if I can just make $10,000 a month, that would be great. And then once you hit that, you realize, okay, how, about $25,000 a month? And his program. Actually, when I hit that, this was maybe four and a half years ago I got this $25,000 a month award and I was like, oh, this is great. And then, as you keep scaling, you realize there's people ahead of you that are doing million dollars every month. You know, multi-million dollars and you got some of these people on podcasts. You know. You got people like you and influencers out there where there is no cap and if there ever gets to be a cap, you can sell that business for a 10X multiple and you go start something else. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's like the hedonic treadmill right. It's like always more and more and more. You just want to keep growing. You never stop, yep. So you said this three-step process and the first was prospecting, and I want to go here a bit because I feel like that's the hardest part for, especially even if they have subject matter expertise the lot of artistic people with expertise they just don't know how to get to people you know like in front of people. So what would be your number one tip for prospecting for the experts?
Speaker 1:So if I'm going after what I call a subject matter expert, I just am going to be myself. I'm going to send them a quick little video showing them. I call it the illuminator strategy. I use Loon for it. It's very easy to use that. It's a screen recording and I'm going to cover everything that I see on them online and I'm going to give them extreme value. I'm just going to give them tips of what I'm seeing in their current funnel. Many of them, it's amazing. There are YouTubers and TikTokers out there that are making a lot of money from ads, right, Like they're making the ad money or the gift money, but they're making maybe five to 15,000. They're somewhere in that range and they think that's it. They just assume that's all they're going to be able to do. They don't really know. You know they might be thinking well, should I be like Mr Beast and should I create these chocolate bars? Like, what do I do here? And I'm like time out. You have a warm audience. Many of these subject matter experts will have over 100,000 followers. I'm like that's a warm audience.
Speaker 1:You're an expert at something or these people wouldn't be following you. You need to productize that knowledge, because people can learn anything on the internet, Right Like you and I, if we wanted to learn how to paint a house, or if we wanted to learn how to build a car, all of the information is available. What's not available is the step-by-step instructions and what to not do, like the things to look out for. Well, the experts that have made it. They've probably spent years making mistakes and learning all that stuff, but if they're productizing their knowledge, there's nothing wrong with that, right, Because it's going to save people time and money when they buy their course or their program or their one-on-one masterminds or whatever they're going to buy from them. So I help these subject matter experts monetize their brand way more than just ad spend. Yeah, that's something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically, what you were saying is that you know exactly the type of experts you're going after. Like I said, 100k follower mark, right, you know exactly who they are, and then you just go over and to see what they've been doing and then personalized you know a loom video down to like, hey, I think this is something that you could do, and they're like, oh my God, that's so cool. Thank you, I want to work with you. How do we do this Right? That's kind of your process.
Speaker 1:It's very authentic as well you know, there's over just YouTube alone. There's over 325,000 channels that have over 100,000 followers. You will never get to the end of these experts.
Speaker 1:Now, as a cover of them, you know, you may not be able to work with, but some of them you can't. I mean, there's gamers out there. There's a lot of gaming channels, right, but even gamers, if they put together a little you know, I don't know $19 course on how to beat this game, they're going to sell it. If they got 300,000 people, there's a percentage of people that follow them like you know what I want to beat this game, let me just buy this thing. There's just the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so good. And you know what? I know people they do it backwards as well, like they are like I'm going to create a course, even though I have no following, and you know my expertise level is like somewhat. You know something, you know I learned from online. Right, I'm going to create a course and I'm going to try so hard to sell it and it's not selling because it's just like there's no audience there to buy. It's just like so hard to do. But in your case it's like the expertise is already there. It's just you have to kind of help them productize and monetize that right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and it blows my mind how many of these influencers with huge followings don't even they don't even have a link in their bio or their description. There's nowhere to go to buy anything, they're just talking.
Speaker 2:It does blow my mind as well and I was even thinking I've been following this psychology channel. There's this lady with like 250k subscribers and she's fucking amazing and I'm like there's no link to buy, nothing, there's nothing to sell. There's not even a contact in her description, like no email. I couldn't find her website. There's a website. There's no contact info. I'm like, oh my god, this lady is amazing. I see people loving the content. It's just there's nothing. There's nothing to buy and I'm like I'm so ready to buy. Like what do I buy? There's nothing to buy and I'm like, fuck, maybe I should send her channel to you and you're gonna hit her up like hey or you, you could do a loom video.
Speaker 1:You could share that piece that you just said. Send it to her, because you might not even be thinking that way Now. You might have a lot of experts out there. They don't want to sell things, right, it's fine. They might see an ethical dilemma there If it's psychology or something like you know what. I just want to help people and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of people out there. They're like you know what, I don't feel like selling anything. That's not why I got into this. I just want to help people online. All good, they can do that. But there's a lot of other people that would love to monetize their brand. It would help their family and give them more time freedom.
Speaker 1:You got a lot of these YouTubers on here that have huge followings and they still have a full time job and they would love to do YouTube full time. They just haven't gotten to the revenue point where they could leave their career yet. So what I do helps them tremendously to get to that point. They're like, oh my gosh, I can make XYZ. I give you an example. I knew a guy that I have these bird dogs, so I have two people. Basically their job is to go out and find me subject matter experts that fit my criteria exactly, and then they bring it to me. I get them on a call and I close them, and then the team fulfills for them. So that's where I'm at now in my agency.
Speaker 1:Well, I had a bird dog send me this one guy and he was helping people learn how to start a glamping or an Airbnb business. This was a few years ago now, so we got on a call, closed them on, and he also wasn't selling anything. He was making money from Google because of his YouTube channel, and he was making money with his Airbnb businesses. Those are the two sources of income. He wasn't selling anything, though, and he had.
Speaker 1:At that point he had well over a hundred thousand followers. So we put together a simple webinar and we did a lead magnet. You know I might be talking some industry terms here, but we built a lead, simple little PDF lead magnet on some tips on if you want to start an Airbnb business. People that opted in for that got an email sequence to get them to a webinar, and in that webinar, within a two week period, we did over $700,000 for this person that has his channel and when we did the replay for the next couple of weeks and then we closed the car right, there was real scarcity, real urgency.
Speaker 1:We did 1.6 million total. Just everybody.
Speaker 2:I really hope you took some commission on the sales or something.
Speaker 1:It was 90,000. I'm not ashamed to do that, and what I'm even more proud about is that 90,000 didn't go to me. I taught somebody else how to build that funnel and the 90,000 went to them. That's why I started Subject Matter Expert Academy to teach people how to do what I do.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So basically, you can multiply the knowledge you know and teach people how to do exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's so good because, like I said, you're going after people that have the expertise, right, there's no fake expertise. There is the following there. They have been working. It's just that they. What do you do with people? By the way, I'm just like jumping into the next question what do you do with people that have shame around selling? You know, because I think you said there are some people who are like oh, you know, I don't want to be a sellout. You know, like here we go. You know, this person is selling again, especially there is some resistance when there is like sponsors in video, especially in video, like, okay, the sponsors, here we go again, right, so what do you do with those people that are like, just like, I don't know if I can sell, I just feel like, so, like I'm not a sellout. What do I do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it happens sometimes. I am not a clinical psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, but what I typically find is those people have what I call a scarcity mindset and somewhere in their past they were taught that making money is wrong on some level, like and being rich is wrong. And it's not like. Money is just paper. It's just a tool that you use to do whatever you want to do in the world. So if you want to help people, money will help you help more people. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:My big why for why I started digital marketing was I wanted to have more time with my family. I've got three kids. My wife and I just finished foster care classes. We're about to start fostering kids, or have even more. Well, I wanted to get out of retail so I could spend more time with them. Like making more money, that's great, but money was just a. It was the way I could get more time freedom. Once I got that time freedom, it was around 18 months into doing digital marketing that was able to leave retail full time and do digital marketing. Well, when I started hitting my goals of okay, now I have the money coming in and I can have the time freedom.
Speaker 1:I started getting bored and complacent. This is what entrepreneurs won't tell you. Once they start hitting certain goals, they're just like, oh crap. Like is this it? Is this all there is? Oh, I like this isn't fun anymore. You know, I don't. Maybe I'll go back to target, because now I miss my team of people. Like it's really weird.
Speaker 1:So now my big why and I've got it. I got a big whiteboard right next to me. On the very top it says family mission trips. Like that's my big why. I want to take my family on overseas mission trips. We want to build schools and churches and water wells and whatever else Right, well, that's going to take unlimited resources.
Speaker 1:I'll never get enough money to help all the people in the world, right, so it keeps me fired up. Just yesterday I closed a client $9,200 setup fee and then I have a 25% redshare deal on the back end. This is what I do and I need that revenue to keep coming because I got big plans with my family to help people and that might evolve. Like my big why has evolved once over the next decade, it might evolve again. You always have to be open to that. But the people that are saying you know, oh gosh, I don't want to. I don't want to charge for my services. That feels wrong. I'm like All right, but what you're saying is, I don't want to help as many people as I could help with what I do. That's really what you're saying.
Speaker 2:And it's such a good way to think about it, especially, you know, I think, when you have your mission locked in and loaded, even if there is resistance, even if you get into a call with someone you say, oh my God, it's so expensive, like, oh my God, I can't, you know. Then you're like, okay, cool, next one. You know it's not, it doesn't hit you like what am I doing with my?
Speaker 1:you don't get in your head, basically about things like no, like I said, every day another YouTuber hits, you know, 100,000 subscribers. Actually, multiple hit it. So you'll never get to the end of that list, you know you'll never be able to talk to all of them anyway. So that old saying there's a lot of fish in the sea If somebody's not ready to work with me, that happens too. I don't close everybody, and it's not because I don't know what I'm doing. Is because they have some sort of a barrier. Maybe it's mental, maybe it's a time barrier, maybe they just you know there's a trust issue there. They've never seen this work before and I can show them all the testimonials I want some people. If they're stuck in that scarcity mindset, I just move on. But I know when it's a right fit I mean you know this as well when you get on a call with somebody and it's the right fit, it just flows. It's so easy it doesn't even feel like you're selling, because you're really not.
Speaker 1:You're just leading them down the path they were already going to go on, and they're basically roping you into their journey, which is also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so good. Do you do any type of content marketing to get people to come to you and or you get referrals, or it's just like you guys like have your team reaching out and people say yes to you. Basically that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't have any agency level paid advertising running. I never have it. Just I have these, like I said, these bird dogs, and then every once in a while I'll personally reach out to somebody, like if I see an influencer and I'm like, okay, I want them to be my client, I'm pretty relentless.
Speaker 1:There's a, there's a book if anybody wants to if y'all know want to know some secrets on selling. This thing is old as the hills. You might have seen this book before. It's called the greatest salesman in the world and the guy's name is ag. It's old. I don't think his parents were thinking original gangster, they just called him ag. But there's secrets in this book and one of them is persist until you succeed. You know, think and grow rich. That's another good book and when I'm wanting a client I will. I'm pretty relentless, like I'll stay on them until they say yes to me because I know I can help them.
Speaker 1:You know and I typically go after people that I'll I'll see, as I'm just scrolling on on social and I'll see somebody. I'm like you know what? This person has really good charisma, like they're super energetic, they have great presence on camera. They they look like they love what they do. I'm going to reach out to them.
Speaker 2:I love that and you know what. I'm also in the same way. I'm also in the same way, but you know why it's working. It's. It's working because you know that you want that person. You want that person for a reason and you know why and you can explain to them why you want them. For me, it's the same for, like, for example, podcast guesting. You know, like, when I have people that are, you know, born Talbot, they're copywriting, you know. I'm sure you know a herd of him as well. Or Taylor Valch came to the show as well.
Speaker 1:I actually went through traffic and funnels back in the day, went through client kit. I still follow his new what is it? Oh gosh, he's got a new chamber.
Speaker 2:He has the chamber now, or whatever the.
Speaker 2:Valkyries Alton. Yeah, but that was that too. You know, I tried, I think two years ago I tried to get him on the show, on my show, and it was like Meh, it didn't happen, didn't work. But then I don't know, I just like I, I just got him. You know, I don't know, it's just like got him. I knew why I wanted him to come to the show and know, and it's, it happens all the time, so I can relate to that. But I know why I want him, I know him, you know I know the questions, I know it's the same with the youtubers and you see the charisma, you see the energy, you see that they could sell really well, like they can sense that you see them in that way and you can just tell them that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, taylor Welch, he was actually. It's funny you mentioned him. He was one of the main influencers in late 2018, 2000 or early 2019, where I Learned that you could charge high ticket prices. Before that, you know, coming from a retail background, it I I would never in a million years think, oh gosh, I should be charging thousands of dollars to build this funnel. Well, if I can make a funnel that'll make you hundreds of thousands of dollars, why shouldn't I charge you thousands of dollars? Right, like it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1:Both of us are gonna get it. So he really helped me with my mindset early on and I'm very grateful to him for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, taylor, if you're listening to this one Evan, you have a huge fan, two fans here in the show. Now he was. He was really Thank you. Only no, he was very pioneer in his, in his ways, you know, the smartest guy in marketing. That's why he that's what he called himself with it, chris, actually. So, um, yeah, it's crazy how that evolved and you know, we both got traffic on funnel. You know Programs as well. I love the copywriting on those fucking funnels. I don't know. It's just like I don't know who did those. I'm like screenshotting everything and it's so good, like the way they are structuring your funnels. I'm sure you have seen those two as well.
Speaker 1:Well and not to. It's so funny. Taylor is welcome to hijack this podcast we were just talking about. His story is so relatable and relatable to me. You know he started learning marketing to help his wife get more clients for her hair salon right, and that was the generation which was what I was doing. And then he took it upon himself to learn copywriting, which helped him, I'm sure, get a lot more clients for his wife, but also it turned his business Completely upside down where he was now. You know he used to work in a church and then he was growing his agency Because he learned copyrighted. Copywriting is a very important skill. Every business needs a good copywriter.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, hey, I totally like. Okay, taylor, again, we appreciate you, we love you, whatever. But I think it's good because I think when I was talking to him, he also said the first mission of his was to make money, basically make more money. That was all he wanted and then pivoting into a bigger mission Okay, why am I doing this? I think you as well got to that point where like, okay, now I have the money and when I'm going from here and you know, just looking in the mission to build schools, like having this, you know International mission to help and give back and foster, I think those things are amazing and you can get to do that with your money, with the money that you're making from your business. So that's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and teaching my kids too. That's super important to me is Teaching them. You know the value of a dollar, the value of hard work, the value of helping others. You know being living self-less, lee, where most of our culture is all about being selfish. You know what can, what can this do for me. So that's, that's something that, when I look back, that's what it's. The most important impact that I can make is with my sphere of influence, and it starts with my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I want to go back to the subject matter expertise a little bit and the only the programs that you have. So you basically have two parts of your business, right? One is the done for you and one is the a bit more on a coaching side. Right, you teach people how to become, how to build funnels, like basically the, the basics of one-on-one, some marketing to sell online products and services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we take them from A to Z. It's really from basics to advanced in the program.
Speaker 2:Is it like 12 week? How long is the program?
Speaker 1:program is eight weeks and then we have lifetime support. We have lifetime calls, weekly calls that when you're in the program once eight weeks in, the weekly calls never end. And I'm doing a running the calls. I have other experts come in and run the calls. These are private zoom calls with the group and they're great. You know we get to stay on the cutting edge. All this AI that's come out in the past year, year and a half, we're right on top of it and we're getting some really cool things going.
Speaker 2:Are we using AI in your business or are you trying to? You are. Oh yeah, I'm just asking you, if you like, anti AI or with AI. Which part are you leaning towards more?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I am not anti-AI at all. I've used it all. I mean, I use it daily, I don't use it solely. So where you're going to mess up is if somebody is like, hey, let's just use AI. Well, AI is not human.
Speaker 1:So we talked about how important copywriting is. There's Jasper AI, there's Meet Cody, there's ChatGbt. All of them are using some of the same foundational things. For images, you can use Mid Journey, Dahli. There's so many tools out there now and there's thousands of tools that are just pulling from those other tools. Those are like the baselines.
Speaker 1:But the ChatGbt I've used that to help me craft emails for my clients. I've used it to help me craft landing page copy. But I'm always all we are are prompt engineers. That's it. It gives us responses based on how good our prompts are, and so you have to know what you're talking about in order to get your responses. And even then, you need to be able to read this and put your consumer hat on and be like OK, if I read this, would this move me, or does this look like it came from a robot? It's not to the point yet where we can just give it a prompt and just let it go and just copy paste. If you do that, you're not going to see good results. That's our experience so far.
Speaker 1:But some of the AI tools that we're using are bots that have all of the. They've got all of our knowledge put into the database so we can now expand our reach. Instead of it being one to one on these direct messages, it can be one to infinite numbers, Because we have this bot that has our mindset as far as the knowledge base of what we provide, and if somebody's asking that bot a question, it's almost as if I'm answering, because I've already given it all of my answers and there's tweaking that can be done all along the way. But some of these things they're really just meant to help us. I mean robots. If they go too far, then it turns into a terminator, right they take over everything I know.
Speaker 1:But at this point, we're just meant to use them as extensions of ourself to help us be more productive and more efficient, and that's how the agency right now is using them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. How big is your team that you're managing?
Speaker 1:So I have full time, we have four, and then I have part-time VAs and for some of my clients I have partnered with other agencies because they have expertise in certain things that we need to fulfill for this client and some of those teams have 20 people on their team, so it just depends on who the client is, on how many team members. But just for subject matter expert, there's four, five including me, yeah, and I got by just me for the first two years before I hired my first VA at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I wanted to ask you how long did that take you to get there to hire actual people to help you out?
Speaker 1:That's one of my mistakes and I just didn't know any better. If I could do it all over again, I would have hired a prospecting VA on day one, because I was working full time. I was having to prospect all these businesses and it's funny, I did not choose a niche. I teach everybody now OK, just go after one niche that you have interest in. Everybody says, oh, there's passion in the profits. Well, there's a reason. Everybody says that there's a lot of truth to that.
Speaker 1:But when I started off, my first client was a CrossFit gym and the only reason is because it was right behind the store. I was working and I went there on my lunch break and I talked to the owner. I didn't even take my name tag off, but I had still my retail garb on. And I'm just talking to this guy and I remember drawing him a funnel in his office and he's looking at it and I'm probably explaining it terribly. When I'm talking to him and we get to the end, he looks at me. He's like man, I don't really understand a lot of what you just said, but you're clearly excited about this. Let's give it a shot. And the funny thing is the way I got him is, I was super fast because I only had X amount of time on my lunch break, so I walked into this gym. I got lucky. He was in the middle of two classes, he was sweeping up, he had one of those big brooms and I just basically yell out. I'm like, hey, I can fill this place with more members. If you've got five minutes, I'll tell you how. And he's looking at me Like who is this guy? Right, and he puts his things out. He's like, all right, let's go back to the office. And then I had the gall to ask him do you have a pen and paper? Like I wasn't prepared at all, right, still got him as a client.
Speaker 1:One thing that I think most people I'll pull up another name now, noah Kagan is he's doing a book launch this month. It's what is it? Milliondollarweekendcom, if you're watching this later, that book. I can't wait to read it because he's a very smart business person and he scaled from nothing. Well, he put an infographic out earlier today and it was talking about an entrepreneur learns, then applies, and then they learn more and then they apply more, and it's a flywheel effect.
Speaker 1:A entrepreneur will learn and then learn, and then learn, and then learn and learn and learn, learn. They never apply what they're learning. Well, the sad part about that is, if you never apply it, if you never implement the knowledge, you're going to forget it and you're never going to move anywhere. So me not even understanding all the inner workings of a funnel, getting my first client because I took action and I talked to a business owner, that was it for me, that gave me so much confidence, and I'm like, oh my gosh, anybody can do this. But there's so many people out there that are watching podcasts like this and I'll watch podcasts right, like I love it but they're watching and they're learning, and they're watching and they're learning and they are never taking that next step, they're never taking action and they're wondering why it's not happening for them. Get out there and talk to business owners period. Do these Loom videos, send them to these influencers. Learn you got to learn first, but then apply it.
Speaker 2:I love that and I actually filmed that episode and published it on my other podcast about this very thing that you just want to do something, you do it and the people who do it, they don't wait for it to be perfect, they just go for it and do it and then you just learn on the way. I think that's the best way to go about it and I love that you did that as well. My first client was at Yoga Studio. He was walking you and me and my business partner at the time, and we were like, ok, so I'm just going through her website, ok, so we can get you more people, and just shitting on her website basically OK from a user experience standpoint. It was super complicated to apply for a session. It was like, ok, we can fix this for you and then we can get your social media. So, whatever, it was like that, it was like that and then I was getting clients everywhere.
Speaker 1:Sorry, how long ago Was that your first time?
Speaker 2:It was five years ago. It was five years ago.
Speaker 1:That's wow, so similar it's insane yeah, and it hasn't stopped. If you go on Facebook Ads Library or you're looking at the Google Transparency Ad Center, like there's still so many people running ads to websites that are confusing, I'm like why You're wasting money. So there's never an end to the types of businesses. If you just wanted to go after Yoga Studios the rest of your life, there's no end to the amount of clients that you could get.
Speaker 2:I know and I think for that reason it's a lot you need to buckle up and build a team around it. If you want to service people or be like you and just like white label it, get people contractors that have the specialty and just outsource all of that to them. So I think, like you said again, I don't really understand people who have been struggling to get clients because it was so easy and I think the passion is a big part of it as well. Like you said, if you are excited and passionate about stuff, I was getting clients on airplanes because they were sitting next to me and we just happened to talk about OK, so what do you do? He was traveling to Florida, actually, and we just get to talking and I'm like, ok, I'm checking his website and I'm like, ok, well, we can do it Because I my main.
Speaker 2:The first thing I was starting doing was Facebook ads. That was my main specialty and then, from then on, just going more deeper into different parts of the online marketing world. But yeah, it was so fucking easy. It was the clients everywhere. Everywhere, every conversation was a client and I wasn't even trying, I was just talking to people. I think that was the best part.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, that'll happen. And the people in your sphere of influence? Once they learn what you're doing? Everybody knows a business owner period.
Speaker 1:Everybody, whether they're a business owner or they know somebody that might be struggling or that's doing great, that could do better, Like before you know they're just going to be referring all these people to you. Here's a caution for people that are wanting to dive into online businesses If you don't choose a specific industry or niche, then it's going to slow you down. It's going to slow the trajectory of your success down, Because learning all of the ins and outs on any one niche is going to take time and effort and talking to business owners in that niche. So real quick, CrossFit.
Speaker 1:Two weeks later, my wife talked to one of our family friends that owned a nail salon. That was my second client. I had another person in the program that was in reach out and say, hey, I got this mortgage broker. You look like you know what you're doing. Can you build this stuff out? If I can close them, I'm like sure. So I had like six, seven different niches. At one point I'm like, OK, now I want to pull my hair out because I'm still working retail. That's when I dove into just chiropractors. That helped for a while. But here's the while part. I've never gone and done CrossFit ever to this day. I just haven't done it. I've never gotten my nails did Right Like that's just never happened.
Speaker 1:I have never gone to a chiropractor, thankfully. I just have not needed that service, so I wasn't really interested or passionate about any of those. And then one day I saw a post online where this guy asked can somebody help us build a funnel to sell our stock trading course on Black Friday? That's when the light bulb went off for me, and that's when I made the switch from brick and mortar service businesses to online influencers, and I haven't looked back. That was late 2018.
Speaker 2:That's amazing and I think, yeah, like you said, everyone is your client suddenly, when you're like putting yourself out there and for me a second was a carpentry business and then I was like I'm done, I'm just doing online and everyone that's online for the online coaching and then I went to like OK, I'm working with online coaches. And then all my coaches came to me and I realized, like fuck, even in online coaching, there are so many people coaching in so many subjects. And now I'm like have different clients in different industry and they are doing so well just by online marketing. But, man, it's a learning curve, so you've got to be mindful of where you're going and which industry, because you can learn each industry, but then still you have to have some kind of direction. So what kind of service you provide for them and who are you providing services for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the ball game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to say something, but I completely lost my train of thought because of that. Yeah, online. So I want to talk about this because obviously it was so easy for us to get people to come to us to work with us just by walking into people like stores. But when the pandemic hit and I'm not sure, how is that for you? That's when I started my podcast, because I was like, shit, I need to get my online presence a bit more active. I could no longer walk into networking events or I could do online networking, but then that was like slowing my business down. So I had to like, ok, I need to do some kind of online something so people can find me and people can come to me or listen to my shit before they work with me.
Speaker 2:So what was that process for you? Did you feel like a resistance? Because I definitely did. I get more resistance from people because it's online and I don't know Somehow they felt like it's less personal if you don't respond Like no one cares. I don't know if that's something that you experience as well.
Speaker 1:I was very fortunate to have shifted in 2019 to online influencers because, had I stayed with CrossFit, let's just say I closed my first CrossFit client and I was like you know what this is, it I'm only going to ever do CrossFit. Well, during the pandemic they were not deemed an essential business, so all CrossFit gyms were closed. So that would have folded my business. And had I had left Target, left retail and couldn't get back in there, my family would have starved If I didn't know I could go after influencers. Well, it was a very interesting effect the pandemic had, while it was terrible. My particular niche at the time was stocks and options traders. Well, everybody was now working from home, wanting to learn how to trade to make money on, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I ain't home and so those two years. Honestly, it was insane. We had basically one of my clients literally 10xed because of the pandemic. It was just this phenomenon Anybody that was doing anything relating to things you could do to make money at home, it blew up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a good choice. It was a good pivot for you.
Speaker 1:I could have never seen that coming, but there's always a sect of the population that's wanting to learn specific skills at any time. Other home services they still did great People. Now they're living at home during the pandemic. They can't do anything, so people are remodeling People that had that niche. Oh man, they also had a field day, because everybody's now remodeling their bathrooms.
Speaker 2:Even gardening. I think gardening was a big thing too.
Speaker 1:If you had landscaping, any of that stuff. They just went through the loop. They had two of their best years probably in history.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I guess the lesson here is to pivot, just think, move with the trends, whatever is happening. So I think for you it was really really good that you did that at a time.
Speaker 1:And when you learn the marketing, the foundations of it, it's easy to pivot because it doesn't change. The process of getting clients stays exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the offer, the copywriting. It's pretty much it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, by the way, I wanted to ask you this and you can tell me if you want to share when you guys are selling let's say you have an influencer, it's over 100K you pitch them to build a funnel, to launch a product or kind of a program or anything. Do you use any type of paid ads in-house or you just use their audience in social media or email lists to sell?
Speaker 1:We do both. We typically are going to start with organic because they already have a warm audience, and then we're going to take I do this thing called 30, 30, 30, 10, where I'm going to take 30% of the profit that comes from that organic sale or the promotion that we ran, and then we're going to turn that 30% into paid ads to drive traffic, to get even more people aware. We just take them right down the sales funnel. It's from awareness to traffic, engagement, consideration, intent and then purchase, Maybe mix some of those up, but we try to get people to understand that our influencer exists. But we want to test out the funnel first. If it can't convert for a warm audience, it's never going to convert for a cold audience. But when we get it to convert really well for a warm audience, we turn them hot and they're buying. Then we know we have something going. Then we turn it into paid ads and that's when you can really see that scale effect.
Speaker 2:I love that. Where do you see yourself in the next five years, if you don't mind? Sharing I know of some of it you already talked about, but I just wonder if you have any vision for yourself other than the charity aspects.
Speaker 1:This is it. I don't want to ever do anything else. I love this. I love helping people who are passionate about what they do reach more people. And then the revenue is just a side effect of that. And my deals are pretty simple. If I have an influencer, I have two tiers and I don't mind sharing it with your audience. I've got 9,600 setup fee the guy.
Speaker 1:Yesterday we did a little bit of negotiating there. It ended up being 9,200, but typically it's 9,600 and 10% rev share on the backend, or 4,800 and 20% rev share on the backend. I always hope they go for the lower because I know when it works I'm going to make a whole lot more from the 20%, oh my God. And then if the influencer doesn't really have their own audience, then the rev share it's going to be higher because we're going to have to put in a lot more effort and work to build the audience for them. If they're not over a hundred thousand, we'll say but it's always great when we can get influencers that already have half a million million, two million, that's amazing. I know that's an instant win. The first promo we do should just go nuts.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, so in five years. So you're going to keep doing the same thing, essentially.
Speaker 1:No, I get to hang out with my family. My kids are. They're still at home, they're still in the house we homeschool, so I get to hang out with them, have fun. We just booked a cruise in a couple of months. We're going to have fun doing that.
Speaker 1:I get to unplug every once in a while, but here's how I know this is the right business for me is because whenever I unplug or I go on vacation, I'm always thinking about this business. I'm thinking about my clients. What's the next promotion we can run, Even if I just I can't get away from this. And that's really how you know. What are you thinking about on vacation? Now, some of the people listening to this they might be subject matter experts at something. They might be able to monetize what they know and what they love doing, and it might not be their job. Their J-O-B, their nine to five, might be just something they do to pay the bills, but they might be super passionate about something and if they're thinking about that thing on vacation, that's a really good sign that they can become a subject matter expert and they can blow up online and eventually. You know, this world's big enough to where anybody that has a passion about something can eventually go viral and do that full time instead of the nine to five.
Speaker 2:I love that. I want to ask you this question because I wonder what your expertise, your expert opinion is. Do you think there are talents, or do you think there are passions that are just not needed by the marketplace? Or do you think that it's just big enough that everything can just sell and turn into a product or a course or service?
Speaker 1:I think. So you know there's pretty much. I always go back to marketing 101. If you put the right offer in front of the right person at the right time, they're gonna buy it, no matter what it is. So I was scrolling the other day and I saw somebody that just the only thing they do is they go live on TikTok and they have a model train that's just moving around and you're thinking, well, how can you monetize that? Like, how can that person make money other than just spending their money from their job buying new trains and just showing us, like, how does that work? Well, there's a lot of ways that that can work.
Speaker 1:That person that has all of these followers just hanging out watching their trains they could put together a very simple course on how to build your first model train layout. Clearly these people are interested in it, right? They don't have to charge much for that. They can charge more for if they wanted to do one-on-one calls to help them troubleshoot. Like gosh, like my train keeps running off the track, what am I doing wrong? Well, let me help you with that, right? Or they can become an affiliate for the train, the model train company. Like you can buy these things all over the place. He can say hey, you know what? I want to help sell more of your trains on my channel. Can I get a revenue share of those types of trains? And then he can do his whole thing, just do lives and watch his trains grow. But every once in a while, 20 minutes or so, he jumps in and he goes hey, listen, if you really want a nice train like you need to buy this train, check out what it does, and he can sell it right there on the TikTok shop. For all intents and purposes, they can make a fortune and I just chose something at random, but that's not something that anybody would think could be a full-time career and I'm telling you right now there's millions of dollars right there.
Speaker 1:Whether it's sports, people are passionate about all sorts of things. I like spy genre. I can just turn my camera here. I've got James Bond type stuff in my office here. I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, if some guy that and I actually know a guy that is very passionate about James Bond and he's got a channel devoted to 007 lifestyle and fun stuff my dad got me into it when I was a kid Well, shoot, you could sell a million different things about the James Bond lifestyle. Clearly, I'm an audience. I'll buy it from you. Really, any passion that you have, you can monetize it in the world that we live in because of the internet. 50 years ago, impossible. And what are you gonna do? You're gonna set up a table on the street corner and try to sell model trains, like no, it would never work right, it'd be very difficult. But now I mean these people. It's amazing. If you go on TikTok right now or YouTube and you watch these live videos, thousands of people are showing up to watch people do very silly things and there's people making money with the.
Speaker 1:TikTok shops. Just while they're sitting there they're doing things like hey, I don't know if anybody noticed. You know, I know I'm just talking about whatever today, but did you notice this really cool Ironman mug? Did you know? If you click this button below, you can buy it. That's all it takes. That person can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on simple, you know. But what I do subject matter experts it's monetizing knowledge more than products. You know I've never really gotten into e-commerce dropshipping. Now some of my influencers do have merch that they sell, but it's a very small percentage of their revenue.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, you know what I'm between the monetizing passion, you know, because I think, like you said, there is something for someone you know everything for I don't know something for everyone. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say, so that's so true. And you know what just sold me on the train thing? I don't know what it is what I wanna buy, I don't even like trains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, and that's it. It's somebody, which is one of my main pieces of criteria for a subject matter expert they have to have passion. Now, I clearly have passion about what I do, helping people monetize, but these people have passion about what they're talking about. If you see that passion, it's like it's infectious, you know you just you don't even call into it, no matter what it is.
Speaker 2:It's so crazy how, nowadays, like everything can just be monetized, like even you see people eating, you know eating just eating. Like set up a camera, you know some Asian chick is eating Korean food, whatever, and just like a hundred thousands of people are just watching that. I'm like yeah what in the world? But it's so cool as well, Like it's insane.
Speaker 1:All that person needs to do is pick a you know a hot sauce or some sort of a sauce that they really like. Done you know they could reach out to that manufacturer and be like listen, I'll sell this for you. Give me you know X% revenue share of this. Or if it's in you know some sort of a store that they can already become an affiliate for, put that link there. They get paid to eat. I mean, I see people get paid. There's a guy right now that walks on a treadmill all day long and he gets paid great money. Why? Because people are buying that treadmill in the link. All he does is walk. He just walks on a treadmill all day long and he makes. I don't know what he makes. He's probably making ridiculous money or he wouldn't do it and he's getting fit at the same time. He's getting paid to work out. Basically.
Speaker 2:He's saying I love. You know what I was before I let you go. I was having this conversation with one of my friends, you know, and they were like super pessimistic about the world, like, oh my God, look at the world, you know, people are getting poorer. And I'm like what do you mean? There are endless opportunities everywhere. Like it's never been so exciting to live than this era where we have internet, when we have access to knowledge, when we can set up our own Airbnb, we can do our own show, we can have our own YouTube channel or whatever. There's so much liberty and there's so much freedom in today's world is so exciting to me and I'm just like here people like, oh my God, like a world, oh no, no, no, there's so much opportunities and I love that. You just ignited that again in me. I know, I love it. I just love that, you know.
Speaker 1:Freedom and opportunities yeah, one of the first things that I teach people in the program is that mindset piece, the difference between scarcity and abundance mindset? It's so, it's huge. For many years I had a somewhat scarcity mindset, thinking that you know, oh gosh, retail's the only thing I'll ever be able to do. You know, I'm gonna cap my income at this. I'll probably never make more than that, and I started to just fall back into just being like I guess that's it. You know well, so many people are thinking that way when clearly, online, you go anywhere and you're gonna see all of these people. There's 18, 20 year olds right now. You know they're dropping out of school and then they're making millions. Now you know there is something to be said about education in our normal system of education, but I mean, if they can do it, anybody can do it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:There's just so much out there. You know, I think a lot of times the reason why younger people usually they get success at things like this a lot quicker is because the world just hasn't had as much time to beat them down and to keep them in that scarcity mindful.
Speaker 1:The scary part is a lot of people get to a certain point and they just give up. Right, it's just like I, you know, I guess I'll never do that. You know that's ridiculous. People like Gary Vee I don't know if you listen to him, but he's great because he's always saying oh, what? You're 50? Like people will come up to him and they're like yeah, I don't think I can start, I'm 55, I'm 60. He's like you're a baby. He's like yeah, I mean it's started yet. And then he starts like listen, all these people that founded these companies in their 70s. He's like what are you talking about? You gotta have that mindset that it's never too late. You can do anything. And because of the internet and the way that we connect with people, I mean where are you right now?
Speaker 2:What city are you at? I mean, I'm in Budapest, hungary, right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in lower Tennessee in the US, like we're so far away yet we're talking like we're right in the next room. This is how business is done. We got the whole planet to go after Infinite possible.
Speaker 2:I know Infinite, yeah, and I love that. And you know what I'm gonna. I really hope you're gonna teach your kids all these you know juices that they're gonna be like the I don't know millionaires. You know like in a couple of years they're gonna start their own TikTok and they're gonna just monetize everything Like fuck school. Like you know, at least you can even start your own school, you know, like the Evan Donson school where we teach mindset and actually knowledge that helps you, you know, make the most of it in this world. Something like that.
Speaker 1:That's not a bad idea, I mean probably that, but hey we'll see. I'd love that Entrepreneurship is not something that's taught you know. Yeah, I know Kids in school are taught what. Go to school, get a degree, go find a nine to five job that you can work your way up the corporate ladder Starting your own business. I mean, how many schools are teaching that? There's not many.
Speaker 2:I don't think any, and there's just so many like even emotional level, not just mindset, but like how do I handle clients? Like, how do I fulfill expectations, how do I manage expectations, how do I, how do I there's so like even not get triggered, you know, with things and I don't know. For me it's just like such a learning curve to just learn so much about myself and it's I don't think I would have ever done that in a job, in an actual GOP job, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure so yeah, thank you so much for being here. By the way, I had so much fun, yeah, it was so fun.
Speaker 1:It was an honor being asked by you. I love it.
Speaker 2:How can people find you? What's the best way for them to find you?
Speaker 1:You know what? I'll give you a link for people to either book a call with me or we can talk off stage about you know what kind of links that they could go to. I didn't want to come on here and like pitch what I do to people, but yeah, people are listening. At this point, they're clearly interested and so I'm finally jumping on calls and just seeing what they have to offer. If maybe they're a subject matter expert or if they're wanting to learn more, I've got a couple of different options for them.
Speaker 2:I love that. I'm just going to make sure to put that in the description of this episode and then they can just, you know, go ahead and contact you right there. Thank you so much, Reven, for being here. It was a pleasure having you.
Speaker 1:Thank you you.