In this episode of The Nikhil Sai Show, host Nikhil Sai interviews Ricky Lilito, Director of Marketing at Tron Solar and a two‑comma‑club award winner. Ricky recounts his unconventional path from a broke college graduate with $60,000 in student debt to a faith‑driven entrepreneur who joined Tron Solar after a six‑month discipleship program. He describes how he was introduced to ClickFunnels, learned Facebook and YouTube advertising, and helped scale the company to $50‑100 million in annual sales, earning multiple 2‑Comma Club awards. The conversation shifts to practical marketing tactics: Ricky emphasizes that building funnels is easy, but mastering paid traffic (Facebook and Google ads) and ad copy is the real challenge. He explains the importance of compelling headlines, ad creative, and the synergy between ads and funnels. Ricky shares his favorite “survey funnel” framework for qualifying leads, which can be adapted to any high‑ticket service. He also highlights the power of minimalist funnel design, citing Frank Kern’s single‑page landing page as a model where copy, not graphics, drives conversions. Throughout, the dialogue underscores the role of trust in God, disciplined work, and simple, message‑focused marketing in achieving massive growth.
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How would you like to learn the secrets of 2 Kama Club Award winners and how they have built successful online businesses from almost nowhere to— What's going on? What's going on, everyone who's actually listening to this podcast right now? First of all, guys, welcome 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 amazing 2CC winner. We are having the director of marketing of a company who does close to $50 million in sales. This is going to be crazy, guys. So if you're someone who is needing some help with marketing, this is going to be transformational. So now we are going to uncover the raw marketing techniques which are working in a company which is highly scalable, and you're not going to learn fluff here. So this is going to be directly to the point, guys, and most probably you have never heard this marketing techniques which you are going to hear in this podcast episode. So guess who is the guy who's joining us today? This guy is crazy, like started as a broke college, uh, student to actually becoming an entrepreneur and actually joining a company which actually built an entire family around and now helping people to install solar in their houses and get into renewable energy. So this is a crazy journey. So guys, let's not waste any time and actually Let's welcome Ricky Lilito, Director of Marketing at Tron Solar, the 2CCC winner. Hey Ricky.
Nikhil, thanks so much for having me, man. Appreciate you and thank you guys all for tuning in today.
Absolutely, Ricky. Thank you so much for actually tuning in time. Absolutely, we are pretty, pretty, pretty excited, brother, about the accomplishments you have been done. And just to mention, guys, Tron Solar is an amazing, amazing award-winning company when it comes to installing solar in US, especially when it comes to helping homeowners to get renewable with their energy. And they are multiple 2 Comma Club winners. They also had a 2 Comma X Award and 2CC Award and much more to get actually. So the journey is still in the beginning stage. We have a lot more to achieve. Again, Ricky, let's get to the point. I'm pretty, pretty excited to hear your story out. Like how did all of this crazy journey started from a broke college student to actually, you know, Director of Marketing of a million-dollar company?
Yeah, sure. So there's a bit of a story that's pretty crazy that most people probably aren't used to hearing, especially in the marketing, online advertising, ClickFunnels world. So long story short, basically I went to Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It gets super cold there in the winters. Expensive private school. I was taught that out of high school you should go to college because that's kind of what people do. So I did that after doing 2 years at community college. I ended up at Marquette, and once I graduated, I got a degree in marketing. Didn't really teach me anything about marketing though. And so I had a couple buddies of mine. Jesus Christ is a huge part of my life. And is the foremost reason that I do everything I do. And so we basically made the decision. I'm not afraid to talk about God, by the way. So he's part of my story. He's got me to where I am. We made a decision basically to intentionally not seek a job after college. Now, keep in mind, I have $60,000 of debt from student loans. My parents really want— like, they're pushing me like keep it like, how are your interviews going? How are, you know, what's it look like? What, you know, you need to pay your loan soon. They're going to start kicking in with payments. And so all this, just this crazy decision that we made to basically do a life-on-life church, like, discipleship program. For those who aren't familiar with that wording, we basically live together on the property of a church. And served the church. We devoted our lives to God, to working. We, we got into construction a little bit, and I was just barely helping us pay the bills. Um, and we basically just sought God on where he wants us to go and what does he want us to do with our life, right? Um, I believe everybody at the whole point that everybody's trying to get to is they want to be happy in life. And so I told my parents, I literally told my, my parents in their bedroom after I had committed to this decision, which was, I know this is crazy, but for whatever reason, I just know I can feel that out of this 6-month like break after, you know, graduating, God is going to bring me to the perfect job. And if that doesn't happen and I can't pay my bills, then I will drop everything I'm doing and I will go get a 9-to-5 job. I'll run the rat race, you know, make $40,000 a year and then pay my bills. I will make that deal come January 1st of 2019. And so, uh, basically I did that. We, you know, sought God every day for 6 months. And through a crazy connection of divine, like, appointments and one person meeting another person and my friend finding Lester online and hearing about Tron, um, we, we met Lester, who is also on your podcast, who's actually the owner, founder, and CEO of Tron Solar and Restoration, and, you know, one of my closest friends. We met him and he was, I didn't even know ClickFunnels existed at this point. But we walked into the first meeting and you know, I introduced myself, he goes, or I told him, you know, I did marketing at Marquette but I'm not doing anything right now. And so we introduced and then he goes, have you ever heard of ClickFunnels? And I said, no, what is that? And he said, perfect, you can be our marketing guy. Here's my login tonight and start learning it. And so I just started going, I started this journey of, I wasn't making much money, none of us were at the beginning. And it's just like, he gave me his username, his login. I started learning ClickFunnels. Started learning Facebook ads, started learning YouTube, all these things. And basically that was the skill set and the foundation that the Holy Spirit led me to through that time of commitment to him, those 6 months. He led me to the perfect opportunity, better than I could ever ask, think, or imagine. And that is the foundation and basis that now we've— we won 2 2 Comic Club Awards, won 2 Comic Club X. We just got our 2 Comic Club C, which is the $25 million award. We're already on pace to hit $50 million in like 2 more months. Wow. $100 million. The awards are amazing, but it's all a blessing from God. And that is, that's my story of how I got started. You can do the same too if you're listening. I promise you, you just got to put in the work, trust God, and he will write the story for you.
Yeah, absolutely. That was a beautiful, beautiful story. I think there is so much key learning for the people, and it's really about the trust you have in some positive energy which is going to show you the pathway you want to achieve in your life. That's really amazing. And yeah, the way you connected and the way he said, hey, you're hired when you have no clue of ClickFunnels, like, that's awesome, right? That's really exciting to hear, brother. And Ricky, let's get to this marketing question right now. As you are the genius who's behind the company, who is at least averaging $50 million, you would love to learn more about— like, you went from actually being a marketing guy who just got a degree and who has no clue what marketing is, then directly taking ClickFunnels logins and starting to build funnels and figure it out, right? So you have seen the power of funnels and how it impacted Tron, you know, as a business. So we'd love to learn more about like how funnels can really transform businesses in 2021 in your terms.
Yeah, it's a great question, Nikhil. Um, for all those who are listening that are actually genuinely interested in marketing, I'm going to say something that a lot of experts, a lot of gurus, um, even like people that run marketing companies like ClickFunnels or whatever company there is out there Building funnels really isn't the hard part. Anyone can really learn how to build a funnel, whether like on any platform, like within weeks. It really doesn't take that long. ClickFunnels has a lot of great programs that coach you on how to do all that. But excuse me, when, when push comes to shove, it's really not that difficult. The hard part is is learning how to run ad campaigns on Facebook and on Google. Those are the two money makers for pretty much any business that's doing marketing online. Um, and so the way that funnels and ads work together, really the funnel is where, um, you know, like we're familiar with what ad copy is, right? It's our messaging. It's what we're actually saying in our ads. You know, when you're on Facebook and you're running ads and somebody sees your ad, that is your— that's your one shot to get them to stop scrolling. Okay, so the funnel is really not so much about the advertisement. It's more so like your headlines and your ad copy that get people to your funnel in the first place. So if you're trying to learn funnels, you have to learn how to write ad copy. You have to learn what headlines, what pictures, what do you say in a YouTube ad to make them not skip your ad within 5 seconds. Like, that's, you know, the money-making question. And so really, like, funnels are no good unless you know how to get people to your funnel in the first place, right? Russell Brunson wrote a book called Traffic Secrets. Why did he write a book only about traffic? Because he knows that traffic— like, you can't do anything with the funnel unless you have traffic going to it, right? So it's, it's much bigger than funnels. But to wrap it all into one answer, fun— when you get people to your funnel, you have to make it as easy as possible to, to go through the funnel. Give them a reason to go from one step to the next. So Our biggest money-making funnel is what we call a survey funnel. It's pretty simple. Basically, we are giving people a chance to qualify for an opportunity. Now, this doesn't just apply to solar or roofing. It can— you can spin that any way you want. Like, if you're a chiropractor, you can, you can see if people qualify for a free you know, 30-minute massage or whatever it is, plus an upsell, you can qualify that. But by asking, do you have lower back pain? Do you have shoulder pain? If they don't, then they don't qualify.
It's—
but you can put that all into a survey format, right?
Yeah.
Um, but it's all about like your communication, your effort, or, uh, your messaging in the funnel. What are people reading on your funnel? Because once they get— again, the ad, the whole point is to get them to click. Once they click and get inside your funnel, what are they reading or hearing in your funnel? So the font, like the design— do you know who Frank Kern is?
Yeah, who not, like in the marketing space.
He— everybody should know who Frank Kern is because his number one highest performing landing page is a completely white blank page and it just has one— it's an offer, it's a headline, you know, whatever he's offering. Learn how to get your first client in 24 hours, whatever it is. And then he has put in your name and your email and then hit submit. That's it. No background color, no nothing. But it's because he's saying on the funnel, his offer that they're reading on the funnel, and obviously is add to because they got to the funnel. That's all that matters. All the other stuff is all secondary to your ad copy and your messaging in the funnel.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Ricky. And I think this is so, so important. Like, people need the fact that having just a funnel is not, not the entire game, right? Like, they really need to learn how to get the traffic. At the same time, as you just mentioned, most people try to complicate, like, It's looking simple. I want a lot of graphics. I need beautiful looking designs. But dude, like, that doesn't convert. That doesn't make you money. What makes you money is the messaging on the funnel. So focus on copy and keep the design simple. So guys, it's a key learning. So anyone who's using this, listening to this podcast right now, your coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs who are building funnels in your businesses, keep it simple. Absolutely, Ricky, thank you so much for mentioning that. And Ricky, one of the things Lester personally mentioned to me is that you are very, very good when it
