Case Study: Building a 290k/mo AI Ads Agency in 6 Months

All right. What's up, everybody? I got Johnny here who hit $290,000 per month from basically zero in 6 months, which is kind of ridiculous. And we're going to talk about that because there's obviously some other context you need to understand. Johnny was like running a business previously. It's just that he made a new offer and like, we'll kind of talk about what he was doing before. But this is a disclaimer. I'm not promising you'll make $290,000 a month by working with me for 6 months. I can obviously help you, but like, that's an extreme result. You probably won't get it because most people running any kind of business, doing anything at all, fail because they don't do anything. But Johnny does. That's what I want to talk about today. Like, literally, like, what occurred here, Johnny? Could you walk us through, like, what you were doing before you started working with us and then, like, what you changed the offer to to be more scalable and just kind of, like, walk us through that process of what happened here?

Big props to you. A lot of the, like, us actually hitting that is a result of what I learned directly from you. And there's so many, like, pieces of the puzzle that came together to be able to actually hit that. It wasn't really a 6-month thing that happened. It was like working with other people and working by myself and running, like, multiple different offers since end of 2022, really. So it was like all this coming together to finally hit these strides, but you kind of like helped put the pieces all together and found me at the right time. So basically what I was doing before is I bought a consulting call with you in 2024. We were talking about cracking cold traffic, could not crack cold traffic. We were doing about $80,000 to $110,000 a month in my coaching business back then. And so right after we had our coaching call, we tried to figure stuff out further, didn't really end up cracking cold traffic. We were trying to do a VSL call funnel, didn't work. And I bought into the lie that VSL call funnels are dead, which was Stump. Ended up trying to figure out how do I build and try to figure out enterprise value? And so what I did was I took this massive bet. If you guys know Giuliano Massarelli and the guy who sells final expense over the phone, I basically built a call center for that. And we had 55 agents. We were doing a lot of revenue, hundreds of thousands a month, and we were barely break even. And then we started losing money. So I was really trying to figure out how do I make money? And I remember getting on a Get Clients Challenge in July or August, trying to figure out how do I make money in the process? Because I know there's people making money, but I never wanted to go fully done for you because I was like, hey, if I do that, the results are going to vary over time. But then I was like, well, actually, if I do fully done for you, it's actually going to be easier to sell and I can control a lot more than I think I could. When in coaching, like, you basically have to rely on the person that's buying the coaching to get the result. Like, there's so many, like, different things that they have to go through to be able to get the result and a lot of intangible stuff. Like, it's a lot of mindset is really what it comes down to. And so in that time, I was really trying to Figure it out. Just came off like taking a massive bet. What really resonated with me was like, how do I actually use AI to fulfill my services? And I was like, maybe I go done for you, but with fulfillment, I try to really figure this out because that's like before even Claude Code came onto the scene. Like Claude Code wasn't even that big. It was right when I joined Client Ascension was when that started getting big and I started networking within the group. But anyways, the bet that I took was that AI is going to get better over time. if I can use what you can teach me to go out and service people, because I know marketing at least to a decent amount, then I can make money and I could get to $50,000 a month recurring revenue and I could probably net $30,000 a month and then maybe get to $100K a month and so on and so forth. And so I was in this deep analyzing stage. Like I was really trying to figure it out. I went through a lot of case studies. I remember watching Ravi, I think his name was, that did like $70K his first like month or two. I remember listening to people doing $20K a month and I was like, these people aren't better than me. I've actually scaled 2 offers to over $100K a month. a month. Maybe this is something that can really help me if I really apply myself. So I decided to join and I just kind of went into it saying, I am going to try to take all of the expertise that I feel like I have and put it to the side and just listen to the modules and go through everything and just do what my student success coach tells me to do. And I'm just going to act like I've never ran a business before and just apply myself. And so that's what I did. Like, I tried a lot of different things in the very start. Like, I Never ran cold emails. I was never wanting to do that, and I did it by myself. I remember end of the year last year sitting in coworking office space that I rented. I was the only person there, and I was like, "All right, cool. I'm going through the module." You said, "Here's how to generate leads and find leads for free." And so I found these leads, went through all these different prompts in Manus, found these leads and decision makers that I was going to start cold emailing, and I just did that. And nobody responded. One person responded, said not not interested out of like two hundred to three hundred. And so I was like, "Okay, maybe I hop in ListKit, but let me try to." really master Dream 100. And so I remember asking you, should I run ads or should I do Dream 100? And you knew the context of my situation and going broke in that time. And you were like, just do Dream 100, trust me. And I was like, okay, I'm going to trust. And I've never done cold outbound before. And so I really started going through the modules, hopping on every single call that I had. I remember looking in Slack and Andre posted and said, there's a direct correlation to how many coaching calls you hop on to the amount of revenue that you make. And I was like, I've run coaching programs. So that's a really good thing to be able to get people to come on. But I'm just going to apply myself. I'm going to Go to as many coaching calls as possible and just do it. But also, like, coaching calls will only take you so far. It's really a matter of going out and just finding customers. And I remember one of the big unlocks that I had in that time as I was going through this was most people are scared to fulfill when they don't have clients. So number one, the problem that you're trying to solve is go get clients. Then number two, once you have clients, then focus on fulfillment, but don't let focusing on fulfillment prevent you from going to get clients. Just get clients and you'll figure it out. And I remember doing that. So I applied myself once again. I remember seeing an ad. I was scrolling on my Instagram and I saw this ad and it was absolutely terrible. And so I was like, I clicked in, went through it, and I was like, I'm gonna Dream 100 this guy. I DM'd the guy and I said, hey, do you run this page? Like, do you own this app? And he said, yeah. And I was like, okay, I made something for you because I just got hit with your ad and it was not the greatest. And here's exactly what I would do to change it. And so I went through it and I went from the ad and my experience of it, went to the landing page. I would say, this is like, there's not congruencies in the ad. He said, this is how you get to 7 figures. Then you click onto the landing And it said, this is how you get to 8 figures. This is my 8-figure blueprint. So I was like, did you do 7 figures or 8 figures? But then if you scroll down on the landing page, it says, this is how I did like $500,000. So I'm like, what is it? Because there's clear incongruencies in this whole thing. You can tell that you're reading from this script and it takes like 6 seconds to get into the start of it. So anyways, we went back and forth. He ghosted me, but then I made him ad scripts. I said, here's the landing page and here's some ad scripts. So I gave him the ad scripts, which by the way, I fulfilled with AI. I used Manus to be able to build my landing page with all context of everything that he's done, scrape all the stuff that internet can find with him. And I was like, hey, I just need 5 minutes. I'll put this in for free. And then here's the ad scripts to use and just do it. He's like, let's hop on a call. Hopped on a call with him, closed him for $10K, $10K for the quarter, which was like, dude, this is sick. Then I went to another guy that I pitched a little bit ago. Him and I went back and forth, closed another $10K. And I was like, holy cow. So in that time, I joined Client Ascension right after I got a $4,000 client, just by like applying what you taught in your videos and what I knew about business. Got a client for $4K of like a done-for-you YouTube offer, which I'd never done that before, but I'm like, I could probably figure this out. And then one of the other modules, you're like, just sling deals. It does not matter what it is when you're under $30K a month, just sling deals, get people on the phone. So you need to find something that's cold traffic enough to get somebody on the phone. And then whatever they wanna buy on the phone, just sell them what they want to buy on the phone. You don't need an offer, just whatever they want, ask them what they want, find an offer at a price point that makes sense and just, Sling a deal. And so that's what I did. So I closed the $10K, then I closed another $10K, which was great. And then I had that other guy at $4K a month for YouTube. So now I'm in like 3 different offers, hit $20K a month, and my first 30 days fully in Client Ascension hit $53,000 in cash collected, which was sick. And then I was like, okay, now we're starting to see some motion. Now we're starting to see some traction, and now I need to fulfill. This is a lot. I used AI and it helped a lot of the fulfillment time. I didn't even need anybody in that first like 30 to 60 days. It was just all me. And like putting my headphones on, listening to Rufus, and just going to town with Manus. And so I was able to fulfill, ended up getting a VA, taught him how to use AI, which was sick. That was a huge unlock because I taught him what I learned from you and from like how to fulfill with AI. But he was doing the stuff with AI because I taught him how to use my prompts and use like fulfill for these people. So that was really cool. In my first month, I ended up netting like $50 grand, spent like $1,000 on softwares, and it was sick. And I was like, this good momentum. And so I started to go and then the next month did like $40,000, $45,000. And that's when I joined Olympia. And so in Olympia, the big thing I was trying to figure out is how do I crack cold traffic? I remember DMing you. I was like, would Olympia really help? Because I've never been able to crack cold traffic and I've never been able to crack a VSL call funnel. And you're like, dude, that's exactly what this is for. Like, it's for you to solve that problem. And so the big thing I took from that is it's the same kind of lesson from before, but you need to find something that cold traffic actually wants to buy. And there's differences from cold traffic and warm traffic. So you have to identify who you're trying to sell to. And with the VSL call funnel, it's a very cold traffic offer. So you literally have to do anything to be able to get these people on the phone. And then even on the phone, you could just sell them whatever. It's the same concept, just at scale. I remember our first 1-to-1 call and I was like, I'm trying to blitzscale to $100K a month. And you're like, dude, you just do not blitzscale. That's the thing. Like, this is not how business is done. You're like, I've been in business for 7 years. Once we hit $1 million, we never went down. Like it's always stayed steady but slow growth over time. I'll get to that in a second. But really the big thing that I learned in Olympia was cracking cold traffic is all about a couple of things. Number one is having a good front-end offer. So it doesn't need to be the main thing that you sell, but it's something that like is really easy to say yes to. And so how do you make it as easy and risk-free as possible to get customers to then you can sell them whatever on the back end as well. So like they become a client and maybe you could cross-sell whatever once they actually are a customer, because that's within your warm audience. So now you could sell whatever you want to. And so when I did that, I was like, I'd never had a guarantee before. I just had a guarantee and that was helpful and it made sense, right? Like it was something that if you actually follow this, you're going to get the results. And I was like really afraid to guarantee something, but it's like nobody has actually asked for money back for the guarantee. Like they just follow away. And the people who do ask, like I remember somebody just came in, I just brought him on like 2 weeks ago. He was just nailing me on the front end. Our first like 2 minutes of the call was like, what's the guarantee? What's the guarantee? The guy ended up paying $26,000 paid in full. And so it's like, just because they're asking for a guarantee, there needs to be some level of certainty that like what they're buying, they can actually see in a contract. And that's just how some people buy. And so understanding that concept, and then also you don't blitzscale one funnel, you want to build a baby portfolio of funnels. And so what I did was like, okay, I'm going to start with an application funnel, which is not what you teach, but I'm going to use my own like agency to try to identify what actually is going to work for me based on what you teach. It's not just a cookie cutter approach. You have to apply yourself and actually test things yourself and have a proper testing cadence. So I followed what you did exactly, and I didn't get the exact results, but I started getting some headway. I started booking calls, but my cost per qualified call was like $550. I was like, this is expensive. I think I could get it down to like sub $300. So that was good. And I was like, let me just take out the VSL and let me just go straight to application. That cut my cost per call to like $100 for a qualified call. That made a lot of sense. And then I just put the VSL on the back end. And so it's just kind of like I took that, then I started running that and brought it up to $1,000 a day. And I was like, I'm not going to scale it any further because we're hitting like a 5 to 10x ROAS consistently on front end. This just makes a lot of sense. Let's just keep it here. Let's just stay profitable and let's just build a few other funnels along the And you start building that baby portfolio of funnels to where it's like you don't blitzscale to $5,000 a day typically on one funnel. Go to $1,000 a day on one, maybe you go to $500 a day on one, maybe you go to— but one of the big things I took away is like, as much as you talk about blitzscaling, it's really all about, are you actually making net new money? Like, are you making more profit? And if not, I don't care if you hit $1 million a month, if you netted like $50 grand. And so the nice thing that I've really taken away was that I can build this agency or this business that I'm working on right now and like I don't need to sell. I can live the life that I'm living. It's way more peaceful, way better, even though there's a lot of stress involved. And I can build what I would have made in an exit, maybe high 7 figures, 8 figures, however much it is. I can literally build that every single month because that, that's what I probably would have done anyways. And it's just a way better business overall to run. And that's, I think, one of the biggest things that I've taken. So there's like endless lessons that I've actually taken from and continued to apply, not just from you, but from Andre, from Dan, from Christian as well. But I think that this has been from some As somebody who's bought a lot of programs, you guys are world-class at what you do, and there's a reason why you guys like have been doing business at the level that you guys have been like to this point.

Here's how I can help you. The first link in the description, that's for the AI-Assisted Agency Program. We show you what to sell, who to sell it to, how to get clients, and how to fulfill for the clients by using AI. If you want to see that and see all the offers that people inside that program are actively running right now and how they're getting clients, click the first link in the description, go opt in for that, and you will see absolutely everything of how it works and how you can run that business successfully. Successful yourself. I'll see you over there. What are your portfolio of funnels? So I remember talking with you about this.

It was the direct-to-application.

You'd have like a short video, or maybe it's like a 60-second or 90-second, like mini VSL almost as the ad. And that just goes immediately to a URL that you have with the Typeform embedded on it. Then after that, they schedule in. And then on the actual thank you page is where like a full video explainer is. What are the other funnels you ended up building over that?

I just ran a VSL funnel as well on that side. Our cost per call still ended up being better overall just because I'm better at sales. One thing you have to understand is you always want to look at the field and see what are your competitive advantages. One of the things that I learned earlier on was I was like trying to figure out fulfillment, but I was fulfilling for like 7 different offers. I was doing a sales training offer, I was doing a Medicare agency offer, I was doing a Medicare recruiting offer, I was doing a coaching program, I was doing like all these different things. My competitive advantage was I knew the insurance and financial services industry for 4 years. I've been an agent. I am an agent currently. Like, I can use that to my advantage. And so I should sell to those people and be a marketer in that field. So that was one of the big things that I took from earlier on is I cut all those offers and I just focused back into the financial services space and selling high ticket. Another thing I remember listening to you and Nick Verge, your guys' like course module on this, and you're like, you're probably thinking immediately to go for coaches and consultants and agency owners. But stay away from this and here's why. And I remember going through and finding the $15,000 LTV rule, and that was really helpful trying to identify a niche. And so what was cool is in the financial services niche, there's something that our clients sell above $15,000 on average upfront, which is really cool. And so I was like, this is an offer that can scale because I'm selling to somebody who's selling something expensive. That's a huge unlock. You want to find people who are selling something expensive because it's easy to justify why they'd pay a lot in marketing, and then therefore they could pay you a lot of money in marketing. And And in the application funnel, it was a long sales page because one of the Olympia calls, you're like, I'm gonna— I'm just trying this. You're like, I built this in Manus. I am testing like a full sales letter, like a long sales letter. And I took that. I was like, wait, why don't I do that? And the main call to actions is just to book, like book a call, and they have to go through a Typeform to be able to book a call. I don't know what resonated really well, but I just talked to Manus for like 5 to 10 minutes about all the pain points. I fed it transcript, why people buy and don't buy, what are they buying before they buy my offer, what are they buying instead of my offer, and what are they buying after my offer, and talking through all that. And it helped equip exactly what my offer was and how to position it. I built that in a day, got landing, like, the ads up, which you also taught me. Listen to what you're saying in the ads and then listen to your sales calls. And once you do that, you'll find out why people are actually getting on the call and then make more videos like that. And that's how you make more ads. And so to answer your question, like, it was just a funnels because what happened was my ad account got shut down, so I had to get another one, which sucks.

How did your offer change? The thing that's been able to scale much further, what was it before? And like, kind of what do you think are the differences as to why this new one is able to scale so much further than the other one?

Well, my offers previously were like coaching and consulting. It wasn't done for you. Like nothing that I mentioned was done for you. Now it's all positioned done for you. It's completely done for you. We will put the ads up, we will call and qualify your leads, we'll set them on your calendar, we'll do everything for you. So all you have to do is What you're best at is closing, and so I've taken all what I heard on sales calls of like, "Oh, if you just get me in front of leads, I'll close them." Well, cool. Let me do all the logistical intensity up front. I can charge way more to do that, and you do what you do best at, which is close, right? Oh, you can't close. Why not? And now I can objection handle way easier because I'm like, "I'm doing all the stuff you said that you're not good at. Why are you questioning if you can close on this or not?" Maybe it's a sales issue on their side. Who who knows, right? But I think that's the big difference. The difference of the two is heavy done for you and not leaning heavy into the guarantee because the guarantee is like you use it and if people ask you, you just answer it how you should. But I think that's the big thing is just done for you to cold traffic.

How much do you charge for that? How does that work?

We have 2 different offers, but the main one is like a funnel. We basically do a setup. It's $15K and that covers the setup and me managing the ad spend for 3 months and then they pay for ad spend as well. We've been split testing different ones, but that's the main one that has has taken and given us majority of our revenue is doing that. And so it's just a traditional marketing agency. One of the things that prevented me in the past from scaling was like, oh, there's other people that are selling that. The immediate thing that I took from you, another one, is sell what people are already buying and don't be afraid of that. Find out what's actively working in the marketplace. Don't try to recreate anything and just sell exactly what they're selling now. And yeah, some people are going to be like, oh, what makes you different from whoever? It literally doesn't matter. Like, It's almost all the same. So don't be afraid of that, but lean into that and find trends, find what people are making money on and just sell the same exact thing.

What do you think separates somebody who's able to eventually get results like you versus somebody who like caps out or just like ends up quitting or like doesn't really get the best results?

Like, what are the main differences? I would say that it's not one thing that's gonna change your life. Like, that's just not the reality of the situation. The reality is that there's gonna be a lot of small stuff. I could take as much as I can from you and I've soaked up so much of like what I know today from you, but it's like, What works for you is not going to always work for me. And so I have to take like the concept of what's working for you, not just what you teach, but also like for me, looking at your ads in the ads library, like how is the flow of traffic happening? How are you selling? I know exactly what you're trying to sell, but how are you actually going out and marketing that? Not just for you, but also a bunch of other people and finding out for yourself like what's going to work for you. And so the problem that I see a lot of people run into is number one, I remember listening to a Jeremy Haynes video and it was just talking about reasons. So I was stuck. I went to Europe. for almost 2 weeks. I had this moment that hit me so hard. I was towards the end of it, we're in France, I was celebrating my birthday, I was excited. It was a cool time, but I remember it hit me because it was me and one VA that I had. In that time, I was like, I've been hitting $40K to $50K a month. I've been coasting and it's good money. I'm being able to invest a lot. This is good. But I literally did not make that much money on this trip. And if I want to build a business, I have to build systems and put the right people in place that this business, I can go to Europe again, And I can actually make money while I'm in Europe. And it hit me because I was like, this is going to be a lot more challenging than I think, but I have to build a team and I have to go out and do really hard stuff to be able to scale the business. And so the reason why it kind of hit me was because I have to have basically a new level of activity. And I kept thinking to myself, like, what would Daniel do? What would like somebody that's doing a million plus a month, like how would he think about these situations? And I remember like going for a walk when I got back, when I landed, and I was like, them having a $20K day is like, Not a crazy, like, day. It's like, okay, cool. Like, it's just kind of a normal day. Like, if you're hitting a million a month, you have to hit at least $30K a day. 30 times 30, that's $900K. You don't even hit a million at $30K in a day. And I remember hitting like $18,000 in a day and I was like, I'm sky high. Like, I'm so excited. I hit $25K in a week. I'm hyped. But if you hit $25K in a week, you'd be like pissed. You'd be out of business. You wouldn't be able to even survive. Yeah, for sure. So I kept anchoring myself. Like, whenever I ran into problems, I was like, this is what 8-figure problems feel like. And it just, it was a really good reframe for myself because I'm like, I'm going to have to 10x my activity. I'm gonna have to hire and fire people. I'm gonna have to spend money on ads and maybe break even. I'm gonna have to test way more than I'm testing currently. I'm gonna have to be on way more sales calls than I am. I'm gonna have to work way more than I am currently to build this machine. And so when I kept doing that, every level that I would hit, like I remember ending May, I was stuck at like $40K to $50K a month, came back from Europe and I was like, I'm gonna go bold. to the wall. I'm gonna— I need to spend way more money because I was scared to spend money on ads because I've just not seen the return that I wanted. Came back and I remember last week of May hitting $57K in a week. So I ended the month at like $97K and I was like, this is sick. But whenever you start seeing new wins, what happens is you start feeling like euphoric because your identity is lower. So you're starting to go above baseline. And so that's where the adrenaline, the dopamine, you just get super excited and you feel really good. Because you're way above baseline, and then what happens is whenever you get above baseline, if your identity stays down here, you're just gonna end up coming down, and naturally your identity is gonna pull you down and say, "Okay, this is not normal. This is not baseline. Come back down to reality." But every single time I hit a new win, I was like, "This is my new identity. I'm the guy that hits 15 to 20k days. Like I'm trying to hit a million a month. I need to hit 30k in a day. If I don't, like there's actually something wrong." It was just like these constant identity shifts and changes. And, and doing things that are just required. And at the end of the day, and like being willing to work a lot. And that's just kind of the reality of it. But I think what keeps people stuck is, is they compare themselves to people like of their, their same peer group. And so it's like, okay, you— it's easy to compare down. It's easier to say, okay, like I'm doing $50K a month. Like, dude, that person in high school, like he's making $5K a month. My brother-in-law is making $2K a month. Like I'm making 25 times more than them. If I ever decided to compare, I'd always compare up. And I would I think like if Daniel was in my situation currently, like how would he think about this situation? Okay, you hit $150K this week. Cool. Like if we hit that 4 weeks in a row, we hit $600 grand a month. Like that's terrible. And not in a bad way. Like it's still good money, but at the end of the day, like it's not where I wanted to be. And when I've talked to other agency owners, they always think like, dude, I'm making like $100 grand a month. Like they think they're something crazy when it's really a selfish thing and they're like complacent. And so it's always challenging the status quo. Like what would need to be true for me to grow this thing, to scale this thing, if that's your desire? It's my desire because it's been so cool. I had a guy that just quit his full-time job last week, came full-time now. He's like, dude, this is a life-changing opportunity. I'm blessed that I get to work with you and I get to quit my job because I get to be in this fast-paced environment and like challenge myself every single day. That's really sick. Like he was, he was stuck having to work 30, 40 hours a week at a bar till midnight. And he's like, these people are knuckleheads. I'm trying to better myself. I want to be in a better situation and make a lot of money. And I'm like, cool, let's go. And I've been able to— what's cool is over the past 4 years, I've been in business basically with the same 4 to 5 people. And what's cool is I've been able to, as this opportunity has gotten better and the business has made more money, I've been able to basically help 3 out of the 5 of them quit their full-time jobs to come back full-time working with me. And that's sick. Like, that, that's another level of impact is really fulfilling to me. And I'm like, if I get to $1 million a month, that means that somebody could probably make 7 figures a year with me, that's life-changing money for a lot of people. That's kind of what's driving me now is like, that's my why, as opposed to, yeah, I want to get filthy rich myself, of course. Like, I want to have an 8-figure net worth early on, but it's more so how do I get the people around me to have so much value to the business that they're making stupid amounts of money?

Good stuff, bro. Before we end it, anything else you want to touch on?

Last thing is, if you guys are on the fence of like making this decision of like doing Client Ascension, doing AI-assisted agency, or maybe even doing Olympia, I would 100% recommend recommend it. The reason why is this is not the silver bullet. Like, it's not like, okay, cool, I make a purchase and I do nothing and I make money. Like, that's not the reality. But if you're actually somebody who's going to apply yourself, is sick of watching YouTube videos— like, I was genuinely surprised of how in-depth and how much game you actually dropped within the course modules. You went so in-depth on exactly how to see results and see success. And it's not a guarantee that you're going to get that, but if you are willing to do that and you're sick of where you're at currently and you just want the actual tools, the resources, like the exact prompts to use. I just take those prompts, plug them into Manus. But also, how do I actually think through this? How is Daniel thinking through this so I can go out and whatever comes up next, whether that's Manus or now it's ChatGPT, like whatever it is now, I can apply what you've taught me and I can go out and build other businesses and make my business more efficient. Like, I would highly recommend this whether you're at zero or whether you're doing a few hundred thousand a month. Daniel and the team like have so much to offer. It's just a matter of finding like what that is for you. But I would definitely buy if you're kind of on the fence of that.

Thanks, bro. I appreciate you coming on. Anyone in the audience who wants to connect with Johnny, all of his stuff will be at the links in the description. And if you wanna join either Client Ascension or Olympia, that will also be at the links in the description. Johnny, bro, thank you so much.