Building a $45,000/mo Cold Email Lead Generation Agency - Client Ascension Student Jake

What's up, everybody? I got Jake here and Jake joined Client Ascension about six months ago. Bro, could you let everyone know, like, what's your revenue level, what is your business? And like, what do you do? And just give us the whole breakdown.

Yeah, so we do about 40, 45k a month in that range we started out doing around like 10k a month. When I was joining Client Ascension, it was just me when I say we. But yeah, we do cold email lead gen. So like the classic offer and. Yeah, that's. But that's pretty much it. Pretty simple, right?

Nice. What is. So what was the difference between. Because I'm going to. I'm going to. I'll make the assumption that you were kind of stuck at like 10k a month and then you come into client extension and six months later it's at 45 grand a month. What. What's the difference between these two situations? Like, how does someone go from 10 to 40, 45K a month? Like, what, what changes?

I think it's pretty simple. It's just understanding that the volume is just. It's a totally different game. Right. Like, you just have to. And like, even from 45, I'd imagine to 100k a month, it's the same shit. Like, it's just double the amount of volume. But you don't really, like, see that when you're at 10k a month, you're just like, you're like, oh, what do I need to do? Do I need to change my offer? All that stuff? It's like, no. Most times you just need to do more volume, I think.

Yeah. So what could, if you could explain what your business model is to everyone who's watching because you run a cold email Legion agency. But like, how do clients pay you? Why did they pay you? Like, how does that all work?

Yeah, so I work with companies that are obviously targeting B2B2B and different industries. I'm in the financial service industry. That's what my main focus is right now. But yeah, they pay me a retainer obviously to go out and find them clients. And yes, that's something that Client Ascension is definitely helped a lot with, with just the whole Legion game.

Right.

Like, obviously you guys had your own agency. I still think you guys run it. Right still?

A little bit.

A little bit. But. But I mean, yeah, you guys, you guys were definitely crushing it there. So, like, I got all that knowledge from you guys and like your experience with that agency and then also like just scalability and like setting yourself up to scale. It's it's been extremely helpful.

Was it like, like, hiring people? Like, did you have. Did you have a team before you came in?

No, I didn't have a team. So I did. Yeah. So I started hiring people. I have three guys working with me right now. And then I also, I have a lot of contractors that I just outsourced to, which they've definitely helped. Or like, you guys have definitely helped with that side of it as well.

Yeah, dude, that's. I see that so much where, like, someone will. They'll get anywhere from like 10 to 20. And the way you get past 10 to 20 is just labor. Like, you just, you need like, there's only a finite amount of time, and you see it constantly over and over and over again. And I know when people are doing it because it's like, bro, it's like, it's just like so much client work and it's like, okay, bro, it's time to go hire people. But then what happens is, well, then I have to like, go pay the person I'm hiring. And then also, I've never hired someone before. I don't know, like, one, where to find them. Two, like, how to create the SOPs, or like, I don't know how to manage somebody and they're like, scared to go do it. How did you experience the same thing where it's like, you're at like 10k a month. You go hire someone's like, oh, they're gonna cost two grand a month. And then now my margin goes down 20. And like, then I, I'm like, making no money. Like, how, like, how do you go about that? Like, what were your thoughts on it?

I mean, I got that all from like, Andre Klein Ascension, like the, the KPIs in terms of like, even tracking a hire and like, how they're performing? Well, like, I had no clue what I was doing prior to client session when it came to that stuff. So it's definitely made that clear that you need that system when it comes to hiring. But yeah, obviously hiring is the biggest part to scale too as well. I mean, like, volume's necessary, but you can't really do more volume if you don't have, like, a team behind you. It's just, like, not possible.

Yeah, that's just so interesting. I think, like, people will see this sometimes in clients. Like, they'll make a campaign and like, the campaign is performing pretty well or they. They found a good offer. Like they're. Some cold email campaign is absolutely ripping. And I'm like, okay, Bro, it's time to not put that up by like 20% or 30%. It's like you need to immediately send 10 times more.

Yeah.

Like, actually that. That substantial of a more massive volume. And then. Then they're like. What people do is they'll. They'll either be scared of sales calls so they sabotage their lead generation, or they're scared of fulfillment, so they'll sabotage your sales calls. And just before we hit the record button, you were talking about blind confidence, which I think is something that a lot of people need to have and their ability to just do this. I don't know if you could, like, talk about that, like, your. Your blind confidence and, like, kind of how you approached, like, all right, screw it. I'm gonna 4x this business in six months.

Yeah. I don't know where that comes from with me, to be honest, because I feel like I shouldn't. Like, I have every reason not to have blind confidence, but I just, like, do. I don't know. You just have to be, like, optimistic about where you can take the business. I think a lot of it is, like, putting yourself around people like you guys that are, like, doing it at a higher level. Right. I think that gives you the ability to have that. That blind confidence, I guess you could call it. But. But it is extremely necessary when you're starting out, because, like, when you're sitting there just cold calling guys all day, like, that's what I did when I was starting out. That's how I got to 10k a month. I was just calling people. Um, it was just every single day, just at least making, like, a hundred, two hundred dollars a day. And like, that's. That's how I got to that level. But it sucks. But, like, you just have this, like, confidence. You're like, this isn't going to be this forever, you know, like, you just got to put in the fucking work and you'll get there, you know? But, yeah, I think what.

What kind of tops people the most is. It's. It's not the. The fear of a sales call. It's the fear of fulfillment. Because nobody wants to sign a client and not get results for the client. Like, that just. That just doesn't feel good at all. And I think it's. It's probably very useful. And you probably thought of it like this, where all these dudes also have clients one for their specific service. So there's, like, people with Klaviyo email marketing in there. There's. There's content guys. There's. There's Legion guys for cold emails, Legion guys for, for, for ads. And it's like you can just go approach or ask literally anybody about how they're getting results specifically for the clients. That's what screws people up the most is, is, is the fear of not getting client results. But you have, you can augment it a little bit because you have a lot of performance based clients. Right?

Yeah.

So it, and it's very interesting sometimes where like if you're selling, you're selling like cost per lead or cost per call and it's kind of like, it's like an inherent guarantee. But and this is also interesting, have you found that probably about 20% of the clients you sign will get 80% of their results?

Yes. I mean it's, it's definitely in that. I don't know the exact number, to be honest. That'd be interesting to go back and like, look at that. But it's probably around that range. Yeah. I mean some of them get like decent results, but like, it's because they have a decent business. I feel like, you know, I feel like it's like a reflection. And I'm not even just like saying that. I just think some of them, like an SEO agency that doesn't have like, they have like 15 active clients on like monthly retainers, they have like two case studies. Like they're going to get results that are like relevant to that size of their business. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

Oh, did, did you also start doing the case study thing? You collecting the case studies from the.

Clients, the client interviews and stuff, you're saying?

Yeah. Do you have that? Yeah, dude.

Yeah.

Isn't it like insane how much easier everything is when you just have like a collection of case studies?

Yeah. Well, dude, when I tell you when I didn't have any client interviews or anything like that, the amount of people who would get on a call and be like, I need to see references. And then after I had the client interviews, I've never gotten that ever again. It's just like, it's like right there. Yeah, right there. Like, I don't know. It's. Yeah, it makes that. That was a big change as well, which I'm surprised more like agencies don't do that, to be honest. Like there's.

So there would be like, there would be like massive agencies like who have worked with like hundreds of clients and they don't have any case studies. It's like, dude, what are you doing?

Dude, I had a company I worked with that had, like, I think it was 1.5k active clients, and they didn't have any results or case studies listed anywhere. And they're a massive fucking SEO agency in Utah. And they just didn't post any of them. And I tried telling them, and they're like, oh, yeah, we just don't want to, like. Like, it's all NDA stuff. I'm like, you do SEO, like, why can't you results? You know, I don't know.

And then, and then this is interesting too, because a lot of, a lot of times, and obviously you've done this well. Like, people will come in and I'll remind them of this in terms of their client fulfillment. Like, I'm having a tough time getting this client results. And then I'll ask them something and I'll be like, how do you think we can improve your client result as well? And they're like, oh, well, we like, if I ran the business, I'd start collecting case studies. I'd spin up outbound campaigns like this. I'd start making sales assets. So it's like the stuff you learn to do for yourself also applies to the clients. So if someone comes to the client ascension, they learn the whole protocol. Like, here's everything you have to do. Like, it's the formula. It's. It's just do this and this and this and this. And it just does work. And it also applies to your clients. So not only do you grow your own business, you grow your own. You get better results for your clients, which means you get better case studies, which means you sign more clients. And it's just this like, upward spiral loop.

So true. Yeah. And that's something that you guys helped. I remember when I, when I first joined, something that really helped was I would ask in, like, the chat all the time, and I had, like, campaigns that weren't working for clients. And obviously I was on a performance basis, so that was like 100% of my revenue at the time, other than just like, signing them up. And you guys definitely helped navigate me in terms of what industries are, like, working right now. What are, like, some relevant industries to go after? And I think a lot of times people, like, ask that question too many times. Like, I was in a ton of calls and client attention, and people were just like, asking the same question over and over again, like, what industry should I target? But I think just like, taking your initial, like, advice, I think it was Nick who gave me that advice. And obviously, like, I run a cold email lead gen. Nick's like, he's definitely running a very large agency over there. So his advice goes a long way in that. In that regard. And obviously you guys, too, so you guys definitely helped in that. In that stuff.

Yeah. Sweet. All right, bro, I appreciate you coming on. For everybody watching, all of Jake's links are going to be in the description. Jake, if you have anything else left to say, now's the time to do so. What's your.

I got. I got it all out. Appreciate it. Appreciate you, Dan. All right, Sweet.

Peace, brother. Thanks for coming on.

All right, brother.