Scaling from $0 to $10k/m As a Freelancer

Bro, I'm about to hit $10K in MRR.

Oh shit. Hell yeah. That's even better.

I think I've just been having an avatar problem this whole time.

Okay. Just of like the actual person that you're working with?

Yeah, because it's like, um, like your solutions, even if it's the same thing, have more value Towards bigger businesses, and that sounds so obvious and retarded. But yeah, you spend so much of your time. You know, you don't have enough cash flow coming in when you're when you're dealing with lower level businesses like solopreneurs and stuff like that that you can't hire someone to do the the backend work or sales or anything because you don't have you know cash. And then once you scale up to a bigger avatar, then you know you have now I have money to you know hire people that do it for me. Then I can just focus all of my time into getting more clients. 100%.

100%.

That's crazy.

That's the game. Like, that's pretty much it.

Like, you just— Dude, I know. I can't even sleep. I'm like, dude, I wake up at like no alarm or anything. I go to sleep usually really, really late, like 2 AM, and I wake up at like 7 AM every day. I'm like, fuck, it's hard work.

Yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, that's the game, dude. I mean, yeah, I know. It's like you're past the hard part. Like, the hard part's getting to 10K. And like, yeah, first couple clients. But after that, it's—

Dude, it's so good. I just sent this girl like a message like, hey, you need to take care of this. And she does it and I'm like, amazing.

Hilarious.

Yeah.

Well, uh, I'm working on it too and I don't have anything 100% set yet, but, um, rolling out some like stuff on AI architecture and putting that in place. But I don't know, I, part of me thinks that it's like, A distraction. Part of me thinks that it's—

I mean, you're going, is it, is it for the info side or, or your agencies?

Um, well, both. So, I mean, we're, uh, we hired somebody to come in and, and do it. We're putting a lot of stuff into place for reporting. I'm gonna let people in, by the way, but we're just—

Go for it.

We're just chatting.

Um, how many people do you think are gonna join?

I don't know. I, uh, we, we haven't done these. This is the first one, so.

Oh yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. So I don't know, we'll see how many people join. I didn't really promote it that much cuz for the first one I was just like, we'll get a—

Let's test it out.

We'll get a, what's going on everybody? We're just chatting and then we're gonna get in here shortly. There's a couple people joining. There's a decent amount.

Nice.

We hired somebody to do AI kind of like reporting, like a CEO brain type of thing to look at all the data points and everything. But From like an info side.

Yeah.

I think there is a benefit of, I think if you can get over the hump of the, the AI setup and the tech.

Yeah.

Because you can like very easily get somebody their niche and their like ICP and like they just have to go out there and test. But I think if you can get to the point where AI's taking over a lot of the prospecting and a lot of the bull work, Um, but I don't know. I don't know. I'm still undecided if that's a waste of time or if that's like, you know, is it a distraction or is it actually useful for people?

I mean, you know best, just ask people to use it and then you'll see.

100%. I mean, that's kind of—

What was the, have you seen the, the thing that GoHighLevel released? The Ask AI thing?

Uh, yeah, they have their own now.

I don't know if my users use that.

There's the, there's that. And then there's the AI Studio too. That's like the whole—

I don't use the AI Studio, but yeah.

It's decent. I think they rushed to get it out because it doesn't like integrate to anything, but it's cool. I was, I was teaching somebody it and I gave it like duplicate nike.com and it, I mean, it did it. So.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's—

Yeah, no, dude, this is like the best time ever to do this business because I was, I started out building websites in like 2022.

Yeah.

Without ChatGPT or anything, it was just like you and WordPress and figure it out. And it took weeks, if not months, to, to do a, like a full website build.

100%.

And it was so expensive to hire people. Like you had to hire graphic designers, copywriters, developers, everything.

Yeah. Yeah.

We're actually blessed. We got so, I got so lucky with AI.

Dude, I, I think it's the best time to be like an entrepreneur. Like I was triple fisting, um, like 3 different AIs the other day and I was like, how long would've this? Because I was like, I was running stuff in Manus, I was running Claude Code, and then I had Lovable going and I was like, how long would've this stuff taken me back in the day? Because like, bro, I was, I was creating ads in Manus. I was building out the landing page because I'm running a, launching a new VSL. And then, and then on the side I'm working on the Claude code stuff.

Yeah.

But like, it's like, that's probably like 3 weeks of work.

Dude. And you've been in this space for years. I was in it for a bit, but I remember going on like Upwork or Fiverr and hiring people to build out like Google Sheets dashboards and shit like that. And it would be expensive and take time. Now it's like, it's free. It's pretty, it's, it's like $20 a month to do so much, you know?

Landing pages, like, like the sales, so the sales pages that we, you like obviously teach to, to build out and everything. I'm not kidding you, that would take me, the first one I, I made probably took 3, 4 weeks to like, yeah, just build it and make it look good. And that was always whenever we'd put up a new company, that was always my Like the shittiest part is that, okay, like I'm gonna go do it cuz I, I couldn't outsource that. Like there's so much like specific info that has to go in that and now you can literally do it in an afternoon, 30 minutes. Yeah, for real. So yeah, it's crazy.

It's so good.

But all right, we got some people in here. I'm gonna post, um, go for it and then we'll, we'll jump in. Um, all right, everybody. Uh, thank y'all for joining as well. We are gonna be doing— this is our first member spotlight that we are doing, so there is no hardcore structure. I don't wanna run this as like a podcast.

Yeah.

Um, I just want it really to be a chat. For us, they post this. And what we'll do, guys, is we're gonna got ten questions for Emilio. We're gonna hear about him, hear about his journey, and then at the end, if you guys want to answer any or ask any questions, I'm sure he'd be open to answering a few of them at least. Don't want to take up a lot of his time either. And then from there, we are gonna go and every single week do these. So if there's anybody that would like to, okay, now we got people joining. Anybody that would like to be kind of hosted or like under the member spotlight, definitely open to that. I think the biggest thing is just, you know, making sure that you have something to share.

Yeah.

Or open to talking about something about yourself. So other than that, let's get into it. So Emilio, appreciate you hopping on. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your background? How did you get started in this, I know, I, you know, I know a decent amount about your background, but for everybody, yeah. Um, tell 'em a little bit about yourself.

So, hey everyone, my name is Emilio. I'm 22. I'm actually still in college. I'm about to finish in like a month. And the first semester I was like, dude, I, I gotta escape the matrix. Like, I, that's, that's when like Andrew Tate was popping off and I was, and Iman Gadzhi and all of that. And I was like, there's no way I'm, I'm gonna work at a job. And first semester, 2022, I, I started building out websites and then from there I was like, you know what, this is a job. I don't want to be a freelancer. I tried making a software back when there was no AI. So I learned how to code because I was broke and that, that went to shit. I didn't make a single dollar for like 8 months. And then I tried growth operating and I was like, dude, growth operating, depending on creators to market my business. I don't really like that. I did make some money and then I was like, I just ended up in the agency route because it's the space where you control Everything. You do the marketing, you do the fulfillment. For sure. And I've been doing that for a while now and I recently hit the $10K per month mark and I think that's why I got invited on here and I joined Jake's Digital Architects program. I don't know if that's what you still call it, but his higher tier of mentorship.

It's switched. Yeah.

Yeah. And what's it called now?

Either Implement or Ascension is the— I got you.

Kind of 2 different tiers, but Well, I'm in the highest one and I joined in, I joined in August and yeah, no, it's been tremendously helpful. So that's a bit about me now. I just do GoHighLevel and websites, automations, ads. That's the drill agency space.

Yeah. Sweet.

Sweet.

Tell me, I don't think I've ever asked you this either. When you're like, okay, like, you know, I saw these people online, did you join the real world?

Of course I did.

Did you actually?

Yeah, I did for a month. I was like, let's see. And I tried Amazon FBA and I was like, since I joined before I came to the States for college, it was, I couldn't do it because I needed like an American bank account, which I didn't have. So I just ended up quitting. And I looked into day trading and like all the, you know, the guru stuff before I landed into websites because My mom's company did a website, so I was like, well, gotcha, gotcha.

So your mom owns her own company or she works for a company that does websites?

Uh, yeah, my mom runs like our family business back home and they had like a super outdated website, so I was like, I'll rebuild it. And it's a 20-page website and I built it for $300 and it took me a month to learn. I lost money because I needed to pay for like Envato Elements and the WordPress license, which I ended up realizing I didn't need. I lost so much money in the process. But it's just part of it.

It is. You just, you figure it out. I did the same thing. Um, yeah. You know, you just, you get into it, you invest in it. I mean, it's kind of like you could buy a course or you could like spend money that way and actually learn doing it and, and build up skills. So would you say that you like always had, like, I, I hate the word entrepreneur, but, and I'm sure some people, that's like cringey, but like, do you think that that bred you? For, you know, wanting to own your own business? Or do you feel like that was something that—

You know what, I—

You came to on your own?

I don't know if I was just plain just dumb, but I came into college, I didn't even know I could have a business. But looking back when I was a, like a kid and a teenager, I've always been a, I guess like an entrepreneur or a hustler. Like when I was a kid, when I was like 10 years old, I remember I used to bake cupcakes and I just Just knock on my neighbors' doors, and since I was a kid, they would always buy. So 100% close rate. And then when I was dude, when the fidget spinners came out, like in 2018, I bought like 50 on Alibaba for like $50, and I went to my school and I sold all of them in one day for $10 each. So I made like $400, and I bought some Yeezys with that money. So I've always been, I've always been like a I don't know entrepreneurial. In that sense, but I didn't even know. I just, yeah, I was like, it's a good idea. Uh, I need some money, so just figure it out.

No, that's sweet. I feel like that's like a trait a lot of, I don't wanna say again, I hate the word entrepreneur, but like people that own their own business have that they've always been like, I'm not gonna go wait for somebody else to pay me. Like I'm gonna go like make money however I can.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You see that since you're like a kid.

Yeah, 100%. Um, and I mean, I think it's the mindset that you're gonna go out there and like you're gonna be in control of your income versus just looking at it from like a time perspective. Because I'm sure like you buying the Yeezys, it would've taken you hours to, you know, at a normal job to, and you probably couldn't even have a normal job at that age.

Exactly. I had no choice.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's not to say that anyone Uh, I can't do it. It's just some people get like the, I guess the entrepreneurial call later on in life. Some people just wait to get some experience and they do it. Uh, some people just fucking, they just go for it.

They just do it. 100%. So, so you did like, you're like, okay, I'm gonna do websites. You rebuilt the one, um, for your mom. After that, do you get more clients? Like what, what's the journey look like after that?

Um, I, that's a funny question. I, I asked my, because my mom worked in like the, before she ran my family's business back home, she worked in like media, like PR. So she had a lot of contacts of different businesses. So I asked her to export her entire contacts list and I just texted every single one and I got like one customer or 2 customers that are still with me till this day. And it, yeah, it's just like looking at like Alex Hormozi's book, it's just like, Warm leads. It's just that already know you, and I think they just felt bad for me. They just let me build their websites, but it was super cheap. It was like three hundred bucks. I didn't even know how much I should have been charging. Yeah, because I was just clueless, and I had no idea about sales. I didn't do. I didn't have a sales trip. I just called him, and I was like, "Hey, do you want a website?" I was clueless, and I. I started, I created like a little script that would like mass DM people on WhatsApp. And I didn't get a single client from that, but I remember trying different sources, like different ways of getting clients. But then I was like, you know, this is taking me a month to deliver a site. I don't want to, I don't want to like just do this perpetually. I was trying to get more clients, but it just didn't work. I couldn't scale it. So I was like, I don't know why, but Looking back, it's a bad decision. But I decided to make a to build a software with no sort, no distribution channel or venture capital or anything like that. It was just me. It was just bootstrapped. No marketing experience, no SaaS experience, nothing. But I was like, "This is scalable." Like I can just because I was so fed up with fulfillment and I learned that's why I'm so technical because I'm like I learned literally went on. What's that platform called? Like the online courses, Udemy. And I, for, for one summer, and I can show you my notebook, I have a binder that's this big on how to code.

That's sweet.

And, and it just failed because I had no, no marketing skills. And that's why I was like, I, it doesn't matter what you sell, you just need to be good at selling. And that's why I went on to growth operating.

Let me, let me ask you this. Do you think that it's important that people have a skillset and And build a skill set before they try to build the business, or do you think that?

No, I don't think you can study. You can study. You can't study it. It's a experience is the best teacher. I'm I I live by that for sure. Like there's no. I promise you there's. I've bought so many courses, and I just try to like if I need to watch something, I just get it done super fast. I try to get a summary because you're gonna you're going to forget. Funny ends. It's 95% of it. I think it's just experience is the best, um, the best teacher.

100%. No, that's a, it's really, you mean it, it's funny that you mentioned that because I would say the opposite. Um, really?

Yeah.

And I, I would, but okay. So like, I'm, I'm, I would've said the opposite 5 years ago. Um, but now seeing that, I would agree with you because I think a lot of people get caught up in that. Phase of business and it's like, or you could just do it and then figure it out as it goes. So I 100% agree.

I think they just try and just looking back at what I was doing, I was trying, just trying to make myself busy with something like, I, I'm being productive, I'm reading a book and I have a bunch of business books, but yeah. Um, I don't think I remember, I remember obviously the, the main Topic and concepts of the books, but most of it is just you know fluff that you'll figure out anyways for sure on the go.

Do you have any favorites? Business books.

Books? I like um I like the one I'm currently reading. It's um it's called just Elon Musk. It's like a biography. The same the same guy that wrote Navals. Um you know Navals Ravi Kant's his book. It's just a biography.

Okay.

But you know, Elon Musk is about to be a trillionaire. Like everything, it's like the best book for business ever.

Yeah.

I like that one a lot. And Hormozi's books.

For sure. Yeah. I, I think everything's a little different cuz like there's definitely books that are more tactical and then there's books that are more of like biography.

Yeah.

That is interesting that you say that cuz I feel like in, in a sense people can learn more from other people's story versus it just being like, Here's a bunch of information.

Yeah.

And that's why they set that up. So going back, okay, so you transitioned from websites into growth operating. Why growth operating? Was that more of a, like a money play? Was it, you actually were like, oh, I could actually have success? Like what was the reason for that?

It just actually, my best friend here in Chicago, he, I don't know if you remember Eddie Cumberbatch, but he was like the growth operating godfather. He lived—he was my best friend's neighbor. So that's how I kind of got into it, and it just looked like a good idea. Like yeah, I mean these guys have 100,000 followers. I just need to like sell something and help them with the funnels and and you know set up whatever the school. But I mean everything looks like a good idea before you learn about it. Like the grass is always greener on the other side, and I surely found out that you know creators are. A pain to work with if they're not fully involved, and even if they have a lot of followers, it's hard to sell. Like I partnered up with a with a Spanish speaking creator that has millions of literally millions of followers on Instagram, but his content was just so double funnel that we made like to like ninety dollars in MR in the launch because all of his followers were from like it was just entertainment content, so no one really trusted him.

Gotcha.

So it's not even, it wasn't even a bad offer. Just once we started running ads, we got some more success, but it's just having, you know, someone own 70, 60% of a business that you're doing most of the work for. It's just, and they can just, you know, fuck you over overnight. It's not worth it. I was just like, I just want to control my own business.

Yeah. You're not the first person that I've heard that from, like getting fucked over and just, you know, they just disappear overnight and take the business. Dude, I had a, you can look him up.

I had, um, no bad blood or anything, but I had a creator that had on launch, we made like, we made like a pre-launch because he wasn't like, he was testing out the waters. He's called Subleasing Dubai on Instagram. He was, he was popping off. Like, you probably follow him because he was getting millions of views and we closed him. Um, and we made like $3K MRR in the first day of just 20 people on a Zoom call. And we didn't even pitch his entire audience, just like a few people on DMs. Like, hey, hop on this call. And he was like, guys, honestly, I don't— it's not even worth it for me because his business was already super profitable and we put in a lot of work into that. And then he just, he was just like, and we were making money that, that community could have been making $30K easily by the first month realistically, but he just didn't want to do it. So it's like, I put all in all of this effort for someone else to control it. It's not worth it.

Yeah. Do you, do you think that that's kind of what Led you into that, like the agency space where— Oh, that's exactly what I did. More transactional.

Because it took me months to close this guy. I paid him like $500 for 30 minutes. I lit when I was, when I had nothing to close him because I knew the potential and then I made my money back. But after putting like weeks of effort, it wasn't worth it.

It just, yeah. No, you, you kind of use some language. Did you have a partner that you were doing the growth operating stuff with?

Yeah, yeah, I had a partner, um, just because there, there were so many moving pieces from sales to marketing to funnels. You needed, you know, a sales director.

Yeah. What's your take on partners? Because I know some people love them, some people hate them.

Um, I think it can work as long as you guys are really aligned on your responsibilities and it makes sense. But a lot of the times it's just like, Hey, let's partner up. And, you know, it's not really clear what each person is responsible for. I think you need to be super transparent and fair on what everyone's taking for the amount of work they put in, because not all partnerships need to be 50/50.

You know, that's a very good point. Yeah, I've—

Most of the times I don't like them, but yeah, they're, you know, businesses where it does make sense.

100%. I've found that if you can get over the, like, from the people that I've talked to, if you can get over the hump of like the first couple clients and like getting out there and doing it, they're most likely better off on their own versus—

Yeah.

Partners that are just like very much, and this is how I was when I got started, was split of I did the backend and I had a partner that did the frontend. And to this day, nothing against him. He doesn't understand the backend. Like he doesn't get it. He doesn't touch it. He, he couldn't log into Ads Manager.

Yeah.

And, and launch an ad. But like, again, like very good at the sales, very good at the, the marketing and marketing is like a, you know, messaging, not actual the contextual like aspect of it. So I, I think I would agree with you. I think if it's like very split, it makes sense, but sometimes it can.

Yeah, if you both have the same skill set, it doesn't really make sense. Especially like for me, I would probably get not upset, but I'd be like, I'm, I'm a workaholic. Like I wake up and I just work until I'm tired and I go to the gym and then I go to sleep. Same shit for 6 days a week. And then if I had someone who wasn't, who I visually didn't see putting the amount of effort, I'd probably be like, the fucker, why are you taking 50% of my business? Right.

Yeah. You know, for sure. I, and I, I've been, I've been on both sides of that actually. And that might be like, oh, Jake, you're a piece of shit. Like I've been the person that has slacked. I've never screwed anybody over. Like it, it came to a point where I was like, dude, just like take the business. Like it, I can't commit the time. Um, but then I've, you know, I've been the person that has put all the time and energy into something and the other person slacks and that's—

Yeah.

I think that's the The worst position to be in from a partnership.

Yeah. Especially if you're already like incorporated and it's like legally you can't do shit about it. It's like, oh my God.

100%. What does— you brought up a good point. Um, and then I want to get into the agency stuff, but what does your day-to-day look like and has that evolved over the years?

Yeah. So it's evolving right now. Um, until like super recently, I was involved in every single part of it from the Marketing, the sales, the onboarding, the delivery, the support, like all the five you know core pieces. Now I'm trying to distance myself from lower level tasks and just focus on on sales more than anything because I I connect pieces very well because I have a strong technical background and you know I I'm also a business owner so I understand like it's not like some people are really. Right side brained where it's like they're super technical and some people are super, you know, charismatic and good at communicating and salesy. Sure. But to answer your question, it's just fo— actively focusing on higher level tasks. For sure. That's pretty much it.

Just keeping it at that. Do you break your day apart at all and like do sales and marketing in the morning, kind of like tech in the back or anything like that?

I try to only do meetings from Like 10:00 AM until 2 or 3, just so in the morning I can focus on writing, writing material, writing ads, maybe direct my team. And then in the afternoon it's just whatever junk drawer work is missing.

Yeah, absolutely. Is that something that you've always structured it like that or is that just something that you're like, this works best?

Yeah, I think I think it's just good advice to not have your calendar open for the entire day just because it can break up your concentration really easily. If you have, like, imagine you have the entire day and then you have one meeting at 10:00 AM, the other one at 12, the other one at 2. It's like, dude, I can't focus on a single task for 3 hours. Sure. You know? So yeah, it's always, it's something I've always done.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you use any, like, assistants or, like, AI Kind of space stuff or tools that help keep you like in line, accountable with tasks? Or is that just something that—

I just have a, an app called Todoist, just a to-do list for my, my, my task. And I use ClickUp for, for my team and project management, stuff like that.

Gotcha. No, that makes sense. Awesome. So let's get back and then we can ask about some, some tools and tactics and whatnot at the end. But, um, yeah. So you go from growth operating back into agency. Yeah. Obviously, you know, we kind of talked about why you did that, but what does that transition look like? You know, are you like, okay, because obviously you have Niles Digital, but is that something where you're like, okay, like I'm going to build this company or was it a transition into what, what did that look like?

I mean, I just started offering agency services. I was marketing and I threw some ads and I reached out to some businesses, but my offer was very vague. It was just help in any way I could with GoHighLevel because I was already familiar with it. Just until recently is where I'm trying to start dialing in different entry points. I have a self-liquidating offer. I have my main offer via sales funnel, but yeah, it's always been similar Similar offers. We usually start with a website, and then once I get to understand their business, I recommend different things in the backend. Maybe a chatbot, maybe CRM because they don't have one. Maybe sometimes they even need products and memberships on HighLevel. So I can just kind of tell from experience what they could benefit from, and then I offer it to them if it makes sense.

For sure. Absolutely. Now I, I know the answer to this question cuz we've talked about it, but you value more of a relationship with a client and constantly offering more stuff versus like one, like a customer. Yeah. You value a client over a customer.

Yeah. I think recurring revenue is where it's at. And as long as, you know, the value you provide every single month is is higher than what they're paying you, they're going to stay. And especially if you suck at marketing or you don't have campaigns dialed in, you can always find, like businesses always have emerging problems. You can always find something else to offer to your existing client base, especially if you don't have marketing systems dialed where you have calls coming in from ads or wherever. But yeah, I always do done-for-you services just because I don't see myself doing like a done with you. Like I know how technically incapable some some clients are, where it's hard for them to like log in. I can't even see myself explaining how to do something. Just take way more effort than just doing it myself or with my team and DIY. Yeah, I mean maybe maybe in the future I'll do some sort of affiliate play, but. No, not for now.

For sure. Yeah, I think it's, it's very interesting. Now, are you comfortable talking about your current business structure? Because like, again, I know we've talked about it, but like breaking down, like, I guess you, I wouldn't say that you're like in an industry, but like how you've structured your offer, why you've structured it that way, and you know what you've tested. Because like obviously I've seen, you know, what you've tested and it hasn't worked, but You know, now where it is.

Yeah, I don't mind. Okay. I don't mind.

Yeah. So break down your current offer and what you're doing.

Yeah. So my current offer, I always start with a, with a website and Google Ads, and then I do a monthly retainer for that. It's just fixed, no setup fee. Um, and then depending on, and it's good because if they buy that, it's because they're already doing well in business. So it's not like a super small solopreneur that can't afford it and will probably churn out the next month. And worst case scenario, you can just downsell to the regular website maintenance, which is still MR coming in because every business needs a website. And obviously I try to incorporate more systems in there so they're more reliable on more. Yeah, they rely more on GHL to run their business from their CRM and stuff like that. So it's a good entry point because it validates that they are a business that is already doing well and they just need more clients. And Best case scenario, we can just sell them, you know, more systems on the backend. Worst case scenario, we could just downsell to a lower plan.

For sure. For sure. Yeah. Have you found that offering that the way that it is currently? Because obviously, you know, I talk a lot about putting a system together that's like very packaged and it sounds like this growth system, super unique. Yeah. And now you're selling funnels and Google Ads and it's very straightforward. Do you feel like you have better clients coming? From, from that offering.

I actually not disagree with you completely, but I think it's a different level of avatar, um, that you're talking to. Like if some, the business owners that I speak to, they're busy, like they're, they're always in meetings. They're, they don't have, and sometimes I feel like they don't need as many things as, as you like teach. So I think just keeping it simple and being like, hey, it's just system 1 and 2 and That's it. And they can see it. Um, it's just, it's fine. It's just a, I think a different level of avatar. It's definitely, there are definitely less of them, but I think they're easier to close if you get the right person because they, they can definitely see the value. What you pitch is, it's still good. I think it's, it, it's really good for like a lower, like maybe a one-time setup fee and then lower, uh, monthly retainer. I think that's perfect.

For sure.

Because they usually need more things at, at that price. But yeah, it's just, I just kind of pivoted over here.

Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I don't disagree by any means. It's just, you know, that, that again is, it's been what's successful for us, but you know, everybody's different with that. So it's, it's cool to see that. Now, is there a reason, last question on that, and then we'll, we'll wrap up with some, some exit questions, but do you, How do you feel about not being like niched down and it being kind of—

Um, some people, I mean, I think you definitely don't like this. It would definitely make delivery easier, but I think long run it's probably bad. Short term, it's, um, it's good because I have flexibility with the things I can offer. And it's not like I'm limited to that tomorrow. I can throw up a landing page and a BSL for a specific niche and I can do it if I, if I want to. It's just, I don't think there's an operational complexity that, uh, like I, I really right now I can take on any niche and figure out something they need and just build it for them. And that gives me security because I can help everyone versus if I had like a landing page that just said, hey, doctors or whatever. It would cut out a lot of my referrals, so it would hurt me in the short run.

For sure. Yeah, sure. The way that I see it is, I'm sure, you know, like Eddie Maloof and yeah, like kind of the big agency guys like that, that to me is kind of, I don't wanna say you're building the exact same thing, but like you're kind of playing in that realm of like, hey, we can do anything. We're very good at this specific thing.

Yeah.

But we, we can work it with anybody. And it, it is kind of interesting cuz, you know, kind of going back to like what, what I've, or what we've done is you're positioning it as like there's this growth system for this niche. And I wonder now if the market's shifting back towards like, or if it's just an avatar thing where like you're just an expert at what you do and they're hiring you because you're an expert. They're not hiring you because you have some secret sauce.

I mean, you definitely put yourself in a box so you're more appealing to that avatar. It's just a matter of what type of business you want to run. Definitely what you teach is way more structured and more replicable, but I think long run, that's 100% better. Unless you want to have like a big agency play where it's like you do a You do every single service from, you know, paid to social to funnels to websites to automations. Um, and I kind of like that business more, to be honest. I think I would be bored if it's just the same template over and over again. I like the challenge of it.

It's, it definitely, I would, I understand what you're saying. Like, I think the fulfillment's probably 10 times better because it's not just duplicate. And then you're just like a button clicker. At that point, like, yeah, snapshot, like, cuz once, once it's done, it's sort of been and running. So no, that's awesome. Um, what are the 3 biggest tools that you're using right now that you feel like are helping you achieve more, get more done? You know, just powerful tools. What would, what are the 3 biggest tools that you have that you use?

I think I use Claude Code. I have the $100 plan and I think I max it out almost every single day. So if you're not on that, you gotta start using it. Cloud Code's the best. That's definitely the highest leverage tool. It does everything. It just like helps you with— I build dashboards on there for myself from also content scraping websites. So it's just super good. It helps with so many different areas of business. I also, something that helps me, which is pretty random, it's like the Google Workspace Gemini in Gmail that you can just type anything into it and it just fixes it perfectly. That's really good. Um, and I just use other like tools like n8n sometimes for automations, ClickUp, GHL. So I think that's my main tech stack for, for business.

For sure. No, that makes sense. Um, where are I'm trying to decide what question I want to ask first. I guess we'll, we'll start with this. Where do you see the market going for all of those that are listening, building something right now? What's your take on like where the market's going, what people should and shouldn't be building and like focusing time on?

I saw a post by Hermosi where the future's going to be Bring your own skills, like cloud code skills. And I think that's really—it really resonated with me. I don't think we're going to be, and by we I mean like humans are going to be replaced by AI just yet. We have a really big opportunity where we have these tools that make our job so much easier, but we're still valued at you know human prices, not like it's like softwares. I think you just need to become an expert in one thing and then you'll be good. Like, I really see it all the time. I have a video editor. I know he's my friend. I know he uses PlotCode to make his job way easier. And I don't care. I pay him the same rate because I'm not interested in going in there and figuring out how to edit videos. And I pay him because he's an expert in video editing.

Yeah.

Clients pay me because I'm an expert in websites and PPC. You know, it's the same thing. You just got to become an expert in, in one area and then market it.

Yeah. Did you play Call of Duty, COD, as a kid?

Yeah, dude. I was— I think I told you, COD and Fortnite and GTA.

Everybody did. Yeah. That's like, that's like one-man army perk. It's like, dude, you're just like one person that you can do it all. Yeah. AI running your business, or, you know, a lot of it. Um, I don't know if, again, the kind of like what you said, you're always gonna have experts that, right, you can call.

What I would recommend to anyone who's sort of like a freelancer who's like maybe good at GoHighLevel or different things is just find the most common entry point for your clients and then market that. And then, you know, once you meet them and you know them, you can offer your other services Afterwards, but it's really hard to market everything. Like, hey, I can automate your business. Like, what does that mean? Like, what's the return investment? But if you start with one thing, like, hey, I'll automate your, I don't know, your billing or your forms or X, Y, Z, then it's really easy for them to understand the value of that. And then once you start that relationship, then you can start other projects from there. Yep. But that was the, I think the biggest difference for me, just making that, like deciding the entry point and just marketing that.

What's your, for those that are doing that, like AI automation, 'cause I've thought about this lately, what are your thoughts on, because there's the hump of them having to sell like AI in that regard, what do you, do you think it's just getting on a call with them and getting the ball rolling, or do you think that there should be more education before they get on?

I think, I think. People should start with maybe even loss leaders in, in that space, especially if they're big businesses. Um, because once you get that relationship and they trust you and you show expertise and that you're agentic and you understand how to fix these problems, then it's so much easier for them to trust you with higher, uh, paid projects. But, um, yeah, I usually— and it's a strategy I've used and it's super successful— I try to Be super, not cheap, but be reasonable, reasonably priced in my first project so that they most of the time say yes. And if they say no to that and you, you had a good sales process, it's probably a red flag. So you probably shouldn't be working with them. And that qualifies them to make sure that they're, they're good enough to take on more projects in the future where you're going to be paid, paid more.

For sure. Do you think, and I, I know my opinion on this and you probably know mine, do you think Having like a super inflated proposal on the front end is a good or bad thing? Like, let's just like, should you pitch what they need at this time and want, or do you pitch something smaller to get the ball rolling?

I usually pitch the, I try to make my first offer really simple because I've seen it. I've seen people's eyes on sales calls. They're like, they don't understand after step 2, and I'm like, okay, I gotta do 2 steps max. I keep it simple. I keep it simple and value first. Like, hey, this is going to save you X amount of hours per month, or this is going to get you at least 10 leads. And if you can close at least 3 and each project's worth $4K, then that's $12K. Like, it's super easy to understand. Like, that's a bit too complicated. And then once they build that, a lot of business relationships, it's just about trust. Like, for sure. Do I trust this guy enough that I know if I pay him 2 grand, he will give me something that's worth more? Yes. And then you go from there, but you need to build that relationship first.

Love it. Yeah, no, absolutely. Last question for you. Uh, what are 2 or 3 lessons that you would like philosophical quotes or lessons that you live by that you would like leave everybody with? That you feel like everybody should live by and just really believe.

I'm really, Audrey. I think I can answer this with with one, and then this this is kind of like the golden rule of life. I'm not religious at all, but I believe in integrity, and I think that if you do the right things, then everything else will come. And just putting yourself—that's the first one: just having integrity. And the second one is just looking at it from from their point of view. Like, would they go with you? Like, why? Why not? And then try to use that to your advantage where, if you're a business owner, let's do the AI automation example. If you're a business owner who's heard 10 ads about people automating this and for, and you've gone on different calls and pitches and you haven't decided, it's probably a trust issue and you can backtrack from there and be like, okay, if this guy's offering me this for $250 and a 30-day money-back guarantee, if he doesn't like it, he's going to start with you. And then just have some integrity, overdeliver the first time, and then you can build that relationship and then go from there. So just integrity and looking, I guess, standing in your customer's shoes and see how you can improve your business from their perspective.

That it just reminds me of like old school business of just like, yeah, just be a good person and like it'll come back to you.

Yeah, it's really that simple. And just integrity, because integrity is doing the right thing even when no one's watching. And that applies to your business as well. Like, if you know that you should be waking up and if you're not doing any marketing that you should be marketing, then you gotta stay true to yourself. Like, you should have been doing that. Just have a lot of accountability, I think would be the last one, is integrity, accountability, and the shoe metaphor, or you gotta see how It feels for them. Yeah. No, I love it.

Um, I appreciate it. We'll, again, we'll keep it short. I, again, value your time. Um, and I'm sure you value it even more than me. So, you know, I, again, I appreciate you hopping on. Um, do you have anything you wanna pitch, shout out, anything like that?

No, I mean, honestly, I'll just give a shout out to you. I've been on a lot of programs where, um, I'll just say this, they haven't been the most helpful, but What I like about you, and not only you, but your team, Tyler, everyone, and Melissa, they've always been super helpful. Even after months after we stopped technically working together, it's like you guys don't even care about that. It's just about helping. And if you want to fast track and just have someone where— I think the most important thing is the context where you know me, you know what I do, you know who I am, you know my business, and you know what I've tried. If you've— when I ask you for advice, you'll have way more context on what I've tried and your answers are better. Not— so I think having just more access to you and your team would help me faster. I could be more confident in my decisions and help me just a lot with the structuring everything. So that's what I'd say.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, of course.

Cool. Do you have 5, 10 minutes to answer any questions? Yeah. Yeah. I have maybe 15. Okay. Because again, I don't wanna hold you, get you off here. Anybody has any questions for Emilio? Anything that you wanna ask? Uh, also things best to have, if you wanna unmute and ask, otherwise, if you wanna type it in chat. Got 10 years.

I think only you can see the Q&A thing.

I just see the chat. Um, I had a team member join and say, get on our meeting. But other than that, I, uh, no, we're good. Um, we don't have any, so no, dude, I appreciate it. Um, again, you know, obviously hit me up whenever. Um, yeah, of course. You know, always open to help. Um, I know we're talking about getting that VA in, but, um, yeah. Thank y'all for being here. Also, thank you, Jake. All the guests. We're gonna continue to evolve this. Live, I don't know, podcast, is that cheesy? But just showing off members and everything like that.

Yeah, I like the name.

Dude, let me, let me know what your thoughts are on this. You know, like Kill Tony, like the— Yeah.

The comedy podcast.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking like, what if you gave people a minute to like pitch their offer? And because I feel like—

In the community?

Yeah. And like you get on and there's a panel and then you get like to be brought in and pitch an offer. But I don't know if that's cheesy or if that's—

That'd be funny. I think that everyone kind of has not the same, but like similar areas of, of expertise. So I don't know how many people would buy. I think a lot of people would criticize their offers and maybe improve it that way. So it could be both.

That's kind of, I, I feel like that's a big part of that show is like the criticism piece of it. Yeah. And I feel like that would, that's unfortunately what would sell. But like if somebody got on there and was like, I do, you know, it's a shitty offer. Like you'd probably rip 'em apart.

But the thing is they would be criticized by other agency owners. That's true. So who knows? They should be criticized by their, by their customers.

That's true. That is a very good point. It doesn't matter what your peers think. It's, it's all about the customers.

Yeah. So I like this. I think people would find it helpful.

Awesome. No, I appreciate you, man. Um, of course. Thank you all for being here and we'll see you all next time.

Thanks, Jake. I'll see you. Thank you. Bye.