How I Bought An Agency For $2 That Led to 8 Figures

How did you get into being this guy who runs this like super successful marketing agency?

Neil, who's now my podcast co-host, and he's like, hey, you should come help save this failing company. It's a failing SEO agency. But the reason we were really able to turn it around was because at that point we were making like maybe $800,000 a year in profit, and that was because of all the—

What are the sorts of things that, let's say, me as this 23-year-old recent grad would have to do to set up a marketing agency? What's involved in the process?

Most people think the marketing agency is all about getting more leads, but what's the best way for you to get more leads? It's to do good Eric, how's it going? It's going, man. It's good to hang out with you.

Likewise. I would love to start by asking about your backstory. How did you get into being this guy who runs this like super successful marketing agency?

Yeah. So, I was first working a dead-end job doing data entry. And then my friend said, hey, you should check out this internet marketing thing. Picked up internship, long story short, got a job and then like a year later, I was leading marketing at an online education startup, right? Had no idea how to manage people, had no idea how to run a marketing team. Basically 8 months after that, we had some success with that. I bet the entire company on YouTube ads, long story with that. And we raised our Series B and that company, you know, started to take off. And then Neil, who's now my podcast co-host, was an advisor to that company and he's like, hey, You should come help, you know, save this failing company, which was a failing SEO agency, right? And I was like, why would I do that? I'm in tech. I'm like, that's not scalable. The valuation, the multiples aren't that good. Like, you know, why would I do that? And then before I said no, I was like, wait a minute, I think if I can help this company turn it around, I think I can do a lot more. And this is like This is a nice test. It's a nice real MBA.

So, you turned the SEO company around and then what happened next?

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, with that one, I actually, when I took it over, I, so, I took it over, Neil was actually one of the partners. So, I bought out his shares and then his partner shares, right? And we were able to, we, I actually made it go from bad to worse. So, I was 27 years old, had no idea how to run a company, right? And it actually got so bad to the point where my outside accounting firm called and they said, hey, you know, It might be time to shut this thing down. And I actually accepted a job at another company. I was looking at apartments in Dallas, Texas, right? And it would have been a great paying job. And it was at that moment I was like, you know what? No, I'd rather make like nothing a year and like still be doing entrepreneurship, right? Like this is the thing I'd be doing for free because it's fun. And so then I pulled back on it. I was like, hey, I can't do it. And then luckily, But I don't think I've told this part before, but the reason we were really able to turn it around was because our SEO started to kick in. So we ranked number 1 for the keyword digital marketing agency in the United States for like 2 or 3 years. And we're getting all the leads for like, you know, Uber, Amazon, everything, right? And because we were down all the way down to 1 employee because of my screw-ups, we were able to refer the leads out to other agencies and we're collecting like 30% commissions, right? So at that point we're making like maybe $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 a year in profit.

And that was because of all the SEO.

SEO work that we were doing. And that kept us afloat. And that allowed us to bridge the gap. Or that was like a nice bridge to allow us to hire the people that we needed to hire to start to really turn the thing around.

So starting a marketing agency is— feels like one of the modern-day equivalents of, I don't know, doing paid surveys or something. It's like when you start researching how to make money on the internet, start a marketing agency is weirdly high on the list. Why is starting a marketing agency such a seemingly common thing that People tell other people to do to make money.

Yeah. Well, it's a great business, right? So like, one, your CapEx, your capital expenditures are really low. It's not going to cost you much money to start it up. 2, you're getting paid. It's a cash flow business out the gate, right? You're not raising money for anything and expecting, you know, to go negative for quite a while. And in today's environment, you can't do that anymore, right? You got to be profitable. That's cool. Again, you got to be efficient. What most people don't know as well is that down the road, You can, pre-2022, you can actually sell the agency with a 15 to 20x multiple. So let's say you're doing like $10 million a year, you might be able to sell it for $150, $200 million.

Really?

Most people don't know that. Most people are like, oh, you can't sell the agency for much. That's true. Only if your agency is doing less than $5 million in profit, you can maybe sell it for 3 to 4x. You start to go beyond that, you actually are building scale and the large holding companies will be looking at you. So most people don't know that.

Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah, I had another entrepreneur on the pod a while ago called Tim Ormu who sold his social media marketing agency for like tens of millions. And I think they were doing about $10 million revenue.

So, yeah.

So wait, is this like multiple of revenue or multiple of profit?

It's a multiple of profit, yeah. And so, I think the problem is, it's, you know, maybe we can get to the whole like me getting punched in the face and learning to focus. But if you wanna build something generational, I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but if you wanna build to like $100 million or like, you know, multiple 8 figures or whatever, It takes 10, 20, 30 years to do that. And what ends up happening is the agency people, because it seems tough in the moment, right? It's like, there's so many fires you're putting out. It's a people business. There's people are complex, blah, blah, blah. But you know, if you end up hiring good people to help you manage the business, you're not necessarily stressed all the time. And then you're able to continue to scale the thing. I think what happens is most people are just like, oh, I just want to sell the thing and move on because they get burnt out too quickly. But the move to not get burnt out is to be really good with your marketing on the agency side so you drive leads. And then after you do that, then you just make sure you innovate and then you hire really good people. Easier said than done, right? But if you hire really good people, especially in the agency world, they usually come with a book of business and they usually come with people that they know. You recruit those people and you keep doing it. Like a real-life pyramid scheme or multi-level marketing. Like, here it is, right? That's what it is.

Nice. Okay, so let's say you, you have a 23-year-old cousin who has just graduated university and they've done a job for 2 years, but they hate it. And they're like, cool, Eric, you've got a big marketing agency. I want to build my own marketing agency. And this person's like, you know what? If I could get to $10K a month profit, I'll be really happy because that means I can quit my job. What are the sorts of things that, let's say me as this 23-year-old student or like recent grad would have to do to set up a marketing agency? Like what's involved in the process?

Yeah, so I think one, you have to get really good at just one thing first. So let's say you're really good at clipping videos, right? For Shorts and TikTok. So let's say I'm Ali, right? And I do these long-form podcast interviews, 2 hours. So if you were to say, hey, like I will, we're literally paying this person to do this right now. This guy, they used to work for Gary Vee. And so he will clip videos, And every single day we get one. And then he just like, he does it, right? Like, here's the caption, here's everything. And he's like, oh, this one, I think you should collab with Ali. So it's just like, it's all done for you, right? And so if you're stacking like 10 of these clients, you're already making $20 grand a month.

Okay, wait, sorry. So I have to get really good at one specific— so what are my options of skills? One of them is clip picking. Like what other sorts of things could I get really good at?

So one is clip making, okay? One could be like web design, the other one could be copywriting, for example. And we can go into like a sub-niche of copywriting might be like writing for you on LinkedIn or writing for you on Twitter. So everyone needs help with marketing or design at the end of the day, right?

Oh, okay. So that's interesting because my initial conception of marketing agency would've been, I don't know, I'll help you run Facebook ads or I'll help you get a billboard out. Yeah, this is services. But it sounds like these examples are things that wouldn't have come to, like helping people with their LinkedIn, helping people with Twitter.

Yeah.

I guess that's what marketing is in the modern world.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's what works, right? That's where the good organic reach is. And even the stuff that you do, have with, with Hey Friends, I believe, like that's kind of a, that's a service as well, right? So it's whatever people need. I think paid, to your point, SEO, CRO, all that stuff.

What's CRO?

CRO is conversion rate optimization.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you take a look at a landing page and you tweak it so that the conversion rate improves?

Correct.

Okay, nice. So I'm a 23-year-old and I'm thinking, okay, that's the first thing. Okay, so let's pick one of these. So let's say I am, let's say I'm really into I don't know, I'm really into social media and I love the idea of taking someone's podcast and turning it into bite-sized clips and editing them in like CapCut or something so that they can post them on TikTok. Is that a reasonable thing that I can make a business out of?

Yeah, if you're 23 years old, I think this is a great solo business. You don't need much CapEx, right? You reach out to a couple of people and people have done this with me. It's like, hey, they'll send me the edited video already. And it's like, hey, this is what our work looks like. And do you want more of this? It's like, oh, you've already done the work And it's good work. And it's, yeah, I would love more because you just made my life easier. In fact, Brad over here, he reached out to me on Instagram, right? And so, it's like he reached out with a very clear call to action. It was very simple to understand. There's a lot of these people reaching out to me. I'm sure they're reaching out to you also on YouTube, right? Or YouTube, on Instagram right now too.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like half my Instagram feed has become these sorts of cold pitches and stuff. And we're increasingly getting more and more emails because I do talk about this in podcasts. I say that, oh man, I wish someone would email me, email me with having done the work and saying, hey, you know, take it or leave it, but like, I can do more of this. And so loads of people are like, hey, you know, I saw that thing you said on the podcast with Nicholas Kolen. Here is a PDF that you requested and stuff. But now there's too many of them to keep on top of. So I guess—

Yeah, you have to stand out even more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or I guess people go to, go to people who are maybe, I don't know, a scale below where our, where our YouTube channel is. And therefore those are the people probably not getting pitched.

That's a good call out. They should aim lower. They shouldn't aim for the best of the best when you're reaching out to people. They should aim for someone that's maybe like, you know, maybe a level or two below. And also maybe they can send it to the CEO, but also send it to people that are working on the team. Yeah. The people that are maybe less busy. Yeah.

I think this is a place where people get it wrong when they email me in that they email me directly and like there's very little chance I'm going to see the email and be able to take action on it. But the ones who have done well have, have, have also said, BTW, I've also sent this email to Amber, your podcast producer, because they figured out that her email address is fairly easy to guess. And those are the conversations that get taken forward because Amber gets way fewer emails than I do.

They're being proactive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's say I'm 23-year-old Johnny and I've decided, cool, I'm gonna reach out to— I'm gonna turn podcast clips into TikTok and Instagram content. Now do I just have to send cold emails? Like, what— how do I get my— how do I get my clients?

In the beginning, you're the janitor, you're doing everything. So you are— you're coming up with the creative, like the creative in the outbound sales email, right? Or sales DM, whatever you wanna call it. You're coming up with— you're doing the work as well. And you're also— you're doing a little bit marketing as well. Like maybe you're going to events and things like that. But eventually it starts to pick up because your work is so good that other people are referring you. Like most people think the marketing agency is all about, oh, you know, you getting more leads. But what's the best way for you to get more leads? It's to do good work. And then when you sign a client, for example, don't just do the kickoff call. Say, hey, Ali, is there anybody else you can introduce to me?

Hmm.

And not give me a referral. It's like, is there anybody else you can introduce? And that will usually give you a good chunk of additional revenue.

Oh yeah. Because I guess if you're a podcaster, you know other podcasters and you'll be like, oh, actually, yeah, like my mate Sam Parr needs clips created from his podcast or my mate Sahil needs clips from his podcast.

Yep.

All that kind of thing. Nice. And how, how much can I be charging for my clip picking service?

You can be. So let's go with the $2,000 a month, right? So you only— $2,000 a month times 10 clients, you're already making $20 grand a month. That $240 grand, that's— you're already in the top. You're close to the top 1% in the United States.

Hmm. You can charge $2K a month for podcast clip picking.

Yeah. I mean, let's say you even come down a little bit, right? $1,500 a month or whatever.

Yeah.

Go get 20 clients, right? You're at $30K. So. Yeah.

I think what's interesting about the agency stuff is that you're starting off with such a high-ticket number. Whereas I think initially when I was thinking about making money, I was thinking, okay, what can I sell for $3? And now can I sell 200,000 copies of those things every year? And it's pretty hard to To do that. But if you think, what can I sell for $2,000 or $3,000? You need very, a very tiny number of clients to make decent amounts of money. Yeah.

And you can argue this, right? Like I have a friend right now, he makes $1.5 million a year. And literally he just has a couple of $10K, $15K clients and all he does is consult for them. And it's because he did pretty good with leading marketing teams before at startups and people know who he is. So yeah. And his life is chill. Like you wanna talk about feel good? Like maybe he spends like 4 hours, 5 hours a week working.

Okay. That's pretty solid.

Quick message from the Agency Owners Association. So this is the peer group for agency owners that Neil and I both put together. This is for people that are doing 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures, even 9 figures as well. And we're all here to help you grow your agency faster. In this group, we share leads. We also, we share learnings with each other. It's a community where people can ask questions, their most burning questions, personally, professionally. We'll share templates, reports, things like that. We're constantly adding more value to the group. I will tell you that the price is continuing to increase. The good news is that there's no long-term commitment. So you can just learn more by going to marketingschool.io/agency. Once again, that's marketingschool.io/agency to learn more. And we hope to see you inside.

So okay, so I'm doing this clip picking, I've been sending cold emails and DMs, and I've got, and I've got a handful of clients, I'm probably going to run into the, the issue that I no longer have enough hours in the day. What do I do then?

That's when you start to hire. And so, I would say one of the first hires that is worthy of making with a services or agency model is actually your assistant because that person can take a lot off your plate, right? So, this person, like, because look, you're going to be doing the work. That means you need to be collecting all the assets, you need to be coming up with the captions and all that type of stuff. There's a lot of logistical maneuvering to be done. There's a lot of calendars. Like, you're going to have to get on client calls too. Who's going to manage all that? So, I think the best move to do is Come up with your bucket of $10 an hour tasks, $100 an hour tasks, $1,000 an hour tasks, and all the way up to like $100,000 an hour tasks, right? You should be thinking about every single quarter, what are the 15% of things you can be eliminating and hiring out? Because a job at the end of the day is just responsibility. So, make that list of responsibilities and go hire out for that.

That makes it sound very simple. I think a lot of people feel like, you know, I certainly felt this with my first hire, like, oh my God, it's such a big deal. I need to get it right. I need to make sure I have everything. But you're just like, I mean, a job is just a list of—

Yeah, it's simple, not easy. Yeah. Yeah.

So how would I— let's say I'm Johnny, I'm 23, I've got, let's say, I don't know, $4K a month coming in from clients.

Yeah.

How would I find my first person? Well, I'm just a nobody. Like, no one knows who I am.

If Johnny, $4K and he has like no burn, you know, $3K is great, right? But so he's going to have to continue to grind at $4K. It's not a lot of money, right? You're asking how he gets the next clients, right? So there's the referral piece or asking for introductions. There is the—

I mean, so is, uh, at what point would Johnny be thinking about hiring?

Got it. Yeah. So as soon as he can afford it. So if his burn's really low, let's say he's making, uh, you know, 10 grand a month, right? And his burn's like $2,000 a month. He's got $8,000 to play with. That's when you can, you have some margin of safety there, right? The thing you should be considering with, with most service businesses is you want to have a gross profit margin of at least 50%, if not a little higher, maybe 60% or so.

Okay. So meaning that I charge a client, let's say $2K, but it only costs me $1K to deliver the service.

Right.

Okay. So I'm making $1K gross profit and then there's taxes and all that kind of crap. But that's a reasonable amount for an agency.

Yep.

Okay, nice. So Johnny's getting to $10K a month by cold emailing and doing referrals and stuff and doing, doing good work for other people. Yeah, I see a lot of people who cold email me with work like, hey, you know, I saw in a video you mentioned that you're looking for a thumbnail designer. Here are some thumbnails. And they're just bad. Like, we look at all of them because we're always looking for thumbnail designers and it's just so hard to find someone who's actually good. So I guess a big part of the agency game is to actually be good at the thing.

You have to go the extra mile. Like, it's like most people just aren't willing to go the extra mile, right? It's like I'm trying to think, okay, here's a good example. One guy that used to work for me, he now works for Gary Vee as his senior brand strategist. Like, he works side by side with him, right? And what he did when he first applied, Was he applied for an internship, but everyone else did just the normal stuff, right? They followed the job posting. He wrote a 4,000-word blog post, put it on Medium, and said all the things that he would do. And like, that is a way to stand out.

Yeah.

And then there's no— it's no wonder why he's working side by side with Gary Vee now.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of— when it comes to jobs, there's a lot of entitlement that I sometimes get get the impression of where people are like, well, I shouldn't have to go the extra mile. I should be able to follow the instructions on the job.

Sounds like America.

And tick the boxes and like, you know, do the requirements. It's like, oh, it's so unfair that like they didn't even reply to my email kind of thing.

Yeah, please gimme a $1 million raise too. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. The entitlement thing, you know what's interesting? What I've observed is entitlement is not really an issue in Latin America. It's not really an issue in Europe. Not really an issue in Asian countries either. In fact, I talked to our lead developer. I was like, hey, what do you think about career pathing? And then he just like scoffed at me and said, let's talk about something else, right? And it's just like, but in America, it's like, oh no, it's like, you know, we need like 3 days off a week. I would never like to come into the office. I would also like a raise every quarter or so. And it's like, I think we've just gotten very soft as a society. And so this was— this isn't said usually, like I don't usually say this on a podcast, right? But it's like when I'm at founder retreats with my other friends, it's like, it's becoming more and more difficult. And more and more of my founder friends, they don't want to hire from America anymore. Because it's like the work isn't getting done. And also, America is a very litigious place, right? And so, one of my friends has a rule, he will not hire people from California, Colorado, or New York. I'm like, why? He's like, because all they know how to do is sue, right? It's like, I'd rather just not deal with that. It's like, that's the state's fault, right? I'm like, oh, very interesting. He's like, yeah, I just hired more from Uruguay. I'm hiring more from like, you know, other countries. And it's working out perfectly because people are great Hmm, interesting. Yeah, that was my little digression.

Nice, I like it. Other than this Medium post, can you think of any other examples of people that you know/have known who have stood out through like something interesting?

You mean like when they're applying for jobs?

Yeah, when they're applying for jobs or anything else.

Yeah, so let's see. So there's Raghav, that's his name. Let's see who else.

Like while you're thinking, we had a guy who applied for a videography position in our team and We had like 400 applicants. This was the only guy who made a video. He just made a video and uploaded it as unlisted to YouTube being like, hey, Ali and team. And he just sort of did it in the style of an Ali Abdaal video. And, you know, in the end we didn't end up hiring him, but we gave him a trial task immediately because it's like, oh, he's gone the extra mile. Out of 400 people, he's the only one who's actually made a video. Yeah.

So we had a developer. He actually made a video saying, hey, he was demonstrating his marketing prowess as well as his technical prowess, right? He's like, here are all the things I'd change on your website. It's too slow over here. This is an issue over here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's articulating himself. He even wrote something out afterwards. So, that's like, he not only made a video, he also had a write-up and he really demonstrated his level of sophistication.

Nice. Is running a marketing agency fun for you?

It feels good.

Okay.

Yeah.

How so?

So, right now, like, I don't know, I can't speak for most people, but I enjoy how much there is to do. And I understand all the levers I need to pull. The game is very simple to me. It's like I mentioned earlier, for marketing agencies, you got to have good marketing, which drives leads, right? And you got to innovate. As long as you're innovating, innovating also means that you're pushing the limits, which means you're usually going to get good results for your clients if you're constantly pushing the limits. And so, at a certain point, it's just like, okay, if our marketing's really strong, we're getting, you know, hundreds of leads a month, Then we just need to continue to hire really good people. And then we need to have a really good culture and then hold people accountable to that culture. And that's no different than building any great business. And so, it's just like the reason why I like it now, I used to hate it, but I like it now because it's like, it's what I understand most and I spent the most amount of time in it, right? If I just continue to do that, it's going to continue to compound like anything else.

Nice. So, you spend a lot of time with the kind of with other founders and stuff at all these these events and the masterminds that you host, have you seen, like, what are the patterns that you've seen amongst the people who are rich and happy compared to the people who are rich and unhappy?

Yeah. Okay. So, the rich and happy people, I was first going to say kids, but no, that's not— the kids are certainly a big piece of it.

Oh, okay. Interesting. Right?

So, like—

And then people with kids tend to be happier?

Yeah. I mean, some people I know that used to be all in, like, go, go, go, go, go, the kids have taken the edge off. And Now they even bug me about having kids, right? It's like it's such a joy for them, right? Now that being said, I do have friends and like when I go down these founders retreats, some some some of them don't have kids yet, right? And but everyone has like you know tens of millions or not if not like hundreds of millions of dollars. And I mean so so why do you keep playing? It's like well because the game is fun, and it's no different than the answers that you usually get when you ask this. And so what's so what's so fun about the game? It's like all the dynamic things. It's like the people problems, the the the The sales challenge, the product challenges, the, you know, how the macroeconomic environment is changing, all the different creative financing options you can do or different like tax things that you can do. There's like games within games you can play. This in itself is a game, right? You know, there's the content game, right? Oh wait, the channel's changing, the algorithm's changing. Okay, how do we adapt? And so, I think it gives you a chance to really flex your mind and it keeps you sharp. And that's why it's fun.

Hmm. Okay. So it sounds like the people who are wealthy and also happy are the ones who continue to find the game of entrepreneurship actually genuinely feel good.

Yeah. I mean, look at Warren Buffett, right? He's 99 years old. Charlie Munger's 97 years old. I mean, is there any other incentive to play other than that it feels good?

Interesting. Do you— so is there any correlation that you've seen between people, sort of the enjoyment levels of people who have a more sort of Lifestyle business compared to the enjoyment levels of people who are more full-on with their work?

So, I used to think like all I would want was like a lifestyle business, right? And then I would see people cap their businesses and say, hey, I'm gonna grow beyond this. And that's fine. It's— that's what works for them. I think how the way I'm wired is I just want to see how far I can push this. And, you know, some people enjoy that. So, I used to think like, no, this should be the way, lifestyle is the way. Or no, like, you know, going all in and building a billion-dollar company is the way. It's like, no. Whatever feels right to you, just go ahead and do that. And it's a boring answer, but it's like, it's true.

Hmm.

Yeah. I'll give you another example. So, when we did the founders retreat this year, one of the guys in the group, he was like, you know, I don't know what to do now because, you know, we have over 1,000 employees and, you know, there's this challenge with remote work. And, you know, another guy in the group was like, well, like what have you always done with your businesses? He's built some 8, 9-figure businesses, right? He's like, we've always worked in the office. And then the guy that was asking the question, he's always built his companies remotely. And then the conclusion we all came across was like, wait, then why don't you just continue doing that? It's like, that's what you're used to doing. Like that guy's used to doing like fully in the office. That guy's used to fully doing remote. I'm actually used to doing hybrid because I was already doing that 3 years before the pandemic. It's like, that is what feels right to you. So, go ahead and do that. Who cares about what anybody else thinks? Like there's no right or wrong. It's like what works for you.

Hmm. That's nice. Yeah. The thing that feels right to you. Also, what are your motivations at the moment for continuing to, I guess, grow the business? Is it that piece that is just fun?

I love the aspect of learning and teaching. And so, like, if you were to ask me, it's kind of the same thing as you. Like, I've thought about this a lot before. It's like, what if you gimme, you know, a billion dollars or whatever? Like, would I, What would I be doing? Like I'd be learning and teaching still because I don't want my brain to rot. And so what I really like about the business and just doing business in general is one being able to go to USC sometimes and teach the kids, right? And some of the kids, by the way, these classes are doing like two million dollars a year, one million dollars a year in business. They're like nineteen years old, by the way. I digress. But I like the coaching aspect of like when you hire amazing people and they're motivated, they share the same values as you, and they're down to listen. And I see the light bulb moments happen. Like we have a guy right now. He's on the sales side. He's going to go run his parents' or parents', his family's airline company in like 3, 4 months. And I'm just giving him everything right now on leadership. Hey, you need to watch out for this. Hey, when you do this, people are going to react this way, right? So, it feels good to mentor. And, you know, I think that's why I really enjoy it. It's like a puzzle to continue to solve as long as I want to continue to solve it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, when I was, when I was in medical school, I definitely, you know, a lot of our tutors were retired doctors, but they retired from medicine, but they continue to teach. I think there's something about mentorship and teaching and giving back that fills a lot of people's cup.

Paying it forward. All right, quick note, this is about my company. It's called Single Grain. And Single Grain is an ad agency where we're focused on driving innovation. And so, I want to talk about a couple of new strategies. And if you need help with marketing, great, If not, here are a couple of new strategies that you should try out. One is programmatic CRO. So we are doing programmatic conversion rate optimization on our site. We're building products that will automatically optimize your site to increase conversion rates. We're also auto-optimizing, auto-updating from, from an SEO standpoint. And we're constantly thinking about what else we can do in terms of enriching the visitors that are hitting your website, and also tailoring custom messages for them using AI. And so there's a handful of things that we're doing from a marketing standpoint. And our mission is just to drive more innovation. So, if you want to learn more, just go to singlegrain.com, grain like rice. So, singlegrain.com to learn more. And we'll see you inside.

You mentioned earlier this thing around getting punched in the face and recognizing the value of focus. What's the story there?

Yeah. So, you know, you read a lot of books, I've read a lot of books, you know, a lot of entrepreneurship books, right? And, you know, you hear stories like, you know, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, sorry, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. It's like, you know, They were asked what is the secret to their success and they both wrote down one word on separate pieces of paper. And then when they revealed the word, the word was focus. It's like, okay, great. That sounds really good, right? But when you're a younger entrepreneur, I'm speaking about myself, it's like, I think I can do everything. It's like, I think I can do this SaaS thing. I can do this entrepreneurship thing. Here, let's recap what I had.

Let's see.

I had a senior living business, okay? I had a quiz SaaS company. What else? I was— oh wait, there was also a— there's education stuff going on, like multiple courses as well in addition to the agency, right? There's just too— oh wait, my high school friends also wanted to do a vape flavor company as well. It's like thing after thing after thing, right? Shiny object after shiny object. And what I've learned is that you can do anything, just not everything. And I don't care how smart you are, right? Like there's just no way you can compete with someone that's all in on one thing. And everyone's had to learn the hard way. Like everyone's been punched in the face. And for me, the moment I really learned that was when we acquired these 2 agencies, right? That was the moment where it's like there's just too many things going on. And it's like, no, we really need to focus. We need to get back to basics and we're just going to do one thing. At the time, we're doing the agencies plus other things, right? And it's just like, no, like the agency, like there are agencies out there that do like $4 billion a year, right?

$4 billion?

$4 billion, correct, in revenue. Yeah. And any type of business can become really big if you want it to. And yeah, I think that's what I've learned. And it just feels right to be able to work on one thing. It feels very like when I had like 5 or 6 different projects going at once, It felt very frantic and it felt like I was making— it's like I was starting from scratch on all of them. But when you just keep compounding on what you know already, it's going to continue to snowball.

I very much vibe with that. What do you— what about the counterargument of diversification is good?

So, I keep going back to Warren Buffett. So, Uncle Warren Buffett said this. He's like, you know, diverse. So, Mark Cuban, the billionaire has said diversification is for idiots. And Warren Buffett has said, look, you know, instead of having, you know, multiple baskets, right? You should diversify into different baskets. Like, no, no, no, you should have one basket and look at it, just watch it like a hawk, right? And when you think about Warren Buffett, like back in the day, most people don't know this, but they only focused on having like 8 to 10 investments at any given time. Now Berkshire Hathaway is a lot bigger, they have to diversify even more. you know, they have so much money to deploy, right? But the lesson here is that there's only so much you can do at once.

Yeah. So for me, focusing on the YouTube channel was like the main thing that I did for many years. And then I was like, oh, but we should probably, you know, what if the YouTube thing doesn't work? So we should probably get an email list. We should probably just start doing SEO on the website. We should probably start a podcast because like Tim Ferriss diversified away from his personal brand into a podcast and it's like, okay, we should probably do this course. And I was like, okay, cool. Cool. Now we've got this product. Let's diversify to do this other product and this other product and this other product.

Yeah.

And how did that feel? Not great when we had a lot. But I wonder, in your view, and I'm trying to figure this out right now, like, should I go back to just doing the YouTube channel or should I continue doing the podcast? Is like a question that's in my mind. Should I think about just writing more books and making videos? 'Cause that's already 2 things. Or should I also write my weekly email newsletter, which seems sensible? Should I also be active on Instagram, which seems sensible? Should I also blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, for you, when I'm looking at you, it's like you're still focused on one business though. If you're doing your business right now, which is larger around the feel-good stuff, right? But then all of a sudden you're doing like a senior living business, that wouldn't make sense.

Yeah.

Right? Like you're starting from scratch there, but you're still compounding within the current vehicle that you have. And so, that's okay because you're experimenting inside of it, right? I think the challenge is when people are experimenting outside too much, that's when the, the resources start to all fall apart because your job as a leader is resource allocation. And then at a certain point, as the company gets bigger, it's just capital allocation, right? And capital allocating in the wrong spots will lead you to go into very dark areas.

Yeah.

Yeah. So like, I think you're doing— you're doing the right thing here. Like you're diversifying marketing channels. Like, that's fine. You're not diversifying businesses.

Yeah. Because fundamentally we're doing the same thing, which is content, sales, courses.

This is a channel. Like, this is content, right? And it's a channel.

It's a product and it's also a marketing channel.

Oh, okay.

That's interesting. Any other advice for what you know of our content business?

Yeah. I mean, I think you can definitely, you could, I think, I just think the best model is, and I think more people are gonna copy it. It's just the Hormozi model where you take equity. You know, maybe you have some up-and-comers in your YouTube Academy. I don't know. It's not YouTube Academy. What's it called again?

Part-Time YouTuber Academy.

Part-Time YouTuber Academy. Okay. So, there's gonna be some people in there that become superstars and maybe you're able to track these superstars and maybe you can throw them like $50K here and then take like 10 or 20% equity in what they're doing and you coach them up. And then maybe one of them becomes the next MrBeast. Like, who knows? I just think, you know, everyone says— I tell my chief of staff this. I'm like, you ain't going to get rich off a salary. Like, the best move for you is to own equity in something, right? And I don't mind telling her that because she's very smart and she'll figure it out eventually. And so, it's like, yeah, I think courses are great. I think there's nothing wrong with courses. Courses are great to get the cash flow. But I think once you get to your size and you're starting to scale, maybe in a couple of years, you're just taking equity mostly. And you're investing in other people. And that's how like some of the richest people in the world are either investors or like they're just like straight business owners, right? I don't know how big— and maybe your move is not to have like a really big course business. But like courses can only— they'll cap out at a certain point, which is what Neil's point was, right? But there's nothing wrong with that.

What's it like having an assistant/chief of staff? What's the difference between those two roles?

So, I have EA and chief of staff. So, EA mostly focuses on the scheduling piece of things, like the logistics. If I need to book like travel or things like that, like for example, when I arrive at a hotel, I'll have like an Instacart, you know, groceries arrive, right? Like I really like liquid soap.

Yeah.

So, like I don't like to, you know, use the hand soap, right? And so, like there's fruit and all like healthy snacks. So, it's like those logistics, right? And then the chief of staff is like helping me with my day-to-day. So, like, hey, I need help with like, Podcast sponsorships over here, or hey, maybe I want to look at this. Maybe I want to buy this website over here. I think the thinking is higher level, I would say. And it's someone I know that I can trust with all my information. Yeah. They're a smokejumper. So, meaning they can jump into any situation.

Yeah. So, is your EA a full-time position or is it part-time EA?

Full-time.

But like arranging Instacart to a hotel doesn't feel like a full-time job. Like what other stuff does your EA do?

Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, it's— so, okay, for example, we had an issue with American Express fraud, right? Where someone was like, someone used up like 700,000 points. And I didn't catch that until like, you know, a couple months ago. And so, she had to deal with all that.

Mm-hmm.

And so, that's like a lot of getting on the phone. She handles like invoicing for podcasts or like booking guests and scheduling this stuff, like sending invites. All the logistics around this, she handled. So, yeah.

Okay, nice. So, it frees up headspace for you to focus on the thing that grows your business.

Correct, yeah. And I don't like dealing with logistics or details.

Nice.

Yeah.

You strike me as quite a sort of systemsy kind of guy. Have you found any useful systems for your personal health as well? 'Cause you seem also in pretty good shape.

I'm in okay shape, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I, okay, one, I have a chef that delivers food. So, it delivers twice a week and it's like 10 meals or so. So, that's a big piece of it. And it's very specific to what my nutritionist wanted before. It's like no gluten, no dairy, no soy, right? Because I have sensitivities to that. So, I ran some blood tests and so I can see all the stuff I'm sensitive to. And then I lift like 4 or 5 times a week.

Hmm.

And then right after that, I'll do like zone 2 running for like You know, 20 minutes or so. And then I have my Peloton bike too. So, I'll hop on that.

Oh, wow. That's a lot of stuff that you're doing.

Yeah. Oh, that's high level. And then like, I'm a— I'll leave it off with this. I can keep going on. But the sleep stuff is what I obsess over. So, I have like this silk sleep mask, I buy it for $20 on Amazon. And then I wear the Oura. But I also, I invested in this company called Eight Sleep. And so, I have that. And that's super helpful because it cools my bed, right? And then I wear sleep tape on my mouth.

Oh, nice. Yeah.

I didn't— I started doing that like 7 years ago. And then I used to have to like wake up to pee like 3 times, 4 times a night. And now like I never get up at all. So, it's the best. Okay.

So, it sounds like your health is pretty dialed in.

Yeah.

When you— so, what's your system for lifting? Do you have a personal trainer or do you follow a workout plan? And how does it work?

No, I just do it to like stay in shape. So, it's like squat. So, it's like 2 squats, 2 times per week I'll do like leg exercises, right? And then 2 times per week I'll do, be like chest, upper body. And then 1 time will be like, you know, back and like other stuff. So that's what I do. Yeah.

Nice. Sick. What about you? I don't really have a system for health stuff. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm trying to find a way to make going to the gym actually feel good.

Yeah.

'Cause I've yet to find something around that that feels good. I really enjoy playing tennis, squash, Badminton, that sort of thing. Oh.

But— We should play tennis tomorrow morning.

Oh, nice.

I have a court, yeah.

Nice, I'm down. But I'd love to find a way to, yeah, make muscle building feel good. Any tips?

Yeah, okay, well, so what do you, why doesn't it feel good right now?

Ooh, okay, that's a really good question. It doesn't feel good right now because at the moment I'm traveling. I never know where the local gym is. If I do know where the local gym is, there's some like logistical faff to get a day pass to get to the local gym. making time for it in the calendar is, it's always one of those things that I'm like, oh, I don't feel like it right now. Maybe I'll go later. And then later never comes.

Yeah.

And then once I'm there, then once I'm at the gym, at that point it starts to feel good because I can just listen to an audiobook. And, you know, I've got a health coach, Dan, who programs my workouts. So from that point on it works, but it's just, and I haven't really thought about this before, just the logistical piece of actually getting to the gym feels like too much friction. But I also have an assistant, so I could just offload that. As I'm saying this, I'm just like, no, I should just—

Maybe you don't want to solve it. Yeah. I mean, look, when I'm traveling, it's like I usually just work out at the gym at the hotel, and sometimes it sucks. And then I'm just doing body workouts. It just depends on how long I'm traveling. If I'm traveling for like 7 to 14 days, I'll definitely find like a local gym and then figure out like the whole like the past thing and just solve it because it's like, I don't wanna— I just know that if I'm feeling better, then like I'm gonna do a better job for people around me.

So yeah. Nice. Do you have any hobbies outside of work and health? Or what are like, what are things you do during your free time?

Yeah, I mean, I like doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Oh, really?

Yeah. But I got like, I thought I like, you know, slipped a disc, but then I didn't. But it's like, it's a chess match, right? It's like you're constantly figuring it out. I'm not saying I'm really pro or anything, but I'm like, oh, this is fun. And like, oh, I guess I'm learning how to defend myself. The tennis I find enjoyable as well. And then I think other than that, man, I watch anime.

Oh, nice.

So yeah, that's all right.

Yeah, for me it's playing video games and reading fiction are my 2 things.

Yeah.

I attended a retreat last week where I saw like the most incredible guitarist I've ever seen in my life. And so that's inspired me to take up the guitar a bit more and try and get better at that.

Interesting. Well, actually that's another one. I really enjoy like going to like, going to these founder retreats or like going to founder events or just anybody that's like-minded. Yeah, because I get inspiration from it and I always get new ideas and like I'm naturally introverted. People think I'm extroverted, but it's like, no, like this is my hack of getting— being able to hang out with cool people.

Yeah, right.

This is one of the hacks.

Have a chat on the podcast. Yeah. You're one of the most well-connected people that I know in that it seems like, you know, everyone and everyone knows you. How did you do that?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, I'll tell you how I started if that's helpful at all. So, by the way, just for everyone's context here, it's like basically 12:00 AM Ali's time right now, right? So, I'll try to be— I'll give a good answer here. So, okay. So, when I was 26 or 27 years old, I stumbled upon this PDF called Mastermind Talks. And it's this guy that throws these masterminds, Jason Gagnard, and you can find it. If you just type in like Mastermind Talks agenda or whatever, you can find a PDF of this. And I was like, you know, I really want to get people together, but I can't afford $25,000 to pay for a mastermind. And also like, what idiot would pay $25,000 for a mastermind?

Yeah.

And then like a year or two later, like I did that. But point is, I was like, I want to get people together. I don't know how to do it. I'm super nervous. You know what? I'm going to gather a group of marketers. So I gathered a group of marketing leaders and they came over to my house when I was like 27, 28 years old. I had a half-eaten bag of chips in the middle. And so, that was the only food that we had, right? But you know, it was good conversation. It's like, you know, people would go around the room, it's like, hey, tell us who you are, what you do, what's one challenge you're facing right now, but also what's really crushing it for you with marketing, right? And people would share these things and we put someone on the hot seat too. It's like, oh, like tell us one big issue you're facing right now. You're going to get 20 minutes. And we all like, you know, chime in with our experience. I think after just getting over the first one, that gave me a lot of confidence to continue. And so, I continued to do those and I started speaking at smaller events and that started to compound as well. And I started creating content too, that started to compound. What I would say is with my network, I think I've always— who did I learn this from? I think it might have been from Brad Feld, who's an investor. Like it's free to make introductions. And I'm always trying to make introductions. And I'm always trying to figure out how I can connect the dots. Like if you were to ask me what my superpower is, it is connecting different people, concepts, and ideas. Like that is what it is, full stop. And so, for you, it's like, oh, hey, maybe you're looking to market the book. It's like, in my mind right now, it's like, okay, who else can help Ali with this podcast tour where it's not going to be a drag for him?

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like that's an immediate thing in my mind. It's like, okay, Ali wants to do this, you know, where he wants to take equity in things. Like, okay, what's like a productivity software that might be helpful for him to take equity in it's a win-win for both sides. So that's how I'm constantly thinking of it. And then because my default mode is that, it's just gonna compound. And that's how it's always been. And the other thing too is like people say I'm like really kind or nice or whatever. Um, I try to be, but, um, I think because my default mode is like, how can I be helpful? That is how it's, it's grown over the years. So.

Nice.

And the dinners too. So in the beginning, I used to host these dinners and it was just a mess. Like, you know, everyone would have to like take out their credit card and pay for it. So, um, what I do now is when I host dinners, like if you can afford to do this, even if you go to like Chipotle or something, right? Just pick up the tab. Hey guys, I'm gonna get a group of great marketers together. Um, we're gonna have Chipotle. I'm gonna cover the bill. All you have to do is show up. You've just made it easy for everyone because they're gonna come, free meal, and they're gonna be able to connect with amazing people.

Mm-hmm.

And they're all gonna like love you more for it because you're the connector.

Yeah. I think that's one way in which anyone can add value by being the connector.

Mm-hmm.

I heard the story about someone who, he didn't really have any skills or anything. He just knew how to connect people and he just got 10 different people to agree to hang out and they were all paying like a million a year or $100K a year or something to hang out with each other.

Yep.

And the guy was a nobody, but the fact that he brought them all together and did the groundwork of—

Yeah.

Being like, hey, this person's coming, will you come? Means that now this whole thing is happening by virtue of this one person being the organizer.

Dude, I'll give you an example here. So, so the— in 2018, so I put together this group and we went to Cabo. And so I picked out this like this mansion. It was like, it looks like it's like Tony Stark's mansion, right? And we got like 10 people together and, you know, we did ATVs, we went around like, you know, people got massages and stuff. We like shared like, you know, the best business tactics and all that type of stuff, right? What's going on with our business? People were super transparent with each other. And that was a situation where I didn't try to make a profit. Everyone just paid cost to go. And I call these founders retreats, right? And we went and everyone loved it. And from that group, eventually we established like a core group of 6. And then every year when we go to one of these, we'll add like 4 other people that are interesting. And so, on one of these trips, like maybe a year or 2 later, we were on like a boat ride, right? And we had 2 separate boats. We're looking at turtles, manatees, dolphins. We're like in a tropical area.

Hmm.

One of the guys was like, hey, Ali, you're doing really well with your business. What keyword would you like to rank number 1 for in Google? And you're like, I would like to rank number 1 for this keyword. It's very valuable to me. And then the original person, let's call him Bob. Bob was like, okay, no problem. We'll work out a deal. 3 months later, Bob was ranking number 1 for that keyword on Google. And Bob pulls in $1 million a year in profit from that very specific conversation, just from that conversation. So $4 million a year basically from that little conversation. Like that's the magic that happens from these things. And who's he going to remember for putting the event together? Right?

Yeah.

And so it's like it's worth it to do these things.

Yeah, I was very inspired by that. Like the mastermind that you ran a few— was it last year? No, it was a few months ago. It was this year in Miami. Yeah. So I ran a sort of creator retreat in the UK Nice. And invited like 10, 12 people and it was great. We just got some random-ass Airbnb in the middle of nowhere. And I did this sort of mastermind format where we split up into group and people had the hot seat for a few minutes or like 20 minutes and people got so much value out of that and it was so fun. And above, my assistant took care of all of the sort of admin and logistics for that, which was amazing.

Yeah.

And it was great. And so I really wanna do more of these things.

Yeah.

But yeah, I like that you do this very consciously.

If you do it and like, if you do it, you also have the power to define the content, the people, where you're gonna do it as well. And I'm like, I'm pretty picky with stuff. So, I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm happy to take it on. So, yeah.

Nice. Eric, thank you so much. This has been great. Yeah, thank you. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you do?

Yeah, you can just go to @EricOSIU on the Twitters or Instagram and that's the easiest way.

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good stuff.