How He Built a $150k/mo Email Marketing Agency inside Client Ascension

This is a conversation with Max Sturtevant, who is a client inside of Client Ascension. This is not a typical result inside of the program, but if you do want help from me personally with growing your business and facilitating all the strategies that Max did to grow his business, the link is inside of the description client ascension.com. let's get straight into it.

From April to December went from like 6k a month when I joined to then doing 30k a month by December.

And what is your revenue now?

I'm at about 150k a month is where I'm at now.

All right, what's up? Everybody got Max here. Max is inside of Klein Client Ascension. My friend, could you let everyone know how long have you been inside Client Ascension? What was your revenue before joining and what is your revenue now?

So I've been in for like a year and a half now and I was like really hard in pause from April of last year to like December. And at that point I joined at about 6k a month and then through like December. So 12 months from now. So from April to December went from like 6k a month when I joined to then doing 30k a month by December and then fast forward 12 months now I'm at about 150k a month is where I'm at now.

Nice. Hell yeah, bro. Good stuff.

Appreciate it.

And could you give everyone a sense like what's the main growth driver right now for your business? Like how are you getting the clients? How is that even happening?

Yeah, for me it's content. So literally just like a content across all the channels, funneling to newsletter, giving a ton of value. So it's all about top of funnel content, ads, whatever you want it to be. Everything just runs through whatever funnel it is. You've top of funnel, middle funnel, and then bottom of funnels, just like book a call. So top of funnel for me is content. I could do ads. It's just like I prefer content more and it's more fun for me. So that's where I'm posting on Twitter, YouTube and Instagra. Just putting out like a ton of content. And then every single time, like in the call to action or in the bio, it's like, hey, do you want a massive guide on email marketing? 75 page guide. And then I've created like 10 different lead magnets, get people to sign up to my newsletter and then I have daily emails just for a 30 day sequence just to get people to convert, telling them to book a call or buy one of the low ticket products. And then I also send emails Monday, Wednesday and then those people eventually book just when I give them astronomical amounts of value. And their whole entire klaviyo email marketing setup is literally everything I already gave them. And then they already have that. And then they're like, okay, what's next? Or they try implementing all my stuff. Then they're like, shit, I don't know what I'm doing. Let me just go to the guy that taught me all this. And then they book a call with me and then I sign them and it's literally just that simple. Yep.

Cool. Got it. So top of funnel is content. And then lead magnets to get people onto the email list, which is kind of like the middle of the funnel. And then same thing giving value on the email list at least. And then they buy. Do you know which content platform is in like doing the best? Is there one that's like a very clear outlier that is better than all the others?

YouTube for sure. Yep. Cool.

Cause this is a big problem with people on. If you tell them to start doing YouTube, how do you go about coming up with things to make content on?

I think it is so simple. Everybody just like overthinks it. Like it literally doesn't matter. It quite literally doesn't matter. Yeah, it could be anything about your niche you can create a video about. You could literally ask ChatGPT and it'll come up with the same ideas that like you would. So you could do ChatGPT, you could do whatever. But I'm like klaviyo email marketing. And there are a ton of different things that you can do with email marketing. Just split it up into five to 10 different subtopics and then under those subtopics, split those into like 10 different like specific video ideas. So if I go like email marketing, okay, there are a few different pillars of email marketing. You have the flow flows, you have like the campaigns, you have pop up forms. Then you have like deliverability. And then under each one of those buckets I can just go one by one and make a video once a week. Going for, okay, I'm going to make a video on flows, something specific. And then I'm going to do a video on campaigns and I'm doing on deliverability and I'm going to do one on whatever pop up forms was my last one. And each one of Those has like 10 different specific topics I could do. It could literally take you one zen and half a cup of coffee to come up with like all of those in like 30 minutes. Your videos don't need to be. Everybody thinks like you need this crazy high production, whatever. I've done all my like Instagram and YouTube growth like for the the most part, like I just do it all myself. A lot of like my best performing videos were not like with the YouTube agencies that I've worked with. It's just like me on loom or on obs and then imovie on my computer just clipping some things. Spend some time, just find like specific, a specific question. What's a frequently asked question that you get on sales calls or in your content or question you had six months ago. For me that would, would have been like at the time, like one of my first videos was like how to do a good email welcome flow. That was a question that I had. So I was like, okay, I'll just make a video on that, create a document, spend a couple days, one hour every day on the document and then just share your screen and go over the document. And that was literally it. And then just consistently do that, do that once a week. And you would have to be mentally impaired to not see some growth or success. If you do that once a week for literally six months.

This is what I tell people too, and they still don't do it. It's actually incredible.

It's insane.

People would join Client ascension and they'll have like exact instructions with absolute precision and still not do it. It's like the most incredible thing ever.

So simple.

Because you're at that point now where it's like, it's very clear what you have to do. This is, it's never confusing what you need to do. You just keep doing the same thing over and over again. So like that veil is. But a lot of people, they still have that veil and it's like a shroud. You can't see through it. Which is probably what you felt like when you first joined.

Absolutely.

Like 6k a month. So just for people, like imagine someone else, they're just like you. They're also at like 6k a month. And they, and they were like, wow, it would be really awesome to possibly hit 150k a month myself at some point. What are some kind of fundamental understandings that you learned after like you came in 6k a month? What are some things that changed in your head that made you begin to get to where you are?

The main thing for me was I've. I was always an overthinker and I'd always overthink everything. And then it took me a while, like even the first few months inside a client ascension, I was the same where I was just like, put off, like doing the YouTube video. Cause I'm like, oh, no, I need to find like the best idea and then I need like the best script. And then just kind of like always waiting for that. So, like, I always put it off and like, you know, it inside that, like, I need to be doing this and I should be doing this. You just keep putting it off because you think it needs to be right. You think it needs to be perfect. And so I'd overthink everything. And then just after hearing, because I went to, I made it like a promise to myself. Where ncaa when I was joining. I mean, the investment was a huge investment for me. It's like a poor college student. I was, I gotta make the absolute most of this. And so I went to every single call, every single time, and every single week, coaches are drilling like the same thing. And so. But I just like, overthink. I'm just like, I need, should I be doing this? Is this ready? Should I be doing this? Is this perfect? Like, is this ready to post? Like, whatever it is? And then it's just like, do it. And so then I just stopped overthinking it just after getting it drilled and having like, people like inside a client ascension, like, giving you the accountability and being like, stop being an idiot. Just like, do it. And so that was like the biggest thing, just like, overthinking. Doing it imperfectly is better than, like, doing it perfectly. Because imperfectly, if you put out a video every week, maybe it's 75% of like, your potential rather than like, you can do one video a month at like a hundred percent. But in reality, like, in business, that's not going to move the needle as much. It's just like frequency. So over time, you're just going to get better and better. So that was the biggest thing. Like, just overcoming that. There are a lot of specific, like, niche things with client ascension that like, I learned. But like, the biggest thing for me was just implement. Just take what people tell you. There are reasons that people like you are saying to like, post one video a week on YouTube consistently. It's because it fucking works. Just like, listen to what the people tell you. And so, like, after a few months, I was like, okay, I'm just literally going to do that. So I had time set a day aside every day for calls, and then I take the notes on the calls. What were like my specific action items before I had that call next week for like sales for example. And then I get it done. You have time set aside to get it done. I just implement it, get it done and it's impossible to not succeed. You'd have to be an idiot.

Obviously you have these three segments of the business versus the legion sales and then the fulfillment. Which of these do you think for you has been the hardest kind of systematize and get working?

Well definitely as far as like systematize sales. So I'm at 150k a month, I take about like 40 sales calls a month and I'm a full time college student and I'm like still like helping out with like some film. So I'm busy as hell and I, I haven't given up sales. So that's been the biggest thing for me that I still haven't like overcome. So right now I'm like in the middle of like I've been interviewing different closer sales reps so we're about to move forward with one of them. That's been the biggest thing for me. But I've always been good at sales and so that's why it's been hard for me to give up just because like naturally I'm naturally like okay at sales and I'm just like it's not even that, I'm just really knowledgeable about email marketing. So clients get on the phone with me and they also come in very, very warm already. That's one of the things too is like with sales, like I don't have to be very good because people are watching like 10 hours of my YouTube videos before booking a call and my form says if you aren't ready to work with me, don't book. And so it's super easy. So I've made it really easy for myself with the lead gen and like the content. So that part hasn't been as difficult. What's very difficult is ops. I think like sales. I haven't really gotten to that point to really having to systemize it but I've always been like naturally okay. And I like just sell with my expertise and my content and lead gen. It's just all been about content, getting better at content, getting better at writing like helpful informational docs and literally giving everything away. Don't gatekeep, just give it all away. So I guess the last one would kind of just be ops. That was the most difficult thing for me and the biggest thing, hardest thing to give up control was the client fulfillment. And so that was very, very difficult, very difficult for me. And that's 100 been the most work. And that's a long winded answer to say like ops. And there are a lot of like specifics with it. But the biggest thing I've learned about OPS and getting just overcoming that. Cause I'm a very sales marketing oriented person. Not as much ops. The biggest thing for me. And it's so basic to say it, but it's literally just like hiring is everything. The people you hire are everything. I know everybody says it, it's annoying as hell and it can seem overwhelming to like hire people. Just literally go to LinkedIn, put together a Google form job descri, put $20 a day into like a LinkedIn job ad post. You can get some fire people and just bring in. If you bring in badass people who care and you give them a reason to care, you give them a great working environment, you pay them well, then they will carry your business. So far, like I don't do anything like client side. I'm just there to like check in on clients like once a month I'll shoot them a private slack dm. Other than that, my team is just so good because I've spent so much time on hiring and actually finding good people and giving them like the proper money and incentives and giving them a super fun work environment as well. But literally that's the one thing I've learned with ops, is hire badass people and give them the ownership and they'll carry it for you.

Nice, good stuff. So I try to do my best to give valuable information on YouTube and all my content everywhere and especially my email list. There's hundreds if not thousands of people who are probably in a similar situation as you when you had first joined. Something like 2k to 10k a month or something like that. And they've been doing the same thing for so long and it's just not like rocketing how it's supposed to be like fundamentally just like growing. And what I feel like a lot of these guys do is they'll, they'll ask me dozens of questions over and over again or they'll watch like dozens of my YouTube videos and only a certain section of them end up investing any money to get direct help from me. And something like client essentially. Sometimes people do their best to ask me as many questions as possible by just emailing me without spending any money to invest because they want to try to be smart. How much free value can I extract from this guy before I have to pay, before I have to invest in myself at all? Obviously that's everybody's inclination, right? Since you were somebody who joined, what would you say to somebody who's in that position and they're like, no, I'm not going to join. I can do it myself.

It's. Even if, say, Client Ascension was, I mean, it's literally the best program I've ever been in and probably ever will be in. But even if it was like the worst thing ever and it was just like, you get like no value from it, even putting like the money down, you're just going to take every piece of information with so much more weight and you actually act on it. If you are still at the same place that you are three months ago and you're trying to do the same things and you're trying to like, reach out to people and like get free value, it's obvious it's not working. You're in the same place you were six months ago, brother.

It's such a fundamental concept that people do not understand. Dude, I'll get so many emails and dude, I'm just like stock and like, I'm watching your videos and whatnot. And look, I'm just, I'm like trying and I'm like, no, but you actually aren't trying. You're thinking about trying. And like, the act of thinking about is also strenuous. So it feels like you actually tried something and now you're asking for me to save you, but you want me to do it for free without any investment in yourself. And it's like, it's the same concept where it's like, I need to invest into something to be serious about it.

Something's gotta happen. Something flips in your head when you put like money into something like Client Ascension. Because, like, you just would have to be so bad at just listening to people and implementing for you to fail in Client Ascension. Like, you're literally given absolutely everything by Experts who are 10 steps ahead of you and then also people who are one step, two steps ahead of you. So it's not like you're just listening to like the experts who were like super high. You're also listening to people who are just like a couple steps. How do you. And that to me was like, almost more valuable talking to like everybody getting on calls with other people. Like when I was at 6k a month hopping on calls, people at 20k, 30k a month. And just because like you're inclined ascension people will jump on a call with you. All I got to do is send a question into a channel and be like, yo, I'm Having trouble with this pixel on meta that is pissing me off. And then I'll get like, six people DMing me. Be like, yo, you want me to hop on a call? Like, this is what I do. And it's just, like, amazing. So it's just on every single facet, it just works. And putting the money down is a huge difference, but also it's just, like, insanely valuable. And you get the money back, like, tenfold. If you just do what people are saying, like, you will make a lot more money. It's just a matter of, like, when you get it back, whether you do it in one month, two months, three months, it doesn't matter. It's. I've never heard of a competent individual not making infinitely more money from joining Ascension.

What do you think is, like, the hesitation of that? Like, someone's going to invest in something and they're, like, hesitating to do that. What were yours at least, like, what did you fear would happen if you joined? And, like, what could have been the worst possible situation that made you hesitate?

Exactly. What my mindset was, was so I had enough money, I'd probably like, 30 grand in my bank account. And I was like, what really was holding me back was this was like, a thing I started in this kitchen, and I was like, okay, if I invested, like, the amount of money that it was at the time, if I put down five figures, I am saying that this is legit and I am committing to this, and I'm committed to growing, like, a full company. And that is scary.

This quick context for everyone. You say five figures, but it's 10.8k. You say five figures, it makes it sound like it's like 20 or 30. Yeah, 10.8k. $10,800 for a year.

That was like, the thing for me was like, is this a legit thing? Am I ready to commit to, like, this thing and making this work? So I'm gonna have to turn this into, like, a real ass business. So that was like, the thing in my head where it's like, okay, am I ready to commit to this? And am I ready for this? That was the main one as well. Those are, like, the two things. It's just like, okay, am I ready to commit to this? Because this is proving that this is real and I'm actually gonna try to do, like, this online business thing. And then it was like, am I ready? And I always knew. I always knew that I was gonna join Client Ascension. It was just like, trying to time, like, the perfect time and the TR there's never that perfect time.

All the time in my messages, someone will ask me some question, like super in depth specific question that they want me to sit here and like really think about a hard strategy for them and they'll throw in their oh yeah, bro, I'm planning on joining client. Essentially. It's like, if you want me to answer this question, then just do it now. Like, what do you say? Like, no, I'm not going to sit here and take 30 minutes of my time to write out a response to this like crazy in depth question. Like, no, just join. Like, yeah, yeah, that actually makes sense. Where it's, it's kind of like you fully committed to this. I think that's probably what's wrong with people is they haven't actually fully committed to their thing at all in their own mind. So like, that's why they don't actually do anything.

Then it like marks that like, okay, I'm spending the next like year, two years on this thing because if you invest like $10,000 into something, you're not just going to quit in three months. And so I think to some people that's scary as well. And to me it was just like, it's time to grab my balls. Is this something that I actually want to do and is this something that I want to do? Yes. Is this something I'm going to do at some point? Yes. Okay, well then every second I spend not doing it is wasted time because I know joining client ascension is. I move at 5x speed as what I would try do by myself. There's nothing more valuable than time. So every second I wait, essentially losing money. So that's. Once I had that realization, it was like, okay, I'm going to do it at some point. I'm wasting time and burning money by not doing it. And anybody listening to this right now, wasting time and burning money by not taking action.

When you joined, how long did it take to start seeing your first results?

I mean, quick wins right off the bat, like immediate things right off the bat. When people were looking at my funnel, you were looking at my offer and they was like, change your offer to this and then immediately you're able to, you can just tell that like, okay, this is making me more money right off the bat as far as like getting. So I already have like so cold email was like the main acquisition system and I already had like cold email set up and it was just about like scripts and so literally like first call, like with Christian fixed up some scripts for me on like Cold email. And then I started booking calls, like more calls, like the next week. And then as far as like content and whatnot, content is more of a slow burner. Like a lot of my content from six months ago is what get, is what's getting me deals now. And so the content I like really started posting going all in on like incline ascension. Like I didn't quite, I didn't see immediate, immediate results. Just because YouTube's a slow burner. Like six months later is when I like started to see those media with results. But I saw his results right off the bat from like rescripting and then like the offers, the offer reconstructing.

Yeah, dude, I made this analogy before. Words hump. But it's easier to be posting things online and like value based content when you're in something like client essentially. Because what happens is when you start posting content you'll get some people who leave like stupid comments who are just like insulting you for like no reason. It happens all the time. And if you're just like alone and you don't really have like a squad of people who do this, it's like you literally start to feel like an imposter. Like, oh, maybe I am a scammer if I'm talking about this stuff. Because people just like comment scam on literally everything on the Internet. Really weird. But if someone starts talking shit in your comments, you get to like post a screenshot of it inclined. Essentially everyone starts making fun of the person who left the dumb comment and now it's like, oh, okay, my boys are like, my boys got me, you know? And then, you know, you don't feel bad about it anymore. So it's actually super interesting. That was the post content until you have people who have your back.

No, a hundred percent. Client ascension was the biggest like best decision that I ever made because of. It was a complete shift in how I viewed the world and everything. Because I was a college student just doing this like on the side and I had no friends, nobody in person who talked. I never talked about this with anybody. And I was making like 5 to 10k a month, roughly like 6k. And I just felt so alone. I didn't have anybody. And then I joined Client Ascension and then just everybody around there, it's all, everybody's talking about all everybody's doing that. I'm like, okay, I'm not alone. And there's people like to talk to and people, people who are there. That was so big for me and that's. I wouldn't be near where I am today if I didn't get going on client sanction, like guarantee 100%. And right now I'm living what I want to do. Like I retired my dad, I PA my mom's housing and I just gifted like all the Christmas gifts. I wouldn't be able to do that, like, without like all of the getting started with Client Ascension. So anybody who's like listening to this and you're not, you're stupid, going to join eventually, just do it now. You're wasting time by not doing it.

Appreciate that, brother. What's the goal from here? You're at 150k a month. Where are you trying to take this?

So I'm still in college. That's like also like, my thing is doing this while in college just to prove I can and to kind of flex on people and also have the story because I started this freshman year, now I'm in senior year. And so I graduated in May. I want to be at 250k a month by May and then after that, no clue. I don't like to make goals too far out just because things change so fast. My goal for 2024 was like 100k. It's just so hard to set goals like far out because things change so fast. So goal for me, 250 by graduation. After that, no clue. I'll have another goal here in the next couple months to kind of shoot for. Obviously, the more revenue, the better. Probably shoot for 500k by end of the year next year.

Dope.

Good stuff, bro.

All right, well, I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for saucing up Client Ascension. I hope everybody watching this got some value. I'll leave your links in the description. You guys can go follow Max. Great guy. Makes a lot of money. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Go join Client Ascension. Yep.