Female Models Close 67% More Deals, Hidden Costs in Ad Targeting, & Snapchat’s Money Play | Ep. 3022

I want to talk a little about how adding a female model increased a 67% close rate. Do you want to read it?

Yeah. So this is interesting and I'll share something about our email, our outbound right now. So basically, so this guy Dan says this guy got a 67% close rate on his sales calls by hiring a model to do literally nothing in the background, right? So basically here's how it works. Client joined, immediately joined a call, immediately was engaged and closed in 12 minutes, $8,400 deal, right? So he's like, so basically he's on a sales call and then you have a model in the background or whatever, right? And he's like, what the F? He's like, okay, so he tested it 50 more times with a model.

Wait, is this B2C or B2B? It must be B2C.

I am not sure. Well, I think—

Or it could be B2B, but it can't be enterprise.

I don't think— oh, $8,400, definitely not enterprise.

Yeah, no.

Yeah, so with a model, 67% close rate.

Okay.

Without model, 24% close rate, which is pretty decent. But the psychological psychology is primal. Men's brains short circuit. If beautiful woman is there, this must be important. If beautiful woman works for him, he must be successful. If I say no, I look poor in front of beautiful women. Status by association is undefeated. So they took it further. Demo calls, model in the background. Support calls, model, different model, right? Quarterly revenue, 2 models. Quarterly reviews, pay collections, payment collections, angry model. Right. The results: demos, sales up 43%, support tickets down 62%, payment speed 3.2 times faster, client retention up to 8 months average. Okay. Wow. Ethical? Who gives an F? Effective? The numbers don't lie. Now we run a whole division, baddies for business calls, $500 per call booked through Q2. Your competition is using models. You're still using PowerPoints. That's what it is.

Is this like a call center business or?

I'm not sure, but I'll tell you what, I have a guy in one of my YPO groups, right? He literally, he brought a, it was an enterprise deal that he was trying to close with Microsoft, I think, right? He brought, I think this was like international. So he hired 2 people locally that were really good looking, young people, okay? A beautiful, good looking woman and an attractive, handsome man, right? And so they wanted to call. And then when the Microsoft people would try to talk to the 2 models, they'd be like, oh, I'm just, I'm new here. They just like smile all the time. They're just like nod all the time, right? He's like, I've been doing this for forever. My close rates go up all the time. And so whenever he goes somewhere, he brings attractive people with him.

Are you going to test it out?

You could test it out.

I'm not going to test it out.

I'm probably not going to test it out. But I think it's funny because I was watching Cody Sanchez talk about this the other day. When a woman wears makeup or dresses really nice, I think the close rate goes up like we're talking double, right? Whereas if you're a male, it goes up like 15-20%. Not a lot, but it still goes up a little bit if you dress up. So this is as old as time. I think we all intuitively know this, but no people are willing to admit it. I just think it's hilarious.

Yeah, I think we're also seeing a shift in culture and marketing globally. And what I mean by this is companies are starting to do with their marketing what helps them generate the most business, as long as they feel it aligns with whatever their ethics may be and they don't care. A great example of this is we work with an automotive company, and this company sells a specific type of automotive vehicle. I'm not going to get much in depth because if I tell you the type of vehicle, you'll guess the brand right away. They tried with their marketing a few years ago to be all-inclusive and try to have a product that works for anyone who wants their automotive vehicle or however you want to define it.

Car.

Car. I'm not saying it's a car or not. It could be a bike. It could be an ATV, but you get the point, right? It's a massive company. They're publicly traded. If you see it on the road, you have a stereotype of their ideal customer. All right.

Yep.

So with the marketing, we started shifting back to their ideal customer. And when I'm talking about being inclusive, I'm not trying to say, hey, if you're any of these other groups, you can't buy the car or motorcycle or ATV or whatever it may be. I'm just saying we target the advertising and the marketing, not just to their ideal customer, but the creatives and the marketing copy and the landing pages all speak to their ideal customer profile. And we ignore the rest. And when I say ignore, it means we're not trying to market to the rest, but if they come and they buy the product, great. And by doing that, we saw sales shoot up a solid double figures. When I say solid double figures, I'm not talking about like, you know, 10%, I'm not talking about 30%, but in between. You're talking about in the teens, but higher up and closer to the 20th percentile.

And when you say all-inclusive, you're talking about like DEI initiatives? Okay, got it. Yeah, you see advertising kind of shifting back now. We talked about the Sydney Sweeney ad, right? Like that was not acceptable before, right? And it still gets a lot of backlash in the United States. But it's more, more companies are kind of going— the pendulum is swinging back where it's okay to do these things again. And I don't know if you remember the '90s, but there were really sexual ads like for Monday Night Football, for example, where T.O., Terrell There's like a model that walked in front of him and like dropped a towel or whatever. He's like, he's like, man, I'm about to play football. It's Monday Night Football, right? And she's like, well, what about this? And then like, and he's like, well, I can wait for this, right? But like, you couldn't do that type of stuff before. Now it's kind of going back in that direction for better or worse. I don't know. But at least people are comfortable talking, speaking to their audience.

So I was on this podcast called Digital Social Hour.

Oh yeah. Sean Kelly.

Sean Kelly.

Yeah.

And he has this like WhatsApp group.

Uh-huh.

And he has like 1,000 people or whatever the limit is. There's 2 of them because I think he capped out on the limit.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, there's, I, I, I don't read all the threads in it 'cause I'm on a lot of WhatsApp groups, but someone posted today 'cause I was just checking and it was talking about, um, the greatest genes contest. And it's someone who looks like a model or they could be a model, I don't know. And they're doing this in, uh, Chicago is what it looks like.

Mm-hmm.

And they're playing into it and they're just like, it's silly how much hate she's getting. So they're talking about, you know, it's insane. Hey, I'm gonna do this jean contest. People are welcome. Models are welcome and whatever it may be.

Yeah.

But people are starting to do, and this is a woman doing it, right? It's not a man doing it. Uh, people are starting to go back to whatever they want and not obsessing about what other people think as much. And if it's quote unquote culturally accepted now.

I think people were getting too censored the last few years and now people are more comfortable just Doing what they think makes sense. And I like that. I think sometimes you're going to make mistakes, but more often than not, you understand your audience better than most people if you're running the company.

And when you're doing your marketing, it sounds bad, but the data doesn't lie. The data is showing that if you just focus on what your ideal customer wants, in most cases, you will make more money. Now, Eric and I are not telling you that you should be rude or doing anything negative To, uh, people who may be considered DEI. I don't know what the category is to be considered DEI. What do you mean? Diversity, equity, inclusion. But I don't know what type of people are included. Like, if you're Caucasian, I'm assuming you're not included in DEI.

You're not. But that's reverse racism.

Yes, but all I'm getting at is it doesn't matter if you're Caucasian, African American, or Indian. You and I are not saying, hey, go talk crap on the other people's—

That includes everything. There's LGBTQ. Everything is included in DEI.

Yeah, but what we're getting at is focus on your ideal customer.

Yeah.

If they tend to be LGBTQ or if they tend to be African-American or— And focus on it. Or Indian or Asian, it doesn't matter. Just focus on it and stop thinking too much about, oh, inclusion or all this and just focus your marketing on what's working with the data showing without being unethical.

Look, I think some people won't say this. This is a little more like this might paint me in a good light, but I kind of don't care. But you look at Nike, right? Nike share price hasn't been doing that well. A couple of years ago, Nike was like very much about body positivity and everything, right? And you saw like it wasn't their core audience, right? But now Nike's going back to, oh, okay, we're going to— the golf commercial, you saw the guy, he— I think he won like an Open and then his baby ran up to him afterwards.

Right.

And he's like, like, this should be the focus, right? So it's like, it's just— it's focused on athletes. They used to celebrate athletes, people.

Accomplishments and success and greatness.

Yeah. Then it became something that was not really what they were all about. Right. And so it's just like Dude, like, look at the data, talk to your customers, then you'll figure out the right messaging. Don't try to get sucked in. I got sucked into, you know, these initiatives too. And then I pretty quickly realized I'm like, wait, what am I doing? Right? I don't think he ever got sucked into it.

So no.

Yeah.

One of my favorite commercials of Nike's was the one with the— is it Lindsey Vonn, the skier? She's a skier, right?

All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NB. Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and Answer the Public. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more, and we'll see you on the other side. Lindsey Vonn, you said, is a skier, right? And so very competitive Olympic skier. And it looks like she got— so she's— you see her competing in the beginning, and then she gets injured. It looks like she has a knee injury, right? And you see her rehabbing, bringing it back, and then You see her competing again. And then at the very end it says, this is what the United States is about. And that is what the United States is about. Yeah. It's about adversity and it's about fighting. It's about getting knocked down.

It's about getting up. And greatness. Yeah. And celebrity is celebrating people who are amazing at what they do. Yeah. Not celebrating, you know, being mediocre.

Yeah.

So it was an ad on 2 kids to look like 2 different kids. Uh-huh. And since they were little kids, they were doing everything like, uh, running through obstacles, jumping in their house, breaking their coffee table and trying to jump over. it, but messing up. And they showed that how they're even going through like school security systems and like going through doors and stuff quicker. Um, and they're willing to not let any obstacle get in their way. And, uh, at the end it was 2 football players that, um, one was trying to run to the, uh, end zone.

Mm-hmm.

And then the other one was trying to block 'em. Mm-hmm. And they both left nothing on table and tried their all, and they both gave each other like a high five at the end for like putting it all out there and trying their best.

So Landini, both of these guys are Hall of Famers. One's a Hall of Famer safety, one of the greats for the Steelers, played for USC before. And then Tomlinson played for the Chargers, one of the best running backs out there. And so it just shows how, like, how they got to that point. Right. But it was a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of adversity. Again, like that, that's what, that's what makes that, that is what our country is about. Right. But I think that reflects Nike. So anyway, it does.

And that's why I'm happy with advertising. They're starting to get back to what we should strive for and not celebrating mediocrity.

Mediocrity.

Mediocrity.

Yeah. So speaking of advertising real quick, the question now is, is Snapchat a good moneymaker? And I wanted to share some, some insights with Snapchat. So Snapchat is interesting because they reach 75%, okay, 75% of 13 to 34-year-olds in 25 countries with a combined $5 trillion in buying power. Right. $5 trillion with a T. It's a lot of money. And then there's 432 million daily active users on Snapchat. And 34% of them are likely to buy products from a Snap ad. And but the thing is, I think Snap has been kind of this, this stepchild. And the reason I even bring this up right now is Triple Whale did a study, the reporting company. They did a study showing that Snapchat is being slept on. And I think the return on ad spend is somewhere close to 3, which is pretty good. And they're like, they're basically saying, hey, Snapchat, maybe you don't want to sleep on it because Snap ads are still affordable, especially when you compare it to TikTok and Meta, meaning you can get more reach for your dollar while reaching an audience that's highly engaged. I think that's interesting from Triple Whale.

Check this out. We released this chart May— no, March 2025. It's all the social networks, the people that bought a product after seeing it. Which social network has the highest ratio of someone buying a product after seeing it?

Is that Snap?

It's Snap.

Yeah. Which is interesting because I haven't opened my Snapchat in ages. Have you?

I don't even know if I have a Snapchat.

Have you ever used it before? It was so complex when we were, when we were a little younger. Yeah, but I'm just saying it's like I've actually looked into it. I'm logged into the dashboard to look at it. It's like, it does seem a lot simpler. And I think it's not something to sleep on, especially now that we see your data and then Triple Whale saying it's a 3 ROAS. It's worth a look, I think, for a lot of people advertising.

Yeah. And number 2 on our data was Pinterest out of all the social networks. So number 1 was Snap, number 2 was Pinterest, and that was data for how likely they are to buy a product after seeing it on those networks. You know, their numbers were through the roof. But when you look at Snap and Pinterest as a whole, the reason marketers don't spend too much time or attention on them is because they don't have the volume that a Meta does or a Google does. And instead of looking at it that way, you should look at it from the perspective of it converts really well. Get whatever you can from those networks and just take the omnichannel approach and leverage each one for its maximum potential. Yep.

Snapchat's great. It's a great company, guys.

You and I both talk about search everywhere optimization, but we're big believers that you shouldn't be on Mm-hmm. And companies in marketing are taking search everywhere optimization to the extreme and being like, we need our content and our ads on every single platform. If Snap's a great fit for your audience and you can make extra $200,000 a month in profit, not revenue, and you're a large corporation, that's extra $2.4 million a year in profit. That's great money. You know, why not do it? But people are going to the extreme and being like, oh, you're in B2B. If you're not on Quora, you're missing out. If you're not on Reddit, you're missing out. If you're not on, you know, Instagram and TikTok, you're missing out. Totally get it. There's always a percentage of people on all these networks that are your ideal customer, and you should try to be everywhere, but pick and choose the ones that are going to move the needle the most and then work your way down the list. And you may never get to every single platform just because you can't make the economics work. And that's okay. Search everywhere optimization is about focusing on where your ideal customer is, not on focusing on every single platform because, you know, they're worth $5 billion or $20 billion. You focus on what's going to drive you the most ROI and then you go down from there.

Guys, just back to Marketing 101. You have to understand where your ideal customer is hanging out. When I say ideal, that keyword is very important. Ideal, not just every customer, right? The ideal ones. You look at your lifetime value data. Who do you want to target, right? You look at where they're hanging out first and then you figure out what the messaging is, what actually drives them to take an action. And then you go for those people. And that often means vast majority of the time, you're not trying to hit every single channel you're trying to hit, you're maybe trying to master one first. And then once you start to really milk that, then you can start to diversify into other ones. And then you can start to figure out, okay, let's start to do branding, maybe if you're doing it really well, right? But it's like everything, there's a crawl, walk, run to this. And that's still the fundamentals that the first principles of marketing has always been this. Anyway, that's it for today, guys. Bye.