How I Mastered Sales & Built My 8-Figure Business (Advice for Young Entrepreneurs)

At the end of the day, when you boil business down, it really comes down to two things. And the first thing is getting attention. And the second thing is.

So, everybody, thank you so much for being on this show. It's amazing to finally connect with you. I think anyone that's in the digital world has probably seen some of your ads at some point or another, and especially on your book as well. But for the people that do, we don't know you yet. Take us all the way back to young Sabri. What was your upbringing like and how were you as a child?

Sure. Well, I grew up in a small rural beach town in Australia called Byron Bay. I was raised by a single parent mother, me and my sister. I watched my mom hold down three jobs and work her ass off to provide, you know, a life for me and my sister. And that ingrained, you know, a very strong work ethic in me since a young child. And then I had my kind of foray in business when I got my first full time job in sales when I was 16 years old and I was selling in cartridges over the telephone. That was a cold, hard slap to the face. And I sucked really badly for like the first two or three weeks in that role, almost got cut, and then managed to turn things around out of desperation, I think. And I became their number one salesperson there. And then I really traveled the world selling everything that you can imagine, one to one over the phone. You know, door to door. You name it, I've done it and I've sold it. And I have been the number one salesperson at every company that I'd ever worked for before returning back home to Australia and kind of throwing my hand and my hat into the rodeo that is business. And I've run a few businesses, I've run a few into the ground. I've sold a business. And at all the businesses that I've been involved in, I've always been tasked with the number one problem that all businesses face, which is how do I get more customers? And that's just the thing that I have been myopically focused on throughout the length of my career, is solving that problem for many, many businesses. We've done IT now in 416 different industries and niches for our clients and have generated them north of $1.33 billion in sales. And I look at that whole journey and that whole solving that big problem that people has, as you know, a very profound thing to be able to do. So I don't just look at it from a digital through a Digital marketing lens. I look at it as in like, you know, business is an incredible vehicle to drive a lot of change. So that's kind of what the day to day looks like for me now. You know, I run my agency, I'm focused on solving that problem for all businesses. We do everything from books and courses and agency and done with you and done for you and all of that kind of jazz. The mission that we're on is how do we solve that problem for as many businesses. Businesses as possible.

Wow. To go all the way back when you were, as a, when you were a kid, were you a confident kid? Were you good at academics? Were you good at studies? Did you know what you wanted to do?

Yeah, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't very strong academically, but like everything, I've kind of applied this single parent mother work ethic to whatever it is that I do. So like I wasn't super strong at math in school. But when, you know, in like when you get to year 10 in Australia, you have like the ability to choose like what it is that you want to study and if you wanted to do like math or science or English. And I was like, I hate math, but I'm still going to do it because I know that it's going to be important. So I chose to still still do it, you know, in those later years of my education. But yeah, I wasn't really strong academically. I worked very hard, but I was confident. You know, after, I guess watching my mother work so hard at a young age, I was like, hey, I kind of got to pull my weight and I've got to figure out a way to make some money to help my mother. And that was when I got my first job earning $2.50 an hour at a health food shop, grinding peanut butter. Did that for, you know, a couple of months and then realized I wasn't going to be making, you know, enough paper to make it rain, so to speak, and make any real money. And I decided that, hey, I got to go to do something else. So I started busking at the Sunday markets. I made like 80 bucks, I think the first Sunday that I did it and was like, okay, this is, this is a good gig. And I was out there hustling from a young, trying to make money to help my mom and, you know, pull as much weight as I possibly could as an 8 year old.

When you were, was that kind of like the first glimpse where you figured out that working for obviously the peanut butter gig is not going to make Enough money to make a change. But was that kind of the first glimpse for you, understanding that working for someone isn't the path for you? Or did you still want to pursue that, working for someone else before starting your business?

Yeah, I didn't think, like, this is like, oh, you know, me working for someone or me working for, like, you know, myself. Like, I think that wherever you work, you work for yourself, like, even if you're. You're in a job. Right? Because that's what it always was for me. So I was just like, hey, this is a better opportunity to make more money, to drive a change. But when I was a salesperson on the calling floor with 200 people on that calling floor, I wasn't working for somebody else. I was working for myself. Right. I was always looking at it through, like, what is it that I'm possible? What am I capable of achieving? Like, I wasn't going, oh, let me make this many calls to hit my quota. I was like, either I'm going to sit here for nine hours a day. What is it that I would be capable of doing in that nine hours a day? Because I'm going to be making a disproportionate amount of money. Either I become better at what I'm sitting here and doing for nine hours a day. So that was the thing that always, like, you know, while I, while was the top producer is like, I wasn't clocking in and clocking out, although I was in terms of a workday. I was just like, so focused on mastery. I was like, if I'm going to make 300 phone calls a day, I better get damn good at making these phone calls because I can make way more money from making the same amount of phone calls if I just get better at making them.

And I think that mental approach is actually very, very different for. And I assume that was from when you were 16. What was the, the, the trigger point that allowed you to have that mentality? I think majority of people, when they work for people, they just think, you know, I'm clocking and clocking out. I'm 16, I'm young. I just want a paycheck. I just want to get paid and then have fun with friends. What was the influence that made you have that sort of mentality going in?

Yeah, it wasn't just at 16. Like, that was also throughout my career. But I think that it was like, you know, one of those old sayings that my mother kind of kept on telling me, like, if you're gonna do something, you do it properly. Like there's no point half asking anything. And that's the way that I've always approached anything. Like, if I'm writing an ad, I'm going all out. I'm swinging for the fences. I'm gonna write the best damn ad that I possibly can. If I'm creating a video sales letter, I'm gonna spend the time to make that like fire and absolutely razor sharp. Either I'm running a sales meeting, if I'm building a team, if I'm doing anything, I'm going all in. Because I don't know any other gear. Like, that's for me. The only way that I want to do it is I want to go all out. So if even before I was running a business, you know, and I was as much as a maniac as I am today, I was still an absolute maniac. Like, I was, I was always known for going absolutely all out with whatever I was doing. And if it's a sales call or whatever it is, if I'm selling raffle tickets, like, I'm finding the way to like growth. Hack the sale of those raffle tickets tickets and you know, have like employ three kids that stand out the front of the supermarket and sell them for me and I pay them in chocolates and like, I was always going to do something big. I never have been interested in doing something just half assed.

Wow. What are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned selling ink cartridges when you were 16? What are some of the funny stories?

Well, I say that like, you know, it's like when you're a telemarketer, it's like the only job that you're pretty, like your professional career is getting told to fuck off every day, right? And like that's like, it was for me a very cold, hard slap to the face. Because even though that I'd worked in a health food shop and I done busking, I hadn't like, you know, I grew up in a beach town, so I wasn't calling, like, I didn't live in a city. And then to start calling people from all over the country and have them just verbally berate me and abuse me all day long, right? And I. It was a real hard, cold, hard slap to the face. Like, I don't just say that to some clever analogy. I was like, oh shit. Like I'm in the real world now. Like, these people don't give a crap about me. Like, you know, and I learned that very quickly is that I thought in the beginning that they would care about the company that I was calling for, or they would care who I was. They didn't give two shits who I was. Right. They only cared about themselves. And that's something that I have learned in life, is that everybody's like, you know, favorite person is themselves, unfortunately, with a lot of this stuff. And it's like, it's always the radio stat, like, station that they're tuned in is like, what's in it for me, right? It's like, that's just the thing that they care about. So when I switched the lens to that and I thought, okay, who is this person that I'm calling and what is it that they care about? And only talking about that was when everything changed for me. And that was a very, very profound lesson to learn at such a young age.

And what were the people that you were working with? Were they having a better success? Or do you obviously climb that ladder very quickly over time from figuring out these things? Did you figure it out on your own, or was it more so just trial and error?

Yeah, look, they were all smoking me. It was a group interview to get hired in the first place. And then it was like, it started with 15 people, and they whittled it down to, like, five, and then three people got the job. It was me and these two other girls, and they were both way better than me in the first three weeks. Everyone was better than me. I was definitely the runt of the litter. And that was when, like, you know, I was just about to get cut. The owner of the business was just about to let me go. And he's like, look, I see something in you. I'm gonna give you one more week, but you gotta pull it together, kid. I remember just going home that night. Like, I clocked off early that day. He's like, just go home, you know, and come back tomorrow and let's. I'll give you another week. And then I. On the way home, I was just like. Like, something's got to change. I can't go back there tomorrow and keep doing the same thing that I've been doing all along because it's not working. Like, you're not making any sales, dude. Like, you need to do something different. And that was when I was like, I'm just going to go back tomorrow, and I'm going to approach it like a game, and I'm not going to say anything about anything other than that prospect and what the problem is that they're. I'm not even going to really repeat what my name is if they ask me, what company are you calling from again, I'm just going to ignore that and steamroll it and just continue with the rest of the phone call. And it was, it was a flick of a switch. I. That first day I sold more than anybody there when I came back. And then I didn't stop selling more than anybody the whole time I was there.

Wow. When you got into that job, was it some sort of script that you had to follow or did it just say that you just. And was everyone following the script or was it.

There was. Yeah. So like basically at the, at the, at the job interview, as a group interview, they gave everyone the script. We went around in a circle and they made us read the script and they gave us feedback on the script. And then we did it twice more and then they just cut half the room, the people that didn't take the feedback on the script. And so. But then I obviously started modifying the script and in every place that I worked, once I started modifying the script, they started using my modifications in the script because they were just so effective. So, yeah, it's just when I put everything else to bed other than what it is that that person wants, that was when things changed.

When you started modifying scripts even further down in your career. What are some of the common things that you always. Are there a few things that you always modify because you've just seen disproportionately advantage when you say one thing over the other thing. What are some of these things that you change?

The opening line and the way that you ask for the sale, they're the key linchpins at it all. Of course, there's yes. Momentum that you're building in the call and getting lots of yeses throughout the call. But it's all about the opener on a cold call. And when you're on a dialer and it's making 350, you know, calls a day and you're calling all these different countries and different accents and stuff like that, and there's like a 5 second lag to when that, that dialer kicks into. When that person picks up the call, they've already been waiting there for five seconds. So you're. The words that come out of your mouth better not be, hey, is that next to John Smith? Otherwise you're dead right. So you need to come in with gusto straight out the gate. So that was one of the things that I always just changed is just getting straight into the action immediately and straight to, you know, assuming that I was speaking to the right person, that I had something of interest to them. And this was new, unique and only tailored to them. And that's the reason that I was giving them a call.

And what would that opening line usually be? Is there a few that you always. You were your go to?

Yeah. Look, it depends on what it is that you were selling. Right. And what the offer was. But like, you know, definitely, like at one time I was selling Sky Television and that was like, congratulations, you've just been selected to get free installation. Right. I made it a celebration. I made it a congratulations. Right, because that was an offer that they were running completely for their cold calling team. But no one else was congratulating anybody. Right. But if you open up a call with congratulations, it gets people's attention.

And what were you then doing for the clothes?

Yes. So then it was just about like, you know, people were really making it a very intense thing. It's like, are you ready to sign up to a 12 month contract of Sky Television plus and get £44? And it's like, I just had to make it way easier. Like, hey, does this all sound great? Should we go ahead and submit your application form? Yeah, let's submit it. Let's roll.

Makes sense. So at 16, you did the selling ink cartridges. How long did you do that for?

A year.

Okay. And then when did you then move forward?

Then I moved to London. Yeah, I moved to like, I knew that I needed to get out of Byron Bay because there just wasn't much opportunity and I wanted to get to where the opportunity was. And instead of just moving to another city within Australia, I decided to pack my bags and go to the other side of the world and just get out there and get amongst us. So I went over to London and lived there for two years, went over to the States for a while and just kind of traveled around.

And so when you went to London, did you. Was it another selling job again? Would you just mention Sky Television or.

Yeah, I did. I worked like the shittest jobs you could ever imagine. Like literally the worst jobs and all of them. So I did the most random stuff. I got a job the first day I was there and then I didn't do sales immediately. I just did a bunch of random jobs. And then after, you know, six months of just like shooting around in dead end jobs was like, hey, I need to go back to sales. Because I didn't like sales. I was like, it's a tough gig. Like, you got to have thick skin to go out there and make the kind of dials that I have, right? And like, you know, I talk about how many cold calls I've had and people like, oh, how is it possible that you've made that many cold calls? And da da da. But they don't know because they've never done it right? They've never been on auto dialers, they've never had to do the work that I have done. And I've been doing it since I was 16 years old and I've made well over a million cold calls. Like that is a very conservative number. It's well north of that. And basically I didn't love sales. So I was like, I tried to get away from it and I was like, let me try and go do some other stuff. And all of those were, I was selling my time for money and I didn't have the opportunity to get upside regardless of how good I was at that job. And I'm big on like providing a disproportionate amount of value to people and sharing in some of that upside. So sales was also, it was a good thing for me, even though that it was difficult, you know, then I started to understand that like instead of running away from difficult things, I need to start chasing them. Because you get value in exchange for solving problems. And the mere fact that it is difficult means that I will get compensated in direct proportion to the level of difficulty that it has.

And what do you think is some of the clear differentiations between good sellers and great sellers?

Either I had to put it down to one thing. It would definitely be follow up and having the tenacity to stay in the deals when they're uncomfortable and just keep following up like forever. So that's the major thing that, you know, most people, they'll get like four or five no's and they'll pack up shop, they'll bounce off the sales call, they'll never call the prospect again. Or if it's high ticket, it's longer, longer sales cycles. They'll follow up for, you know, two or three times. The person will say, hey, I still need to think about it, I'll get back to you when I'm ready. And they'll just pack up their bags and they'll stop following up on that prospect that was as hot as a stovetop before. And over the matter of a couple of days it's cooled down and they don't think that there's any strange reason why they've cooled down and they believe what that prospect is telling them. So it's really just grit tenacity willing to stay in it and do all the things that unsuccessful people aren't willing to do.

And do you think there is a key to following up and there's an art towards it where you have to balance between being extremely annoying and just shut up or the actual pacing and the actual words that you use in order to follow up? What have you found that has been extremely effective in the follow up?

Yeah, most people are, they're like whining 2 year olds when they follow up. People, they're just like, hey, have you looked at the proposal? Hey, are you ready to buy? Hey, hey, hey, hey. Like it's all about me, right? I've got a thing called value added follow up. And that is to add value throughout the follow up and throughout that sales cycle. And you better have something that is of value to that prospect every time you follow them up. Otherwise you're going to stop following up and that person's going to start ghosting you and they're going to start screening your calls and not replying to your emails and they are going to completely disappear because you are an annoying, unwelcome pest in their life. People are ducking phone calls from their family members and their friends, let alone needy salesperson. So you need to make sure that your positioning, what it is that you're following up about is very important to that prospect to solve the problem that they initially reached out to you to solve. And every interaction with you must provide value and move that prospect closer to a buying decision.

So how would you then take the next step in order to add value first and then follow up?

Yeah, well, it's not about adding value first and then following up. It's about adding value as you follow up.

As you follow.

Yeah. So like if you sent out a proposal for somebody to run Facebook ads with you, for instance, and you've sent them out and you said, hey, like the, the retainers, two grand, we're going to charge you this and then that and there's a setup cost and then I'm just calling you and I'm like, hey, like, yo, Christopher, like, do you want to sign up? Like, have you, have you made a decision yet? How did you go with the proposal that I sent you last week? Yeah, look, I still haven't had a chat with my business partner. Give me a call back in a month. A month? Yeah, call me back in a month. Right. And so all you're doing is calling that person for your own outcome. It's because you want to sign them up as A client, and you want to get the money or you want to make the commission. You're showing up to sell, not to serve. Whereas you show up to serve. It's like, hey, Chris, I'm just following up on the. On the proposal that I sent you out last week. Since we last spoke. I've gone into your Facebook ads library and had a look at all the ads that you're running there and had a look at the funnel that you're sending them through. And I've already identified some incredible, incredible opportunities where I think based on what I'm seeing, I could have the amount that you're paying to get a lead right now for the same amount of money that you're spending. I also took a look at the two biggest competitors that you mentioned, and I have dissected their entire funnels and their ads, their opt in pages, and everything that they're doing. And I've got some amazing stuff that I can really apply to your ad account. Have you seen enough to make a decision yet, Kris? Because I'm eager to get in here and help you solve this problem. Because right now I estimate you're probably wasting somewhere in the vicinity of 40 to 50% on ad spend right now. Can we get this done for you? Right, I'm showing there to serve. I'm adding value. I'm not just bugging you and asking you just to buy so I can make a commission.

Huge difference. And so after 16, you moved to London, did two years there, and then did you decide to then move to the States again in order to pursue something else or what made you then make that move?

Yeah, I was my best friend from California, so he was living over with me in London, and we decided to go over the States for a while as well and just see more of the world. And we both came from a beach town. Well, I came from a beach town. He lived here for a while and then decided to kind of go over overseas as well. And so, yeah, we went over the States, kept on traveling, kept on selling.

And then. So did you then start. Decide that you wanted to start a company after the States or what was. Where were you going?

No, I headed back to Australia. Everyone said, like, man, you've got a natural knack of sales. Like, you're a natural salesperson. You should look at becoming, you know, getting involved in marketing. So I actually came back and, you know, decided to go to university and study a bachelor's in business in marketing. And I did that for two and a half years. And then I Started, I did for two years and then I started a business over a summer break because I was working part time at university, like selling Google AdWords for a business. And I got asked on the telephone like, hey, I don't want to run Google Ads. I want to be on the organic side of Google. I want to be in those free listings. And me being the ambitious young salesperson that I was, I said, yo, I can help you with that. We'll get you up on there. And then got off the phone when I spoke to my manager and was like, hey, I just sold this person search engine optimization. And he's like, well we don't do that, so you better figure out how to do that and figure it out. I did. And kind of, that kind of let me fall down the rabbit hole of, you know, online marketing and all of that kind of stuff. And then I decided that, you know, I could start up my own business and my own agency. And I did that over a summer break. And by the end of summer, you know, we were, we were doing some pretty big revenue numbers and I had a bunch of people working for me and was like, hey, why should I go back to university and learn how to run a business when I am running a business right now? So I dropped out of university and I built that business up to, you know, a couple of million dollars in revenue and a team of 16 people. And then I sold that business and went back to university to finish my last few units.

What are some of the you work with, you know, selling and the digital marketing and you see so many different entrepreneurs on a day to day basis. What are some of the commonalities and the big mistakes you actually see beginning entrepreneurs make that sets them apart from, from succeeding and then also failing?

Definitely chasing shiny object syndrome. I got bitten by that little sucker early on in my career is just like, you know, I think a lot of people, they, they watch a lot of gurus and they watch a lot of YouTube videos and they see all these shiny objects and they have entrepreneurial ADD and they just change, like chase these things around like crazy. Like it's drop shipping, it's print on demand, it's crypto. It's like whatever the flavor of the month is, there's all these people running to that. It's like the modern day gold rush and you have all these people panning for gold on the Internet and they're focused on just the shine and just the things that release a shot of dopamine in their brain and then they constantly chase These things around forever. Not understanding the basic premise of it doesn't really matter what it is that you choose. Whatever you choose, you can make it big. There are people that have built billion dollar businesses selling flour, water and sugar and making donuts or selling coffee. It's whatever you apply yourself and you travel the low long road of mastery to and that you have an unrelenting love affair with of your craft and understanding like what it is that you want to do for a, a good portion of your life. So much so that even if you did it for the next two years and didn't make any money, you would be okay with that. Because that's how much you need to love. What it is that you want to do is what you're doing is so painful and so agonizing for you and there is a gravitational pull away from doing that thing, then you're just never going to make it. You're never ever going to be able to, to chase difficulty and do the hard things and to walk through the fires that you need to walk through to be successful. Because the reality of it is whatever it is that you choose to do is going to be very hard and you're going to have lots of setbacks and things aren't going to go your way and people are going to double cross you and you know, team members are going to do wrong by you and there's going to be so many things that you need to do with and if you aren't, if you don't fall in love with the game that you're playing and you have all of those problems, it's over. It's going to be back to the cubicle cupcake. That's the way that it's going to work.

What made you start King Kong?

You know, for me, as I said, I've always been fascinated by solving the number one problem that businesses face, which is how do I get more customers? Right? It's a huge, huge gaping hole in the market, right? It's like the number one reason why businesses fail is because they're under capitalized. And the reason that they're under capitalized is because they do not know how to ring the cash register in large enough volume with fat enough margins to keep their business alive. And that all comes down to they just don't have the ability to go out there and get customers. They're just operating by whatever fate falls in their lap. They're hoping and praying that someone shows up, that they get a referral, that all of a sudden there's just going to be a stampede of customers that are banging down their doors. So for me, I always saw that as a huge, huge problem. And I believe you know, that business is a huge vehicle to drive change. And I've seen firsthand the problems of what money can do and the lack of having money can do more specifically. And I think that there's this enough stresses and problems in the world to worry about, that money shouldn't be one of them.

How did you grow King Kong over the first couple years? Were you practicing and working in the trenches in order to hone your skills more so not only on the digital side of things, but obviously you've been working in sales over the years. But what was the progression you took over the first few years to really grow that business?

For me, I started it with sweat equity. I didn't have any venture capital. I did not have any rich family members or like a bunch of inheritance or bar mitzvah money or there was no other endowment in my name, none of that stuff, right. I had to pull myself up from my bootstraps and go out there with $50 and roll up my sleeves and get to work. So I just use sweat equity, I use my time. And I got out there and I started making 150 cold calls per day to businesses that were running Google Ads and to offering to get them ranked on the left hand side in the free listings of Google. And that was me all day long. I would wake up at 4am, go for a run, get myself in peak state, get into the, you know, get into my home bedroom where I had a computer that my girlfriend so kindly bought me. And I would start jamming on the telephones 150 cold calls a day. And I did that, you know, until I got my first client in the first two days I think it was. And then I just kept on grinding, selling by day, working by night. I was working 18 hours a day and I did that solid without coming up for air for a year. And then I had enough money to start using capital instead of human capital to go out there and get customers. And I applied the same, you know, strategies that I was doing for my clients businesses to grow my own business, really taking that message that I was using over the phone to 150 businesses a day and cold calling them. And I took that message and I put that in the forms of ads and VSLs and landing pages. And instead of calling on 150 businesses a day, I was able to call on 150,000 businesses in a Day and that's when things really started to take off.

Over the years. How did you know how to make the correct hires and how do you distinguish, how do you, how do you make sure you find good talent?

Yeah, I don't think that you know how to make the right hires. Right. In the beginning it's, you know, obviously looking back, in hindsight, it's, that's where you know, all the wisdom comes from. But in the beginning, the way that I ran it through was what am I doing and is it going to make the company money, right? Is it going to move the money needle or is it just busy work? So like I knew that like the thing that was going to be able to put myself in a position to grow a business was that I needed to have money. Like I couldn't hire anybody, I couldn't do anything until I had money in the bank. Right. And then when you get to your first hire, if you've only got a small amount of cash reserves, it's very stressful and you just constantly are thinking about how you're going to pay for that person. So I just kept on selling and I start just, I started just delegate, automate and outsource the things that weren't the selling and hiring people to do those things and then manage those people so I could keep the main thing, the main thing which is to bring cash in the door, the oxygen, the lifeblood that just pumps into the lungs of a business. And then I did that and I was fortunate to hire some incredible people that still work with me today. You know, my first two hires are still with me. They still, they run divisions within my company and that makes me incredibly proud. And I've got, you know, incredible team members that have been, you know, a part of the journey. And I think that, like my advice to people is that when you're building a business, you want to make yourself redundant at each step of the way. So you want to do what I call a King's audit and you want to audit your time and you want to have a look at where are you spending the bulk of your time. Right. And is that a revenue producing activity? Does it ring the cash register? If it doesn't, then the first step is to try and delete it if it doesn't. And sometimes a lot of the stuff can just be erased. It doesn't even need to be done, it's just being done. And then the other thing is to automate it. And then if you can't automate it, the third step is to delegate it and hire somebody to do those things. And as you go along your journey as an entrepreneur, there are different ascension points that you reach to. And at all of those different points, doing that audit is incredibly valuable because you spend your time on different things.

We've had a lot of different powerhouses on the show, millionaires, billionaires. There's a big commonality between a lot of the successful people is asking for help from people that have actually done it and people that have already paid the dummy tax. How do you personally view asking for help from other people? And then also how do you value getting mentors and having mentorship?

Yeah, so this is an interesting one. So I can't say that like I've had any mentors in business in terms of I haven't had the direct one on one mentor mentee relationship. I'm not a part of, you know, entrepreneurs, organization or any masterminds or anything like that. Could that be to a detriment of me? It could be. I have always looked to, you know, books and resources and most of the people that I get advice from are no longer alive. So I like to look at the completion of someone's full life and what it is that they were able to achieve in that full book and that full chapter of their life. Right. Rather than just getting a glimpse into one particular point of time where someone might be successful. So I do believe that there is, you know, great lessons to be learned from people. And I'm not bagging on the having mentors. I think it's a good thing. It hasn't been something that I have done understood.

There's so many people nowadays in the digital marketing space, which the space is just getting more crowded and crowded each day. What are some of the distinguishing factors you think separates the ones that are coming in, but they're still able to penetrate the market and to do deliver great results. And some of the ones that don't.

Really stick around, I think that people that, that come in and they don't stick around is those people that have the entrepreneurial add that I spoke about. Right. It's like they're, it's like one month they're doing Amazon fba, then they're this like buying altcoins. And then the next thing they think consulting is the hottest thing and then, you know, it's a real estate next time and then it's drop shipping and it's like they, no matter what they do, they won't be successful because they're just looking for the short term wins they're not dedicating themselves to mastery, right? So no matter if you go down that road, it is a hamster wheel and you just run faster and faster for less and less cheese and that doesn't stop. So that's like, it's just like in any category, in any industry, there's always going to be the fly by nighters that come on in. Now that's too hard. Let me try to find something else that's easier. And then they move on. And then there's a lot of people that can build a business, you know, and they can run it for a year or two, maybe even three years, and then they just run out of stamina. They're just like, this thing is exhausting. Like I need to just pack up shop. And they look for the easy way out. Whether they sell, whether they have an appearance of a cell and they bounce or they just pack up and you just are kind of disappear into the shadows and they're coming, gone. Like we've all seen those people. It just, it's a hard, hard game. Entrepreneurship is an endurance run. You I like an entrepreneurship to like eating a mouthful of fire ants blindfolded, you know, while riding a motorbike naked through the snow. Like it's a difficult thing to do and you need to have thick skin. And it comes back to what we were discussing before about falling in love with the game. You don't fall in love with the game, then you're going to just pack up shot. Like it's going to, it's too hard, there's too much problems. There's always somebody gunning for you. It's the most competitive sport on the planet. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there is somebody out there that is coming for you and it does not ever stop. And every day more and more soldiers arrive on the battlefield to fight. So unless you're sharp and unless you're in love with it, then it just won't end well for you.

Knowing what you know now, if you were to give speak to young Sabri when you were just about to start King Kong to give him an advice, some advice on how to do it better, more efficient, even grow it, potentially even bigger than, than the, the same trajectory you're going right now, what advice would you give yourself?

Like I would just say like fall in love with the boring work early on and you know, be willing to do all the things that unsuccessful people aren't willing to do. Like that's really what it comes down to, to be honest, you know, in, in a world where everyone wants to do the sexy shit and they want to optimize the funnel and boost the conversion rates and skyrocket the roas and go onto a Facebook group and circle jerk each other and talk about how they got like a 1000% roas on some ad set they'd spent a hundred bucks on. That's what everyone wants to do, the funnel. Hackers and all these media buyers just talking bullshit, right? They don't want to sit down and stare at a profit and loss statement and looks at cost of goods sold and build teams and be a leader and, you know, set up company values and mission statements and build systems. They don't want to do all that. That's the boring work, but that's the thing that pays the dividends. And so that's the things that I've realized over my lifetime is just to do those things that you naturally do not want to do and being okay with chasing those really complex things to solve that is, you know, the fishing is best where the fewest go. And in a world where everyone is just focused on those vanity metrics, on the fun, sexy stuff, that's where the least returns are to come.

You've now grown an agency with so many employees. What have you found and developed over the year to make yourself an effective leader?

I think that you, you ultimately need to lead from the front. Like, I have done every role in my company and you know, I have been the account manager, I've been the copywriter, I've been the ads manager, the toilet roll changer. I've done everything so I know what's involved. So I don't speak from some ivory tower about like, hey, this is how you should do things or do. Like I try to come from, like, I think that I have a lot of empathy because I've done all of the things that I ask people to do and I don't ask anybody to do anything that I haven't been willing to do myself. And I think that, you know, first of all with all of this stuff is that people, they want to be around people that they can learn from and people that they're inspired by. And you can only be somebody that is inspired if you yourself are inspired, right? If you are in love with the game, if you have passion for what it is that you do, if you are constantly curious, you know, for me, I'm dedicated to this game for the long term and I'm a student of the game and I'm a student of markets and I write copy every day and I do all of the things that my team do. So when I speak to them they know that I am a doer because I am out there doing. I am not just out there speaking. I'm not out there, you know, trying to just amass as much net worth as I can. Like I am in love with the game. I love driving change, I love having an impact and living up to my full potential and I hope that you know that that shines through with everyone that I work with.

To be productive, a lot of entrepreneurs, even through every product, service, product or service business, you have to develop system and processes. As an, as an agency owner, what are some of the ways you have found to create system and processes to have predictable success? Have been some of the most efficient methods.

Yeah, just having everything like you know, having SOPs for everything, having checklists for everything, like you know, a lot of agencies, it's like they'll be like oh this campaign's not working. And then they'll you be like why isn't it working? They're like oh, the ROAS isn't where it needs to be. And then you'd be like why isn't the ROAS where it needs to be? And they're like I don't know, like I just, I think it might be the ads are fatigued, they don't have any systems, they don't know how to diagnose what part of the funnels not working. They don't know where to focus their energy. So it's, you know, for everything in our business, like we've got checklists, we've got SOPs, we've got all the things, it's all systemized and running like a well oiled machine. You don't build a business of this size and don't have systems because the business just burns to the ground. So like I have a phenomenal team that work in the business. You know, I have eight managers that run the company. I've got a great general manager who runs the day to day show and they've set up phenomenal systems. I had systems before they came. They've vetted those systems, they've scrapped those systems, they've brought in their own ones. But I think that for every business you, you need to have a very detailed checklist of everything that it takes to be successful in whatever function it is that that person happens to be working on in the business.

Amazing. Sabri, my last question to you is if you were to be stripped away of all of your money, resources and network today and you have to start all over again tomorrow. What are the first three things you would do and why?

Well, like, I look at businesses, like from first principles. So I ultimately think that at the end of the day, when you boil business down, it really comes down to two things. And the first thing is getting attention. And the second thing is solving problems, because that's all there is in business, getting attention and solving problems. So, like, the very first thing that you need to do with I was stripped of everything that I have. I have to get attention, right? So I would default to what I know that it is to get attention. I would find a big, pressing, burning, hair on fire problem that has a starving market attached to it that, you know, buy things irrationally, emotionally, in large, large quantities and have a bleeding neck problem where they need to get an immediate solution to that problem. And then I would get in front of those people. I would probably do, you know, cold outreach. I would shoot them loom videos. I would do cold email, cold calling. I'd send them direct mail packages. I would use every tool and tactic and weapon that I have in my arsenal that is free to go out there and get in front of those people. And there's so many ways that you can do that. It wouldn't be one. It would be all, I use multimodality, reach out to hit them wherever I possibly could. And then I would make them an absolutely irresistible godfather offer that is impossible for them to refuse for them to do business with me.

Amazing. Sabri, thank you so much for being on the show. For people that want to keep up with what you potentially even do, work with, you buy your book, where's the best place to find you?

Sure, I think the best place to start is, you know, you can check out my YouTube. I put out lots of content on there for free. And then if you like what you see and if you get some value out of that, you can check out my book Sell like crazy and you can buy a copy of that. And I think that that will be a very good gateway drug into the world that I operate in.

Sabri, thank you so much for your time, brother.

No problems at all. Thanks for having me on. Hey, guys, if you're enjoying these videos, please, like subscribe and hit the bell button as we're dropping a video like this every other day on YouTube. And if you've got any questions, just leave a comment below with heysubrey. And I will do my best to get to.