How Luke Scaled to $20K/Month With His No Code Agency

What's going on, guys? Andre Hagel Jr. Here from client Ascension. Back with another student spotlight interview here with my man Luke. What's going on, brother?

How's it going, man? Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, dude, I've been hearing about your success and the results you're getting with your agency. We're just talking a little bit off camera. Now that you have more of a freedom lifestyle, you're out there in Nevada visiting your grandparents. So it's just cool what can happen once you have a business that is working the way it should be rather than suffocating you because all the things that you have set up are maybe not the way that you intended in the beginning. So we'll go through kind of your journey in the program here and hopefully help some people out that are listening in. That might not be where they want to be with their business, but a couple of tips here might help them get even closer to that point. So just start us off with who you are and what do you do for business.

Yeah. Awesome. So my name's Luke, based out of Miami, but I'm out in Reno for this week. My business specializes in setting up custom automations and operation systems for businesses. So we work a lot with low code tools, airtable, Zapier, make N8N. So it's a lot of custom client builds and we also have a sales vertical as well. So we'll set up sales automations and set up CRMs. So we mostly work with HubSpot and go high level on that side of the business.

Dude, that's awesome. I mean, that service is super valuable. And again, it's always a master class. Just the first minute of these interviews, when you hear the guy like yourself, Luke, explaining what it is your business does. Because most guys, like, they're just like, oh, I do marketing. Or I hear a lot of these guys that do what you do say, oh, I just do sales automations and workflow automations and pipeline automations. And like, nobody knows what that means. And so, like, the way you clearly explain your offer and can and communicate that that shows the value of what you do is huge. Because that obviously is going to help with marketing and sales and even people listening now. I'm sure a lot of guys listening in could use the services that you just listed off there. And so let's go to the journey through the program. And even before going through the program, how did you hear about client ascension in the first place?

Yeah, so, I mean, this goes back to I think maybe 2020. I'd actually followed you and Daniel. Yeah, Daniel on Twitter. So I think the first thing that I purchased was the vault, actually the cold email vault. So I'm not sure. I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember exactly which year that was. So it's been, you know, a long journey since then. I bought a couple other things from Daniel Mailerize and maybe a couple other Sasses. But yeah, I've known about it since then. But I know that Client Ascension might have launched a couple years after that, like 2022. So it had been on my list of something that maybe I would end up joining depending on what my success looks like in whatever venture I was in. And then finally that time came and I pulled the trigger and joined in December.

That's awesome, bro. Yeah, it's always so cool to hear like the timeline people follow because sometimes I'll talk to guys that found us through an ad or they were on YouTube and saw one of Daniel's rants and join after that, or they've just been following us on Twitter for a while or they've been reading our newsletters every morning. It's always cool to hear like where that originated. And for guys, the most case, like the most common cases have been following us on social media for a while leading up to when you actually join. What was that like? Like you obviously knew client Ascension was there and what it could help you with, but you still did not join right away. So like why didn't you join right away and then why did you join when you joined? Because I think that's helpful for a lot of people listening in that are not in the program yet. We get a lot of guys that are like waiting to join or working towards joining the program, like speak to, I guess where you were at before joining, where it didn't make sense and then where you were when you joined and why it made sense then.

Right. So this specific business that I started was almost a year ago, a little bit over a year ago, and I basically had a very slow revenue increase over the first three, four months. I was doing a lot of hourly work, one on one consulting and freelancing. So I knew that at that time it didn't make complete sense with the revenue that I was hitting to join yet. But around like August, I'd made a six month plan then and that's when I had, you know, joined condescension once I'm at this revenue point. And then I created more of an agency type offer in October, beginning of November, and I started running that, and I closed two retainer clients on that offer. And that kind of gave me that cash flow and ability to make an investment in a program like Client Ascension.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. And so when you joined the program, like, what were some things going into the program, right? Cause you had the agency, you came up with your offer, you started to sign some clients. Was joining Client Ascension just like pouring gasoline on the fire or what was the thought process behind joining at that time?

So that was the goal. I actually ended up churning both of those clients with that offer, I think a month after I joined. So I was like, kind of like. And now I'm in a bad position while I'm in Client Ascension. So that was a blessing in disguise because it made me realize that this offer, logically, it didn't make sense. It was unlimited automations, unlimited custom workflow builds for a monthly retainer. But when you match that up to, like, what you're offering, it doesn't. It doesn't make sense.

Right?

And client realizes that. So they both turned. So I had to revisit what my offer was and what I was offering to the marketplace. And so, in a sense, it was actually the perfect time to join and to have them turn, because then I had all the resources I needed to figure out, okay, what I have this skill set, I have these results in these case studies. How can I, you know, leverage them with a new offer and, you know, cold email and all the coaching that you have in Client Ascension.

That's awesome, bro. Yeah, it's so funny. Like, I literally just recorded another student Spotlight interview interview right before this. And same thing, it was with Jordan, who you might know. And he said when he joined, he had two clients or more, he had a couple of clients, and he was in a good spot to join. And as soon as he joined, he lost a bunch of clients and he was down to just two clients. And I can't even tell you how many times I've heard the same story where someone joins and then immediately after they join, it goes in the opposite direction they thought it would go. And it has nothing to do with the program. It's just timing and business, right? Like, if you don't have the proper foundation set up with your business is just a ticking time bomb. Like, yeah, you might have the clients and the MRR or the revenue now, but that's slipping away because you don't have the proper setup with the offer. Like you're saying, like, it sounds great on the front end, unlimited everything for like all you can eat, everything for just this small price. But like, it, it just doesn't work on the fulfillment side as much as you think it would or whatever you find out about it. It's just funny, like you join Client Ascension because you're in a good spot financially and then you lose all your clients and now you're like, oh shit, I really make this work. And it's almost, it is a very good thing because you're now left in a situation where you have to figure it out to get back to where you're at and even pass that. So what do you do from there? Because I always find this part of the story, like super inspiring.

Yeah. So I set up a new offer, fixed price structure. I got a lot of insight from Daniel and Leo on how to do that and basically separate my solutions into different packages and then sell those individually and then have, you know, obviously from a business perspective it is nice to have some sort of MRR or retainer on board. So implementing a maintenance or ongoing optimization retainer on the back end of a fixed price offer was the way to move forward. So from there it was really just joining in calls, learning more about sales response, handling all the different channels in ca, connecting and networking with students, seeing what they were doing. To be completely transparent with you, I didn't fully take cold email that seriously throughout the process. So I was able to build my business up to where it is off the back of my other organic content places. But I'm working on getting cold email up now. But it was really honing in all the other aspects of my business fulfillment, the sales process, having a fixed price structure and then building up the pipeline from there.

Yeah, the cold emails thing. So like we were just recreating our VSL for Client Ascension actually and we were having a conversation about it this morning and it's like, we don't just sell cold email. And I think that's a misconception in the market about Client Ascension. It's like, oh, well, I don't need help with cold email, so I'm not going to join. It's like, well, you probably need help with all these other things, right? Because even if we could just help someone with cold email, like they still need a VSL and a landing page and an offer and a fulfillment structure and knowing and where and how to hire people and the community that's there to support along the way. Like those are the things that make it work. It's not just do cold email or don't do cold email. It's all the things working together and really, like you said, finding what works for you. Like you have your certain platforms and lead acquisition channels through organic content. That's working like double down on that, bro. And layer in cold email. And it makes sense too, knowing that you have options to continue to scale up, it's an exciting thing. But even going back to where you're at, like having lost some clients early into the program, it's just really cool to hear, like, there's two ways you can go about that. It's like one way is complain about it and be like, well, I'm screwed now. Like, I made this big financial decision and I lost all my clients. Like, I'm screwed. Or hey, I made this big financial decision, I lost all my clients. Now it's time to go all in on the resources I now have access to. And so what were some of those things in the program? So you said the offer with Leo and Daniel helped a lot, but what were some other things you've done working with Shen that you started to see some traction with throughout the program?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing regarding Shen, who's my student success coach, is just the accountability factor there. You know, hopping on a monthly call and, and writing down what the goals are, what do you want to achieve, what's your wildly important goal, and then having that accountability factor throughout, throughout the process. And it's been good having a lesser amount than the full client ascension group so that you can really connect on a deeper level to see what people are doing and what the success is in their businesses.

Yeah. Yeah. What is that like? Because I feel like it's hard to describe in a way for me as someone that like built and, and organized the entire thing. But like from a student's perspective, for people not in the program, like, what is, what is a student success coach? What is it like to work with Shen on a daily basis? And then what are like the team specific channels? Like, what are some aspects of the program that you've gotten a lot of value from on, like the community side?

Yeah, I think a big thing there is the weekly. We have weekly office hours and weekly power hours. So the office hours, you're joining into a call with people who are going through similar problems that you're having. And one example that looking back was probably a stupid question, but I didn't know a good app to record my calls with and I was making a decision on whether or not I needed to upgrade my Google workspace plan. To like it was going to be like over $600 per month just so I could record calls and someone in the group was just like dude, just get read AI it's like little things like that that add so much value. I mean there's, there's bigger things as well as well that happen in that call. It's one that I can think of right now. But just having those calls, the daily dialogue, you're waking up every day in a Slack channel with you know, 250, however many other people in the group that are doing exactly what you're doing. So it's just the community aspect with as far as the student success coach goes.

Yeah, that's awesome. The accountability and it's just like the quick real time answers that you didn't even know you needed right until you just hear it from someone else. And what about like the other value of the community is like have you had any luck with? I mean you offer such like a valuable service that's not easy to replicate. Like I feel like it's a lot easier to do like content marketing or e commerce email marketing or cold email Legion as a service. But like what you do is you have to have more of like a background in like automations and systems and development and coding and so if you had success in the program like actually offering your services to other students and doing value exchanges and things like that.

Not yet. I have a couple of conversations but nothing that's come to full fruition yet. But I know that there's definitely a lot of, you know, lead gen guys that could use similar services but not completely yet. But with that being said, I have been able to connect with students and bounce ideas off of each other but not completely exchange services yet.

Yeah, I got you bro. That's, that's awesome. So yeah, there's just so many, so much value in other areas of the community that people are just not, you know, so accustomed to or familiar with. Maybe they join and they just go through the content or show up to the coaching calls. Actually what's been your favorite or most valuable coaching call? Have you been any of the ones with like Luke Ward who does automations and stuff like that as well? Where, where have you seen the value in the, the actual cushion call?

Yeah, Luke Ward's calls are great. He is an automation guy as well. He actually helped me figure out what price maintenance retainer to offer to a specific client that I was getting ready to wrap up a project for and I didn't know how to price out A maintenance retainer and optimize a retainer. So he actually told me exactly what he does and what he offers and how he delivers it and sells it. You know, from a value perspective, I was actually able to close that client on that retainer, so that was extremely valuable. And then just learning about his specific processes as well. Pertaining to like client onboarding. How do you onboard an automation client? Do you do like one call, one on one? Do you do a full process documentation and then you start the project? Like how, how does he go about that process? Which there's a lot of nuance to different types of businesses that you can be working for and working with when you're doing automations. Yeah, I think I've worked with like 20, maybe not 20 different niches, like a dozen different niches at this point. A lot of different types of business models and processes. So the onboarding process there was really important and he helped me nail that in. I mean there's so many other calls, some that I haven't even had a chance to join into yet. But I mean, response handling with Orey, sales with David, obviously operations with Andre, offers with Daniel. So they're all, they're all great. I wish I had more time to be able to join into more calls.

Awesome, bro. Yeah. I mean the calls are so valuable and it's just cool. Like depending where you're at in the business or even what you're doing in life, right? Like a life situation, like now you're traveling a little bit, so maybe you're not going to be on as many calls or you're on vacation or you're just doing things in the business that require you to just focus on that one thing. Like the calls are always going to be there and so you could hop into the calls whenever and get your questions answered and just connect with other students on the call. So I think that's really cool to hear. I guess another question I have for you, Luke, is like, since joining the program, like obviously joining the big things that changed were like the offer, but like how have you found taking on like a bunch of clients? Because I know in the beginning like you signed some clients and then you eventually lost them. Has that now changed the point where like you're not only signing clients but you're also keeping them around and actually like turning those into case studies, like what does that look like for your business?

Right. It's, it's completely different night and day. I have a small team now as well that's helping me with fulfillment. But Another. Another piece, kind of just to backtrack a little bit, is I kept going through when I first joined CA as well. So I would go through a cycle of closing clients. Like, I've closed, like, four clients in one week. And then I'd stop doing sales, and then I'd end those projects, and then I wouldn't have any work again. So then I'd have to do sales again, close more clients. So I went through this cycle of just churn fulfillment and then sales again. So one thing that she helped me with was actually hiring a fulfillment team. So that doesn't happen. So my fulfillment has increased substantially. I mean, the stuff that my team members do, I couldn't fulfill as good as I can without them. Like, I appreciate them so much. And going back to case studies, I mean, my clients are staying longer, do have a couple retainers. I signed my biggest, you know, retainer client back in April, which also gave me some cash flow to grow my team a little bit. So people are staying longer. I'm generating more case studies. Pipeline is full. So overall, my business is completely different, to say, to say the least.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome, dude. Congrats. And what does that lifestyle look like for you? I mean, you're working less or just as much as before. You're doing things that are more fulfilling because you mentioned you're kind of more into that state of just being more free with your time and where you are, which I think is cool.

Still pretty. I mean, it's pretty busy, I'm sure. You know, the. The calendar still tends to. Tends to fill up, you know, five to ten calls a day, kind of minimum. But I remember, you know, the first week that I had my first team member, I was able to offload so much work. And I remember I was just kind of, like, playing with my thumbs the whole day. Like, I didn't know what to do. I think I went for a bike ride. Like, I went for a bike ride. I was like, what do I do with my time now? So, yeah, you know, obviously I could kick it at the pool in Miami and, like, whatever, but there's so much that you can still be doing when it comes to sales, assets and marketing and content. So it really just depends on what you want to be putting in, how consistent you want to be, you know, what your goals are. I could sit back and just chill at the revenue I am now, I guess. You know, I do want to grow more, and that does take more time on my end for now. And then you know, as I grow as well, hopefully I can learn to better leverage my time at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome, bro. Dude, when. When you build a team, it just makes things so much more fun, especially if you, like, you're keeping them around and they're doing a good job. Like, you like working with these guys, it's just, like, cool to be able to build with other people and to see them level up in the organization and see them bring new ideas to the table and just. Yeah, once, once. It's not fully dependent on you. It's not like you said, it's not like you're just now able to do nothing. It's. It's still a lot of work, and you're on calls and you're more in this leadership role, which can be a lot more work even than if you're doing it on your own. It's just different work, but it just makes things that much more fulfilling and you can do a lot more with the same amount of time, which is the ultimate goal. So that's. That's cool to hear is where you're at. So one question I love to ask, bro, is like, I mean, you. You've seen this in the program and probably with other coaching programs, but, like, people join and they don't get the results that they expected or that they had set their goals for. You obviously joined and you hit your goal, you grow, you grew the agency, you signed clients that actually stuck, and then that allowed you to then hire a team and continue to scale this thing. And so what do you do to get into the situation you're now in, where you got results from the program that other students might be able to learn from and implement as they go through the program themselves?

Yeah, when you join the program, there's just so much to do. It can be overwhelming. I guess you have a full Kajabi course list that you could sit 12 hours a day and watch. You have, I don't know how many calls a week it is that you can join into. Your student success coach is going to send you a list of stuff that you're going to need to get done right when you join and you want to really, I mean, the biggest piece of advice that I could give someone that's going to join is to just try to manage your time and don't try to do too much when it comes to the calls in Kajabi. Do whatever part you're at in your business, focus on joining into the calls. That is related to that. So if you're launching your cold email campaigns, join those calls for one week and then the rest of the program, maybe you're maybe like three months down the line, you're going to launch another cold email campaign. So you pop into that call again. But wherever you're at in your business, join into those calls, whatever you need to work on, and then interact with the community. I mean, it's so it's hard to, to like, get lost or get off track when you're waking up and you see a WINS channel with, you know, people who are hitting big revenue months and you're like, if he can do it or if she can do it, you know, why can't I? What are they doing that that I'm not? So interact with people, ask questions, stay consistent. Obviously, joining into calls isn't going to close your deals. You have to be taking action and being consistent. Yeah. So I think it's being consistent and managing your time and just being committed in the, at the end of the day, you're probably going to be working on the weekend. If you're, if you're a guy in your 20s and you know, you live in a, in a decent city, you're going to have some distractions and you're going to have to give those up and make sacrifices. So it is what it is and just got to be. Be focused. Those are the biggest things.

Yeah, dude, that's actually, I mean, dude, perfect answer is like, focus in on exactly what it is you need in the moment and then weed everything else out. Because it's really easy to go into a program like Client Ascension and just get caught going through the content and attending coaching calls and doing nothing after. Like, you feel productive because you're spending time working on your business, but you're not actually implementing anything. You're just learning, which will serve you later on, but you're not going to see results until you actually put that into action. Exactly. Like you mentioned. And an easier way to help you do that is to weed out the distractions and not, you know, taking everything all at once. And then you also mentioned living in Miami. I know we got a pretty strong community. Some other students down in Miami. We got a bunch in Tampa. What's that been like, just having a community? Whether it's just having a community within Team Shani online, or maybe even some friends you've now established in the Miami area. How's that helped you as a business owner?

Yeah, it's been a complete game changer. You know, Orey lives a couple Blocks away, fit a workout together, you know, a couple coffees. We actually got dinner. It was Andy, Bodhi, Orey and I, all our wives slash girlfriends. We all got dinner in Fort Lauderdale. So it's just great, you know, surrounding yourself with people who are working on similar stuff. Those conversations are going to be aligned with, with what you're working on in your life and there's nothing more valuable than that, I think. So it's been great having that in person community and having those touch points. It's been amazing.

Yeah, dude, we need it like just because the work that we do is so unique and it feels like everyone else is doing it in this ecos, in this like echo chamber, like and being on Twitter feels like it's so normal, but it's really not, dude. You step out into the outside world and we're a very, really small percentage of the population doing what we do. So it's cool. And you can live a couple doors down from someone like Ori and be able to get dinner with guys like Andy and Bode are killers. I think they posted in the Winds channel the other day what they're doing in revenue and it's mind blowing. So yeah, just being around these guys, even for dinner, cigars or whatever it is, it's game changer, dude. So hopefully we see you down at the event here in Tampa in October. That's always a lot of fun. But yeah, man, this has been great. Like, I really hope people listening here, if you're in client ascension, like connect with Luke and implement all the advice that he just shared with us as to like how to get results by being in a program like ca. And if you're not in ca, same thing, like you might be feeling like you're successful now, like you have the clients and things are picking up. But like you might not have the proper foundation in place to actually sustain that. Right. Like the guy I just interviewed, similar to you, Luke, he had clients when he joined, but there was no stability like he was protecting those clients rather than trying to add to those clients. Whereas now similar to you, you have the clients and instead of trying to protect them, you're now comfortable enough to start adding on to your client base because you know those clients are secure in your service and with the fulfillment and the team that you have built. So it's a really great place to be and obviously it comes with a lot of hard work and focus like you shared with us. So last question, honestly is just where can our audience find you and follow you online? Because Obviously. Again, connecting with other guys in this space that are doing it the right way and killing it and growing and scaling. There's nothing better than that.

Yeah. Thank you, Andre, for all that. I'm on LinkedIn, Luke Pierce and on. On Twitter. I think my handle is at Automations. Luke just joined back on Twitter, but yeah, those two places are probably. Probably best.

Awesome, bro. Yeah, we'll have people connect with you there. And again, if you're inclined Ascension, just shoot Luca Diem in Slack. I mean, that's always the best way to connect within the community and especially if you're in Miami. It's. Again, everyone's always looking for connections in person. It's. That's what it's all about. So, dude, appreciate you. Congrats on all the success. I'm excited to keep checking in and hearing what you're up to and different results you're producing and yeah, dude, just keep using the program and leveling up. It's going to be cool to see where you're at a couple of months from now.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Andre.

Appreciate you, Luke. All right, take it easy, bro. Peace.