How To Get Qualified Appointments Using Modern Marketing Strategies - ft. Cody Butler | The Nikhi...

What's going on? What's going on, everyone who's listening to this show right now? Welcome back to The Nikhil Sai Show, which is hosted by me, The Nikhil Sai. And guess what's going on today? We are back with another interview today. And guess who is coming on the show today? We are getting one of the top marketing nerds in the industry, well-known professional when it comes to helping agencies get more clients like crazy. So let's not waste any time and let's welcome Cody Butler, who is CEO at CodyButler.com, who's a Two Comma Club Award winner.

Hey Cody, thanks for having me. How's it going?

Yeah, brother, it's going great and so pleasure to have you on the show. How was the day so far?

Yeah, I've been very, very busy as always.

Absolutely, we need to. That's awesome, Cody. So Cody, like, your journey is something crazy, right? Like, which is like rags to riches, like crazy story. Can you please start with your backstory? Like, how did all of this crazy stuff started?

Yeah. So, so, so basically it was back in sort of the 2008, 2009 time. And I was, I was pursuing, actually pursuing a coaching business, which I'm, which I'm in today as well, actually helping, helping people deal with anxiety and stress and stuff like that. But it just wasn't going very well at the time. And my wife was Australian and I was in England and the visa came to an end and they basically told us you have to leave the country and they wouldn't let me go to Australia. So we decided to get married and unfortunately they told us we couldn't get married because I didn't have any income, which was true. Like I was, I was pretty resentful at the time, but in retrospect it was like probably a good decision on behalf of the country. So that really, that really forced me to take some really hard, really hard look at myself because I, you know, I've been, I've been in, I was into the law of attraction and name it and claim it and fake it till you make it and all that kind of stuff. And I was telling everybody that I was successful successful and I was adding massive value and I was this. And the reality was I was absolutely none of those things. I was broke. I wasn't very healthy. I wasn't successful. I was on government benefits. I was on welfare, all of these things. So I had to really take a hard look at myself and I made a decision right then and there. I'm like, I'm fixing this, I'm sorting this. This is going to change today.

Yeah.

And I decided I'm going to I'm not a welfare recipient. I'm going to get rid of the welfare. I'm not a, I'm not a deadbeat. I'm going to stop acting like one. And I had to get a job. So I Googled top 10 jobs of 2009 or 2010 or whatever it was. And SEO was on there. And then I looked at another list and SEO was on there as well. So I went on, I went on Gumtree and Craigslist and I found an agency close to me actually that was, was hiring. So I called them, sold them on the idea of giving me an interview. I knew nothing about SEO at the time. I went and literally bought SEO for Dummies at the local bookshop, read it that night, and went and talked the next day. I went and talked my way into that job. And that's pretty scary. I didn't know anything about it. But hey, I needed to demonstrate an income to get married. So I did that. So cut a long story short, I'm sure you're short on time here. Nobody wants to hear the whole long story. I learned the business, right? I learned the business, but only 6 or 7 weeks after joining that company, they actually let me go. They were having some issues and they decided to let me go. So at that point I decided to go out on my own basically and start my own agency. I thought I had enough skills at that point. You know, I've been with an agency for 5 weeks, 6 weeks.

Wow, that's cool. Yeah, super quick.

That's all you need. So yes, I mean, I think on my 2009 tax return it was like $9,000 and then my 2010-2011 tax return was It was getting up close to $200,000 where I went out, I started my own business and literally just boom, boom, boom, it just took off like crazy.

Absolutely. Wow, that's awesome, Cody. Really understanding the journey is something crazy, right? And the craziest part is you learn how to run a marketing agency in just few weeks. So people who are struggling or having some excuses that you need some time, Stop it, right? Like Cody just did how to run a marketing agency within just few weeks. So there is no way you can't keep experience like that. That's awesome, Cody. Now, as a marketing expert, you've been helping dozens and dozens of businesses use effective marketing, and I see like a lot of confusion is happening between like marketing and branding discussion, right? So Cody, would you like to mention like what is the main difference in your terms between the marketing stuff and the branding? What is the core difference?

Yeah. So marketing to me, like, is making offers. Are you making offers? That's the main thing, right? And it's like a lot of times you don't— a brand is going to give you— it's a feeling, right? So I'm in Australia. So like supermarkets, we've got like Coles and Woolworths are the two big supermarkets. And it's like, you know, Woolworths is a little bit more upmarket. Coles is a little bit more downmarket. In England, I lived in England. We've got like Waitrose, which is the upmarket one, and you got Tesco's, which is the downmarket one. So branding is kind of like It's not about your logo and all of that stuff. It's like, how do you feel about the brand? So for me, when I think, when somebody says Woolworths supermarket or grocery store, I have a different feeling about that than I do about Coles. It produces a different feeling. They could completely change their logo tomorrow. They could completely change their, their, what most people would call branding tomorrow. And it's like, but it wouldn't change how I'm feeling. So for me, your brand is how somebody feels about somebody feels about what you do. Marketing is demonstrating that you have a solution to a problem. So if you're starting out, marketing is significantly more important than branding. You don't need a logo, you don't need a website, you don't need a color scheme, you don't need any of this stuff. It's like, you know, hey, have you got a problem? Yeah, I do. Okay, well, I have a solution to that problem. Would you be interested in giving me some money in return for a solution? That's marketing.

Simple as that. Yeah, that's awesome, Cody. That's super awesome. Like, people really need to understand they're confusing The key was like a little crazy, right? Once you understand that, okay, like as a startup or as someone who's just getting started in business, you don't need to be positioning yourself as a big brand. You don't need to actually. You just need to be starting to market your product and services, get good income. Once you have some cash flow coming in, you can reinvest that money into branding and make your brand bigger. That's absolutely awesome, Cody. So let's get into the next question. Like, if you see, Cody, what's going on in 2021, most of businesses are fundamentally weak. They don't have a right business structure. They don't have a right business model. They struggle to scale. They struggle to even survive in the market right now in 2021. So my question to you is how to build fundamentally strong businesses which have every single missing piece?

Yeah, that's a good question and it's a big question, but the answer is quite simple really. So the question that you've got to ask yourself, which is the most important question, which everything else is going to be built upon, it's like, What do you want to be known for? What one thing do you want to be known for? So if you— if someone asks you, hey, do you know Cody Butler? And you go, hey, isn't— yeah, isn't he the X guy? Or isn't he the Y? Like, what is that X or Y that, you know, say, okay, do you know Cody Butler? Yeah, isn't he the guy that helps people build marketing agencies? That's the one thing, right? That's the one thing.

Yeah.

Or, you know, do you know Cody? Yeah, isn't he the guy that helps people get, you know, create brilliant logos for their branding. It's like, what is the one thing that you want to be known for? And keep that very narrow. Don't go, don't go broad with that. And own that space in the market. You can't own— like, if you're just starting out, even if you're not starting out, if you're a multi-million dollar business, you don't have the budget, you don't have the reach, you don't have the knowledge to dominate an entire niche, right? You can, you can own a little piece of a niche. And it's like, you've got to sort You've got to decide which mountaintop am I going to stick my flag in, and you've got to own that. So, it's like the question is, what do you want to be known for? And then go to town and own that space.

Wow. That's beautifully articulated, Cody. That's a real deal answer. I love it. Absolutely. Thank you. Like this is the main problem, you know, people, a lot of actual business owners face, right? They just try to do anything and everything, and as you just mentioned, that doesn't work. They should own the actual mountaintop, right? It's the whole thing. They just need to focus on one thing. They should be well known for one thing, not everything, because jack of all, master of none, which is crazy. Again, that's awesome, Corey. Thank you so much for amazing answer. So now, as you are helping dozens of marketing agencies get more clients, you know, great, build great services and deliver great services, what is your take on, as an agency, like the difference between selling low ticket and high ticket? Because I see a lot of agency owners you know, have a mindset of low ticket and some people really charge high ticket. So what is your take on that part?

Well, you got to understand, like, there are words missing there, right? So you've got low ticket and you've got high ticket. Like, as marketers, you should see immediately, say low ticket, high volume or high ticket, low volume, right? Which space do you want to be in? Do you want to be low ticket, high volume, high volume of customer service complaints, high volume of refunds, high volume of everything else? Or do you want to be high ticket, low volume. Do you want, do you want to have a high ticket product and have a low volume of complaints, a low volume of refunds, yet the revenue is there? Or I guess the third option is like you've got high ticket, high volume. That would be the dream scenario. But generally speaking, for most agencies, you know, really most people starting out, it's not any harder to sell a high ticket product than it is to sell a low ticket product. And an easy way to think about that is Is it harder to sell a Ford Escort or a Ferrari? Like, what's harder to sell, a Ford or Ferrari? Well, depends, doesn't it? Somebody that is in the market for a Ferrari, you couldn't sell— you couldn't give them a Ford. You couldn't give it to them. Or somebody that's in the market for a Ford, there's no way you're going to sell them a Ferrari. So again, it's not a case of which is easier, which is better. It's like, it's every bit as easy to sell a high-ticket product as it is to sell a low-ticket product, as long as you understand who's buying that product. And again, what space do you— what do you want to be known for? I want to be known for the high-ticket guy. Do you know Cody? Yeah, well, he's the guy to go to if you want the best and you don't mind paying for it. That again, that's the space that you want to own, right? Versus, you know, I just want something cheap and cheerful. Well, you know, Cody's the guy to go to for that. That's not the space you want to own. So you're going to make a lot of money a lot faster and it's going to be easier to manage going high ticket for sure, 100%.

Yeah, absolutely, Gurdeep. And that's really the deal which you just mentioned. It's all about focusing on high ticket clients and even to manage better low quality people, sorry, low quality people, sorry, quantity people especially, because you don't have a lot of questions going in, you don't have that jiggle going on in your business, right? And my personal question to you is like, the problem is, as you just mentioned, it's about attracting the right customer. Like if you are having a person who is ready to buy a Ferrari, you can easily sell him. But again, if you attract someone who's looking for a Ford, it's really hard to sell. Now the question to you is like, how can you attract these high-end professionals or business owners who can spend high level on marketing, who can spend more on the marketing stuff, especially as an agency owner?

Well, again, the first thing is you've got to get really clear about who it is that you're selling to, right? So there are people out there that want the highest quality and don't care about the price, and there are the people out there that want the lowest quality and don't care, want the lowest price and don't care about the quality. So again, I mean, it's like you've got to call out to that. So if you look at like my website, for example, you might see something. I don't know exactly what it says, but there'll be something that says like, I'm not the cheapest, but I am the best. If you're more concerned with quality and results than you are the cost, then I might be your man. If you're more concerned about the cost than you are the quality of the outcome, then let's just end this conversation now because it's not going to end well for either of us. So It's a case of really calling out to that. People are scared. They're scared to say that they want to be the high-ticket coach or the high-ticket agency or the high-ticket product owner, but they want to position it with the low-ticket market because they're scared to ask for the money or they're scared to say, yeah, I'm the best. And at the end of the day, price and value are inextricably connected. Now I do this when I do live events. I've got a couple of shirts in my closet there. One's a One's a blue shirt and one's a pink shirt. And I hold them up and I say, hey, which shirt is the best shirt? And I just hold these two shirts up and nobody can really answer. And then I say, well, let me give you a little bit more information here. This is a Giorgio Armani shirt. I got it from a boutique shop. It costs $350. This, this I got from Walmart and it was $25. Now ask the question again, which is the better quality shirt? And everybody goes, yeah. And I'm sure we can relate. We've been We'll be in a shop or somewhere and someone will say, what do you think about this? And you can't decide till you look at the price, right? You can't decide. Someone goes, what do you think about this? And you go, it's expensive, it's good. So if you want people to think or believe that you're the best, if you are the best, if you want to get people to believe that, then charging a low price is going to have exactly the opposite effect. Like, you've got it. You've got to start out with understanding your value and then say, look, I'm not afraid to ask for that value because I am the best, and that you've got a congruency there and people will go for that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of business owners or agency owners especially, they need to get that courage to start asking for more because if they deserve more or if they have the expertise to deliver results, no-brainer to ask more money. And the demonstration you did with the t-shirts, it's beautiful. Everybody can really understand the difference between showcasing a high-ticket and low-ticket service. Simply with that one example, which is awesome, Cody. Thank you so much for that. So let's get into the next question, Cody. One of the main struggles we see for every agency most likely is they got the skill, they got the, you know, a skill set and team to fulfill any projects they get. The problem is getting high qualified appointments. Like when you're looking for a scale of any business, right, it starts with how you can scale effectively, cost effectively, how to get more appointments cost effectively without rupturing their business. So what is your take on how to scale cost-effectively as an agency?

That's a great question, and the answer is you've got to start with the end in mind. So before I go into any niche, it's like the first thing I'm concerned about is, there's really two things I'm concerned about. One is can I land clients, and two is can I deliver results to those clients? But the first thing I want to do is I want to see what's the market size here and how accessible is that market. I might run a few ads over the course of a weekend just to see if I can generate leads. I might send out a few emails just to see if I can get some responses. So I'll put like, if I want to go into, let's just say the dental niche, just because everyone knows it, right, very popular. I might run some ads on Facebook or I might run some ads on LinkedIn over the weekend and see what the response is. And it's like, okay, can I, how easily can I generate these clients if I had a process to deliver results. And if I, if it, if I can get a few leads, if I can get one or two people responding over the course of a weekend for like $50, I'm like, I'm in on that. I'm in on that because I know I can scale that. Now the market is there. But a lot of times what people do is they go, I'm going to go into a niche. They say, I'm going to go into the whatever niche. And then they build it all out. They build their brand, they build this, that, their website, everything else. And then they, they really, really struggle to generate the clients, and finally they realize, well, this isn't gonna work. It's either, you know, they might be in like a niche that's too competitive or a niche that's too expensive to reach that target market. So always start with the end in mind and test the concept, validate the concept. It's gonna be a hell of a lot cheaper for you to spend $50, $100, even $500 to see if you can generate a few clients and then just blow it off.

Wow, absolutely, Cody. And yeah, that's the main problem we see in the industry. They pick the niche, and they try a lot harder, they spend thousands of dollars on testing and all that jazz, then in the end they say, oh, this is not working, let me try something else, right? But what you just mentioned is so easy and cost-effective as well. They can just throw $50 and see how it's gonna get back and see if they can really generate some qualified leads. And once they see, they can be like, yeah, this is my deal, I can go all in. And they can start repeating the process, rinse and repeat, and make more money, baby, which is awesome. Good, thank you so much. Now let's get into the dream question which I have personally. Like, you know, you're one of the killers when it comes to leveraging podcast marketing at a different level, right? Can you please start talking about the podcast marketing process which you follow?

Yeah, so I want to get on podcasts that my target audience are listening to. So podcasting is a great, is a great, it's a great way to generate business because just because of the nature of it, right? Anybody, a podcast is an educational thing. So if I go on a marketing podcast, then I know that everybody listening to that podcast are interested in, in bettering themselves, to learn and learn more information. So the second thing, the first thing I look for is like, what, where is my potential audience hanging out? The second thing is really, I really want to pay to be on that podcast if at all possible. I want it to be a paid podcast because that's going to eliminate a lot of competition. So I'll go on, like I went on a dental podcast not too long ago and it wasn't very much money. It was like $200 to go on the podcast. Mm-hmm. But that, you know, I got— it was— the guy gets 1,500 downloads on average to dental practice owners. He has a private Facebook group which he posts the podcast into. He has a newsletter which he mails that podcast out to. So I've got 1,500, 2,000 dental practice owners that are never going to be accessible anywhere else. They're probably not going to respond on LinkedIn. They're probably not going to respond to that on Facebook. And are my competitors ever going to go on that podcast? No, because they don't want to spend $200. So I can spend $200 on Facebook, find out that I put.com instead of.com, and I've just wasted $200 for a silly mistake. Or I could spend $200 on that podcast. So I think my number one tip would be don't be afraid to spend money, to look at it as a marketing expense. If you can get on some podcasts for free, that's great. But if you can get on it for free, so can everybody else, and you're gonna be competing. The ones that you pay to be on, the pay-to-play ones, you're actually probably gonna see a lot better return on investment on those than the free ones.

[Speaker] Yeah, absolutely, Corey. And that's really beautiful. Now, like literally, even if you spend $10,000, I'm not sure we can get real 1,000 people who are dentists listening to us. I'm sure we can't do that. But here now, for a very just low budget, you just attract 1,000 people, 1,500 people listening to your messaging. Like, you know, they listen to your 30, 40, 50 minutes podcast and then they listen to your call to action and you are so like deeply connected because they listen to your podcast very well from the people who already trust you. Like it's literally like they trust the existing dentist, then you are combining with him. So it's like a genuine trust factor, right? And that's a real great deal. Everyone who is struggling to get client, I think it's a great tip which is mentioned by Cody right now. Leveraging someone else's podcast can easily get you warm audience traffic directly watching at you, looking at you, and looking at your offers, which is crazy. And now Cody, I wonder, like, you have so many stuff going around. You have your existing clients, you have these marketing agencies, you run your own personal branding stuff, and you go around, get on this podcast and all, which is crazy. Again, I wonder what tools and processes you use in your day-to-day life to manage your projects clients or productivity?

It's called a VA.

Simple as that. Yeah.

So for me, like, it's simple stuff. I'm a simple guy. It's like, I'm not like— I mean, you can see this. This is how I manage, you know, this is how I manage my to-do list, right? This is how I remind myself, right? You know, success formula: volume plus simplicity plus consistency. So you can see I'm a low-tech guy, right? So The big part of the success formula here is simplicity. So it's whatever's simple for you. So for me, it's a, it's a, it's a G, it's a Google Calendar, and it's a VA, and that, that's pretty much it because that's simple for me. Now I use ClickFunnels, I use ActiveCampaign. Those are the two main tools that I use really. But in terms of, in terms of productivity, it's like there's, you know, it's hard to be a a pen and a piece of paper, to be perfectly honest with you. It's really hard to beat that.

Yeah, but yeah, that beats anything else. Like people who, you know, build up greatest productivity tools and, you know, the more time they invest in adding those, all the events they are doing literally wastes 30 to 40 minutes of their time. Instead, they can just keep it more simple like you're doing and can take their productivity level to the boom, which is awesome again.

Yeah, can I add to that quickly?

Yeah, sure, absolutely.

So really my list here, like when I create the list as well, and this was major, major, major going from like, you know, basically nothing, 10,000, less than 10,000 a year to 200,000, then going from 200 to 7 figures, was like, you've got to identify income generating activity and you've got to separate income generating activity from just activity. So on my list here, like the first, I've got 5 things on my list, the first 3 activities are income generating. And the first activity is the highest income generating activity. So the first task on this list is going to make me thousands. The second task is going to make me hundreds. The third task will maybe make me a little bit. And then after that, now we're into branding. Now we're into all that kind of stuff. So yeah, you've got to ask yourself, once you've made your list, then just prioritize the income. Say, is this income generating? Put that at the top and then If nothing— if I finish this interview today and nothing else happens, I've already done my 3 most income-generating activities for the day. I can go do anything else I want to, and I'm still golden for making money for the day.

Absolutely, Cody. And that's really beautiful. Like, if you look at businesses, they get 100,000 different tasks done, but in the end, they're irrelevant. They don't make any money, they don't bring any new clients, they don't bring any revenue. Then it doesn't matter how many tasks you're getting done. But if you, as you just mentioned, if they focus on the task which really brings in extra revenue, I think that will change the complete game. And that's how I think that's the fundamentals of how you're running a 7-figure successful business. That's awesome. Thank you so much. And Corey, would you mind mentioning your daily routine for your success? Like, do you have any practices which you do daily?

I do, yeah. So a fundamental point that you need to understand is like produces like. So an apple tree can only produce apples, right? An orange tree can only produce oranges. An apple tree will never produce an orange. And we've got to understand our mind is the same. So if we're in a stressful state, we're— any activity that we're going to take is only going to produce more stress. So if I wake up in the morning, I've got a bunch of emails that are causing me stress. If I deal with those emails at that time, if I'm in a state of anxiety and stress, the only thing that those responses are going to produce is more anxiety and more stress. So the first part of my day is I've got to identify the emotions that I want to experience during the day and that I want to replicate and produce more of. So, and those generally are, you know, peace, joy, happiness, serenity. These are the emotions that I want to experience. So I live by a lake. There's a lake behind me, which is about a 4K walk around it. So the first thing I do in the morning is I'll go and I'll walk until I'm in a state, until I'm in a psychological place of peace, of serenity, of of the emotions that I want to experience.

Beautiful.

And when I brought myself to that place of like, okay, I'm peaceful now, I'll go into my emails because quite often we'll go into our emails and there's an email that's on fire and we'll bring gasoline to the email where actually we want to pour water on it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

You know, so it's like that. That's the first thing is like, so my first task of the day, like most of the time is like, I'm going to go walk around the lake. I'm going to get my head clear, I'm going to get in the right space. Then I'm going to go to the cafe behind me, I'm going to create my list of things to do, and I'm going to prioritize those in terms of income-generating activity. Then I'm going to move through those. About this time, it's about 3 o'clock in the afternoon for me now, so about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I'm like, okay, I'm starting to— there becomes a diminishing return, right? So the first couple of things on the list are going to produce a big return for the effort. Like, the last 2 or 3 things on the list it's a very diminishing return. So I might put a lot of effort into, into something like I've got on the list here to upload one of my books to IngramSpark, which that's going to be a lot of effort, but it's going to produce nickels and dimes. So I've got to look at that and go, okay, is there, is the reward to effort worth it there, or do I need to put that off to another day? Am I going to better serve myself by, you know, just disengaging now and spending time with my kids, my family and stuff like that and coming back to it fresh tomorrow? So And then I watch my diet, I watch my exercise, all that kind of stuff. Really critical. Like, if you want, if you want an effective businessman, you got a business, you got to have an effective— you've got to be, you got to be in peak condition if you want to have a business that's in peak condition as well.

Exactly. Yeah, that's so beautiful. And I think that's really important for any business owner that they don't get their mood off in the beginning of the day, right? Like, because once you get ruined in, in, in the morning, like, you'll have the same emotion continuing for the whole day. I think the strategy which you just mentioned is so beautiful. Like, everyone needs to practice gratefulness, mind, mindness, and peace in the beginning of the day so that they can have the same emotion walking them through throughout the day. I think that will keep them more productive for sure, 100%. Thank you so much, Cody, for the amazing tip. I'm gonna definitely try out very soon as well. That's a take-on for me. So let's get into the next question, Cody.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

You see a lot of young people getting into this business and were struggling, right? And also maybe you are also like, you know, you were also struggling when you were in your 20s as well. So what will be your suggestion to a 20-year-old you or someone who is just getting started right now?

Yeah, well, it's a great question. So the advice that I would give a 20-year-old person or myself is enjoy the journey. Looking back, like you don't have the benefit of hindsight in retrospect, in your younger years, and we tend to judge ourselves from how far it is that we want to be versus how far it is that we've come. And a lot of times we can look at ourselves. We started all the way over here and, you know, I did it and, you know, I've experienced this all the way along and it's like, it's why you can, you can reach the peak of the mountain and be very unhappy. It's because I look at it and I go, okay, well, I went from $9,000 to almost $200,000. I should celebrate that. I should, I should give myself a pat on the back and go, hey, that's great. But, you know, I go, well, that's— it's okay. But really, I want to be at $1 million. And I don't celebrate the progression from $9,000 to $200,000. I beat myself up for not being at the million. And that's a recipe for disaster. It's like you've got to celebrate your successes. You've got to appreciate where you are and understand that where you are is exactly where you need to be. You can't, you can't demand a tree grows faster than it will grow at the speed at which it grows, right? I mean, you can make sure that you're watering it and you can make sure that the rabbits are not eating it and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, the tree is going to grow as fast as it grows. So the number one thing is, you know, enjoy the journey. Everything that happened to me, a lot of it I didn't appreciate at all at the time, and I was very negative about. But some of the nastiest things at the time were absolutely essential. Absolutely essential. And I still would have been like, I'll give you an example, like being forced to get a job, like for one, for one entrepreneur like myself at the time, being forced to get a job was the worst thing in the world. But had I not been forced to get the job in that agency, I wouldn't have achieved anything that I've achieved today. That was actually the best thing for me.

Yeah, absolutely, Cody. And I think that's so key, important. Like people really need to appreciate what's going on in their life because I'm sure like 99% of the times they can look back and say like, whoa, that made me strong, that made me— that gave me good ideas, that gave me the pathway which I'm running right now. And that's so beautiful. Yeah, like they get stressed out in the current situation and— but they need to be like, okay, this is what it takes to actually build a real business. This is a process. You just need to trust it and keep believing in yourself and keep moving on, which is awesome. So let's get into the next question, Cody. So what is your life's biggest achievement so far and any next bigger goals?

Yeah, my biggest achievement's being a husband and a father of 3, for sure.

Amazing.

That's my biggest achievement. And hopefully raising children is far more significant than building businesses and stuff like that. So definitely that would— and again, perspective like that, that would be the thing I would give to a 20-year-old is like, there's more to life than you think there is right now. It's getting some perspective is something. So having kids and a family gives me a lot of perspective. So that's my biggest achievement. My next biggest goal is really working on moving into passion projects. Everything I've done so far really has been— it has been a business, right? It's been, you know, my goal has been to create income and to generate clients and stuff like that. Whereas now I'm more moving into— I want to help people with the psychology of success. So success can come at a very, very high price. You know, you think you want the million dollars, but that million dollars is going to take a toll on you that you're not aware of yet. You know, you just think, well, that money will save all my— will solve all of my problems. Yeah, it might solve the problems that you've got now, but what you don't know is it's going to produce 1,000 more problems than you've got. So there's a lot of, a lot of people as they're going through business, they think, you know, they're going to get the freedom, they're going to get the lifestyle, they're going to get all of this stuff. And you may get that, but you're also going to get a lot of side effects as well, such as the anxiety depression. You're going to suffer a lot of these things potentially. And I really feel drawn to helping entrepreneurs have the success with the emotional well-being, which kind of ties into the family, right? You know, being a family man now, it's like, how do you have the business and have the family? How do you, how do you have it all, basically? So that's really my biggest goal now is helping people have that work-life balance.

That's a great vision, Cody. We appreciate it and we'll be looking forward to see your impact you're creating for all these entrepreneurs. Because I genuinely believe, like, a lot of entrepreneurs do really need your help, right? They really— they are really having that sort of money, they're, they're making good revenue, but they're always this anxious, depressed, stressful dude. Yeah, who's, who's not that happy in the life and who always wants more. But if you see in the back, and he's already having more, right? They just need to get through the mindfulness, right? Which is awesome.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, we are looking forward for the impact you'll be creating. And let's get into the next question, Cody. Like, what was your biggest mistake so far in your life in terms of business?

It's waiting to start. It's always waiting to start. Like, everything I've done, it's like the story I told at the beginning. How long did it take to go from being like completely knowledgeless to being working as an SEO executive? It took 24 hours.

Yeah.

It took 24 hours. It's like, how long did it take going from being an SEO executive to being an agency owner? It took about 7 weeks. How long did it take to go from— it's like it doesn't take as long as you think. And a lot of people will tell you that you can't do it. So my biggest mistake and my biggest lessons is like, just put it out there, make the offer, put it out there. And now one of my mantras now, one of the things that I tell myself now, one of my philosophies is you're going to have to tell me no. And I know you're great at that because like you reached out to me many, many times. It's like persistence that actually got me on this interview, right? It was persistence.

Like, absolutely.

You were going to make me tell you no. You didn't tell yourself no. You didn't say Cody said no. I just, you know, it's like you were going to make me tell you no. And it's like, that's one thing that I told myself.

Yeah.

If I want you as a client, you're going to have to tell me no. If I want to move into this field and operate in this area, you're going to have to tell me no. If I want this business, if I want these results, if I want a 7-figure income, you're going to have to, you're going to have to tell me no. I'm not going to tell myself no, you can't have that or no, you can't do that. So biggest mistake is allowing my mind to say no to myself too many times. And that would probably be one of my biggest pieces of advice too. It's like if you want something, just do it. Do it now. Do it today. It's like, life's short, man. Get old quick. Doesn't take long.

Absolutely. And I think that's a really beautiful story which you again just repeated, which is like People really be like, oh, you know what, learn a skill set, it's going to take me years. But no, you learned it in 24 hours. To start an agency, it's going to take me 6 months, 1 year. But no, you did it in a few weeks. So everyone can do it. It's not that you have some special power, it's that you took action on it. You took optimizations immediately, you tweaked, you pivoted crazily. That's awesome. So let's get into the next question, buddy. Your main inspiration for success and any key people involved in your journey you want to mention.

Yeah. So it's going to be my family is what drives me forward. So it's like, you know, I like nice things, of course. You know, it's like I like nice cars and nice houses and holidays and nice travel and stuff like that. But ultimately it's like what inspires me is, you know, my family and providing, providing for them, really giving them the things that's going to give them the life that is going to give them a better chance in life and give me some of the things that I didn't have and give them some satisfaction and joy and that kind of stuff. So those are the main— that's the main inspiration that I have now is providing a really a battlement around my family, really.

Absolutely. We appreciate that. And that's so beautiful to hear and hope you'll continue to do that forever. And that's awesome. And Cody, like, you're one of the sweetest guys we have ever found, marketing genius, helping agencies like crazy. Where can our audience find you mentoring?

Yes, CodyButler.com is a good place to start. That's pretty much a hub right there. You can sign up for trainings. You can, uh, there's contact forms. You can find me on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, all that kind of stuff. I'm pretty, pretty straightforward to find, really.

Yeah, awesome. I'll post all of your social media links in the comment section. So if anyone wants help with this crazy guy, just reach out to him. He'll make sure to help you out. I appreciate it, brother. So any last one before we conclude the whole interview session?

Yeah, just, just decide what you want and go for it, guys. I mean, it's like you can have anything you want. You really can. And that's not to say that you're not going to have challenges, you're not going to be— you're not going to have problems. And I just leave you with this analogy. You can drive from Los Angeles to New York in pitch black with just 20 meters of light. You only need the next 20 meters of light to make that journey. Don't, don't think that you need to see the whole journey before starting. You only need this much light. So if you, if you know what your next step is, then you have everything you need to start that journey. And trust me, once you take that next step, then the next step will appear and the next step will appear. but you've got to take that first step. If you do that, you're going to be in like Flynn.

Another great analogy by Cody. That's awesome, man. Shout out to you. Great, beautiful analogy, man. I think that's really the problem. And people will be like, oh, you know, I don't know the whole thing. You don't need to actually. You just need to know the next step. I think that's going to keep you moving forward. And if you get stuck, come back. You have an option called reverse gear and you can just pivot the route and you can just make it happen. Again, thank you so much for amazing, amazing, amazing interview today, buddy. Thank you so much for amazing opportunity today as well. We appreciate your time. We appreciate that you've given amazing golden nuggets. I'm gonna rewatch this and note down some implementation programs which I'm gonna implement in my current business as well. That's so beautiful. And hopefully, guys, everyone who stayed on the show right now fully enjoyed, uh, listening to Cody. And make sure to contact him at CodyButler.com. He'll be looking forward to speaking to you and his team will be ready to help you out. And stay tuned for the next interview, guys. Have a great day, Cody. Peace.