How he scaled his agency by sending 3,000 cold emails a day

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to a Student Spotlight interview here with another super successful Client Ascension student, Zach. What's going on, my friend?

Yo, yo, what's up, Andre?

Not much, dude. So I'm pumped for today's interview because we're gonna hit on a lot of new things that we haven't really hit on during these Student Spotlight interviews with some of our other students. Some new things that have been happening throughout the Client Ascension community and some things that have been there for quite some time. But starting off, if you could just tell the audience about who you are and what you're currently working on and then we'll go from there.

Yeah, 100%. Well, my name is Zach and currently I run an email and SMS marketing agency for D2C brands. I'm here in Kansas City. I went to school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now we're back and yeah, really enjoying that process.

Love it, bro. So how did you hear about Client Ascension? We've heard so many different stories. One even where student heard about Client Ascension through their college professor, which was super random. But what was your story of hearing about Client Ascension?

Yeah, really goes way back, at least a year or two with, with Money Twitter. I joined, got in the agency game about a year and a half ago, took a course from pretty big YouTube guru, didn't went okay, not super well and eventually got my way onto Money Twitter and figured out where the real sauce was really. And so I've always kind of been in the community interacting with you guys. Bought a ton of listkit credits kind of before joining ca. Got into cold email mastery, a lot of courses during that time period and then eventually made my way to the event in October and eventually made sense to join CA from there.

Yeah. So for any course sellers and coaching programs listening into this, it's the reality of the follow up right in front of you. Right. Like he said, you weren't quick to close by any means. You join a couple of courses, you join some communities, you sign up for our SaaS, you went to our event and then finally you decided to join the main program, which I think is awesome because you joined at the time that you were ready and had all the experience and other skill sets under your belt to make the most of it while you're in there for the six months. So I think that's great. Talk to me a little bit about your experience going to the Client Ascension event. Especially being from Kansas, I can't imagine there's big communities of entrepreneurs and agency owners out there that you were able to connect with. So what was it like going to an in person event with all these guys that you've been following for quite some time through money Twitter?

Yeah, no, I mean, it really was a crazy story. Just leading up to it, I was enlisted at, at the time and I was doing a ton of cold emailing. And so luckily I won the giveaway and got the invites and I was freaking out. It was so sick. It was a. A week turnaround, literally. Next day, had plane tickets down to Tampa. I was all for it. So, yeah, I mean, getting to the event, it was crazy because you, again, being in Kansas, you only see these guys on Twitter and I'm like, is, are these guys actually real? Are they. You don't believe it until you're in the room, you're in the event there. It was surreal. It was all around, really cool. Just to be around people who are doing things at your level and way better. And yeah, overall, it shows you that they're humans too. I think that was the biggest takeaway.

Absolutely. Yeah. There. There's nothing different between you and them other than maybe location and just the action you took on the opportunities that are presented to you. I think it's so cool. The List Kit giveaway so for people listening in, we have a software product related to Client Ascension called Liskit. And in that community, we had a couple of event tickets left over for our Tampa event last October, and we figured we'd reward some of our early users at Liskit with some giveaways. And so Zach was one of the ones that won that giveaway and actually followed through on. On showing up. I think we gave two or three more tickets away and not everyone, you know, made the. The trip to Tampa, so I'm happy you did. And I remember meeting you there and having some pretty high quality conversations, but I could relate as well. I come from a small town in upstate New York and there weren't too many agency owners or online entrepreneurs that I could connect with here. And so just that first experience of meeting some of the friends that you've been interacting with on Twitter for so long, it's just surreal. And in that moment of realization that they're just average dudes just like yourself, I think that just opens the set of beliefs that, like, why not me, right? If they're able to do this, why not me? And so after the event, what did that look like for you? Did you join Client Ascension immediately? Was there some time gap? What was the decision to say, okay, it's finally Time to join this flagship program.

Yeah, absolutely. I had CA in mind for a long time. Even before the event. It was one of those things. I want to hit these goals, I want to come in prepared. There's a few things that I want to clean up before. And really talking to the guys at the event, they're like, okay, yes, I get that you want to clean up this and that, but dude, just join. We're going to help you do it way faster. As wanting to create all these sops and things like that. And they're like, no, bro, we got you. You're going to be good. It's a good investment. And so that really sealed the deal about a lot of really cool guys there that we just talked about what was in the program and how it could really benefit myself. And so it was a no brainer after that.

Yeah, I love it, bro. I think that's such a common theme is the people I talk to that aren't in the program and they eventually join. It's always I'm not ready yet or I'll join when I get to this revenue benchmark. And I think there's some justification there. But I feel just like with anything else, it's a matter of taking action before you're fully ready. Just like anything in business, you're never going to be fully ready to make that big of an investment. But making that investment and joining a program like client ascension is what will spark the actions or the results that you're waiting for. Right. And so I'm never a big fan of waiting around for something to happen before you make a decision like that. And so what was it like early on joining at a time where you might not have felt you're fully ready? I'm sure there was a lot of pressure to make things happen.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Another thing that really kind of pushed me over the edge was the fact that I can get such quick feedback. I think I had two, two deals on the line right when I joined that were kind of in that limbo stage. So I'm like, if I can just close, you know, one or two of these deals, two would be great. That would make CA worth it just in itself to have that monthly recurring revenue there. So I mean that was another big aspect as well. I ended up, ended up closing both of them, which was just immediate. Yeah, both of them luckily got them across the line, talked to the sales coaches and they were super helpful to essentially get that. And that, that alone just paid for paid just getting those two deals across the line. So that was huge for sure. Just having that immediate one on one. They'll hit you back in Slack within 10 minutes if you need it. Just that quick, here's what to do type of help was so valuable.

Yeah, what does that look like practically for the audience? Right. What are some, maybe like one or two examples of you being in a situation where you really needed a second opinion or help from an expert in a certain area of growing an agency where you're able to put a message together in Slack or show up to one of the live calls and ask a question and get clarity. What are some recent examples of you doing that?

Oh yeah, this gotta be one of the top or the top uses for CA is just quick feedback. Especially when it's one of those random scenarios that you don't know. There's no playbook necessarily. Like literally. I think last night at 6 or 7pm I had the client and I needed help with the situation where it was kind of a misunderstanding on their end, misunderstanding on our end. And so in my Slack DMs, I said, hey, this is a situation that I'm going through. I was originally going to send a loom video to the client to explain my situation. However, Orey was super helpful, super responsive and was, hey, you know you're not going to convince anybody. And drill your point in that, oh, I'm right, you're wrong. That's just not going to happen over a loom. Instead what you want to do is go have a call, ask for a call with this person. There'll be a lot more understanding on a call and you can talk things through, see their body language, et cetera, et cetera. And so we actually just had that call this morning and it turned out way better, much better idea to do it face to face rather than, rather than a loom where it's just a one sided thing that was just literally last night.

That's awesome, bro. Yeah, it's just that quick feedback and the thing you pointed out is there's no templates or playbooks for this sort of stuff. Right. It's kind of like the day to day management of business and you can't sop everything. So just having that quick response time from 16 expert coaches in all different categories of what it takes to run an agency is invaluable and it's there for you to use it. And I know a lot of students who have gone through the program and have not used it to the extent that maybe someone like yourself has. And that's the big difference in gap between someone getting value and someone not getting value or someone getting results and someone not getting results. So I'm not surprised to see you on the WINS channel as often as you are. Another cool thing that we've been doing in Client ascension, I'm kind of calling it like 2.0, right? Because client ascension has been around for two and a half, almost three years now. And it's always evolving and improving. And from an outside perspective, we get amazing results. We have some of the most fire case studies, some of the most fire reviews online. People are always saying good things, but to me, there's always room for improvement. There's always ways to get better and deliver more value to our students. And one of the ways is by spinning up challenges. And so we did our first challenge back in December, and the thought process behind the scenes of it was December is usually the slowest month for agency owners because they kind of take their foot off the gas and they stop their outreach and they get lazy and they get distracted and they come up with excuses that all the other people that they could sell to are doing the same thing. And so it's kind of just a write off month. And so we didn't want that for our students. And so we figured the way we can, you know, push our students to make the most of that month is by having a challenge that has, you know, incentives to win prizes and whatnot. And you won that challenge. And so kind of talk about your experience participating in what we called the Holiday Sprint and how that helped you to grow your business in a time where other businesses were slowing down or dying, in a sense.

Yeah, no, love the Holiday Sprint challenge. I mean, biggest thing was doing the things that you should be doing but just aren't. They're not 100% necessities. For example, meeting new people in client ascension, going on Twitter spaces. That was first thing I, I did, first time I've done a Twitter space. And we did multiple of them. So connecting with other GU guys in ca, reaching out to clients and just wishing them, hey, you know, Merry Christmas, happy Holidays, whatever it is, those extra things that you don't think about that aren't a hundred percent necessary, I think that was the biggest, biggest takeaway. And it's a reminder that you still need to be doing that. And also when everybody else is, is giving up, it's time for you to, especially on things like content that aren't just 100% important, it's time to go all in on that and just Lap everyone else.

Yeah, it's just a series of inputs. Is, is really all it is. And I like what you said. It's things that you know you should be doing but you have all the excuses in the world not to be doing around that time of year because not everyone else is doing them. And there's other things going on in, in your life that maybe pull you away from it. So. And I love Ed Milet. I'm a big follower of Ed Mylett and he always calls it Separation season. Right. It's like the, the best time of year to really separate yourself from competition and even a past version of yourself. Right. And it was just cool to see your business grow during that time. And you also just became a prominent figure in the community, which has a lot of value as well. I can only imagine. What does it look like on a day to day basis for you being in the community? Are you hearing from a ton of other students? Are you talking with coaches? What does that look like behind the scenes?

Yeah, I mean especially during that period. Met so many other client of section students, even opened up a new channel of getting clients. I had my first two referral clients of people needing email marketing services from within CA and I definitely did not expect that at all. And so you're not the only email.

Marketing agency in there, right?

Exactly. And so being a well known figure is the goal. And having a really rock solid service that people that have DTC brands or serve DTC clients, just being that go to guy I think is invaluable. And I think the holiday spread absolutely helped with that. And then also maximizing those time periods where not a lot of people are joining the calls in relation, you know, when you compare it to the rest of the year. So I mean there's so many calls that it was me and one other guy and you just get this, you know, absolute stud coach who's helping you for 30 or 40 minutes. Just you. And so just those calls alone during that time of the year where a lot of people are taking off, joining those is just invaluable.

Yeah, absolutely, Brian. I've seen it. Right. I'm one of the coaches on the operations side of things. And there were some calls in there during the slow times of year where it was you and maybe two or three others. And we were really able to tackle some situations together and go through your hiring scorecards, your hiring process or how you're managing and dealing with client communications, which is invaluable. You don't get that one to one Feedback during busy season as much so that's awesome. I guess my next question is it sounds like you've really been through a handful of courses. You've always been someone that buys courses and is looking for new information to get you to the next level level. What would you say is different about client ascension compared to your experiences with other online courses?

Yeah, I would say really it's everything across the board. Most other courses are going to have one or two experts, maybe you know, a couple calls a week. Maybe this is double digit number of calls per week. Everyone's an expert in their respective field. So just that being the groundwork is huge. Also student success coaches, them just being on you and just having a business health audit each month where you literally go line by line all the important KPIs of your business. I think that's a huge unlock as well. And just that alone and having that student success coach that's forcing you to go and make decisions or coaches that are going to force you essentially to go make this higher or make this change in your business, I think that's huge. And it takes the guesswork out of growing to the next level.

Yeah, is there for you if you want it. Which is the theme I always come back to because I really think that's the gap between getting results and not getting results is you have the 16 weekly live coaching calls with 16 different experts who all have grown and scaled their own agencies. You have your Slack channel with all those coaches active. You have all the Kajabi modules. You have your dedicated student success coach which is essentially dedicated to your success, holding you accountable, going through all of your business stats at the end of the month through the bha, one on one calls like you said. So it's all there for you. It's just a matter of taking action on it and implementing it. What would you say to students? This is like my favorite question by the way. So what would you say to students? And it's just being real for a minute, right? Not everyone that goes through the program gets results. Again, we have a lot of results. You've probably seen on my YouTube channel the Wall of case studies and success stories. Same on Trustpilot, Same on Twitter. Right. You see a lot of the positives, but there is a certain group of students that go through a program like Client Ascension or any other program really and just doesn't see the level of success that other people have seen. What would you say to someone that's in the program now and they're not seeing the Results they hope to see when they initially join.

Yeah, for myself, I'm a very analytical person, so it's just breaking it down to the numbers. If you send a thousand cold DMs, it's not like zero of those thousand are going to respond. You're not going to go zero out of a thousand. So it comes down to inputs. That's why I'm such a big fan of the business health audit, because it's very clear, you know, the numbers don't lie. So at the end of the day, if you're not putting in the inputs, it's very clear that you're not going to get the outputs. Very, very simple math. So I like to break it down to that. Yep.

And for you, what are some of those inputs that you're measuring and holding yourself accountable to doing?

Yeah. So biggest thing is just cold email outreach. Sending up to 3,000 emails a day is definitely going to bring calls in. That's one of the biggest ones. As well as just making sure that maybe not numbers wise, but just making sure things on the back end are taken care of. You're doing all those daily calls with the team members. That was a big unlock. Just really, really training them well so that you can replace yourself. That was a big goal. Really. Just cold email. Cold DMS is another way for reaching out to people. Yeah, I'd say those are the two biggest ones.

Love it, bro. Yeah. And within the community as well. Attending a certain amount of coaching calls every week, checking into Slack every week, sending updates to your student success coach every week. All things that I've seen you do that I'm sure contribute to the results you've been able to produce.

Yeah. 100. Especially you showing up to the calls, whatever you're focusing on, just making it a priority to have detailed questions, really ask them one at a time and be very targeted versus just going on there and kind of ranting and coming up with a question on the spot. I plan out my questions ahead of time. So I think, okay, I have Andre's operations call next week. Let me right now think of all my ideas throughout the week that I need to ask him about. So you have a good list. Especially when I'm very focused for myself, very focused on operations right now. So that's a huge, huge strategy.

I love that. Yeah, it's so smart, dude. Like limited time. You're going to ask a question on a call with a ton of other people on there. Get straight to the point, rather than asking, what's your morning routine? You know, like questions that there's no point in really asking. So that's great bro. Last, last thing here. We're at the very start of 2024, nearing the end of January. It seems like you've had a good start the year. What are your goals for this year?

Yeah man, a lot going on. It's tough to nail down exactly. But biggest goal immediately is just making my making the agency a lot more of a well oiled machine. So bringing on account manager hire as well as a couple other ones, it's going to be huge. Really systematizing things and then yeah, I'd love 20, 30, 40k a month definitely seems possible. It seems very clear what the next steps are. So something in that range would be amazing.

Love that bro. Well, again you've been a huge part of our community ever since the event in the Holiday Sprint as well and winning that first ever challenge winner in Client Ascension. I'm sure we're going to have plenty more challenges. I'm sure you'll probably win a few more as well during your time here, which will be great to see. But where can our audience find you? I know a lot of guys listening are probably in the community and so reach out to Zach through Slack, DMs and client ascension, but people not in the program, maybe even D2C brand owners that want to work with you and your agency. Like where can people find you online?

Yeah, absolutely. So if you just search up my name, Zach Schieffer S C H I E F F E R Twitter is the best place as well as you'll get links to our website, Twitter is probably the best place to go there.

Love it, bro. Well, hey, congrats on all the success. It's great to have you in the program, setting a great standard for the rest of the students and community and I'm excited to just keep watching you grow and just what you're able to accomplish in 2024.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, Andre.

Absolutely, brother.