Meet The Man Who Scales Sales Teams to $1M/Mo Effortlessly (Anthony Carter)

Hey guys, this is Top Trends with Nick Fisher. I got Anthony Carter, the man on here. Anthony is like the sales version of me. Back in the day when before we had all these brands, I had a marketing agency. Oftentimes we would come in and be the only one stop shop and take not only a retainer sometimes, but oftentimes like a company couldn't afford it. They were early on or they just wanted someone to plug in. They didn't have to worry about it. So we would come in and take a percentage of something in order to run all the marketing operations and kind of advise on the rest of the business. Anthony, it sounds like that's what you do on the sales side. Like I said, over the years I've worked with some bad ones and some good ones. So I would love, love to get to know you more, but so many people have told me good things about you.

Awesome. Awesome.

Yeah, man.

It's really great to connect and everything, Nick. And yeah, over the last few years I got into the online high ticket sales space actually by accident.

Me too. Yeah, yeah.

Like my, my cousin, he was actually like a little cousin of mine at the time. I was like, I was like 21 years old. He was 19. And I was hanging out with him and he just kept on taking call after call after call. I was like, what are you. Who are you talking to? He's like, listen to this. He's like, I'm selling something for like my marketing agency. And then I saw someone pay him like 5k and then they did that like four times throughout the day. And I was like, all right, I got to learn from you. I gotta figure this out. So yeah, that's my sweet.

And is. Do you guys still work together to this day?

No, we don't work together. He does like E commerce. I'm more like on the info coaching space.

So what? You don't have to tell me what the offer was if you don't want to, but was it in a closer role? Set a role? Like, describe to me now, like, okay, I see the light. I want to make money. What was the first month look like for you?

Yeah, yeah, the very first time when I was like, okay, I can see myself making a lot of money with this. Was he actually rented out a mansion in Atlanta for like a launch for one of his clients. And this guy, he was like a real estate coach at the time and they were building out webinars like the whole entire night just to making sure everything was together. And I had no idea what they were Talking about it was like a foreign language to me. So I'm like, what are these guys doing? Like a webinar.

It was like a Kanye west studio session kind of fulfillment.

Yeah. And I'm just like the guy just like I'm still in college at the time too, so I'm like, what are these guys doing? And they're telling me, yeah, we're doing like 400, 500k a month. And I'm like, what am I doing wrong?

Okay.

And so they end up doing the launch and I saw the numbers. They did about $1.2 million recurring though, every month. Got it off of real estate. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, all right. Yeah, I'm going to figure this all out.

I'm going, what were you doing before that? Or what were you dabbling?

Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't. I was in college, so I was in school. Yeah. Yeah. And I was trying to figure out like how to do drop shipping and E commerce and everything. Oh yeah. Like similar.

Did you ever have any success with it at all?

No, I did not.

I literally the dumbest stuff. Looking back at it now, I had read Tim Ferriss's four Hour Work Week and it was like recommending that you not even AliExpress. It was saying straight up Alibaba with like 100 minimum order quantity of something. I was like, dang. So I had cell phone cases under my bed that I bought inventory of. So I was like, poorly drop shipping. Not even just shipping is what I was doing. So yeah, it never worked out for me either. But that's, that's super cool. So you had that. Aha. You got on. What was like the reality of like, were you good right away as a sales rep or did it take some time?

Yeah, so at the time I didn't even know that there was like training out there. So he was just like, hey, shadow some calls for like a day or.

Two and then it sounds super easy.

Yeah, yeah. So the very first call I got on it was like a multi seven figure e commerce brand. And. Yeah. And I was the first lead. Yeah, very first lead. And I, I closed it for 10k and that's. Yeah, we were one.

One out of one type closer that was not me. Yeah, that's cool. So then second call.

Yeah, I remember the second call at the time, like it was just like this random broke lead, like no money or anything at all. And I'm just trying to figure out what to sell him. And that's when he was like, hey, not everyone's going to be qualified. And I was like, oh, what's that mean, qualified? I knew nothing.

You were so warped at that point. You're like, this is going to be good. Yeah. That's funny. Okay.

Yeah.

Because people have obviously way different experiences and then eventually get there. Mine was, mine was obviously different being on the marketing side, but I can think of the same thing. For me it was like getting the unlock and then finding out. Getting marketing clients was actually relatively easy if they. You were good with getting paid $100 a month. So I had five $100 a month marketing clients and I was media buying. So it was a full time job and I was making 500 bucks. Like this is not very much fun. I was promised client value higher than this. I was running traffic for this dude who was like white labeling beachbody like a bunch of garbage stuff. So I never got that good. I was actually pretty poor. And I just was like, okay. I had also not been mentored or anything. I just started doing that because the drop shipping. Not the drop shipping, the shipping business. I was like, maybe I can use ads and do this. So I just kind of stumbled into it eventually. I was in this Facebook mastermind for free online with this guy named Cody Sperber. And then, yeah, he took me under his wing and I actually got trained proper. But did you think after that first call that you were just a natural or did you think you're like, okay, what's going on here?

Yeah, I was like, this is easy. And since it's my cousin, he was like, hey, I'm going to give you a 25% commission for all your closes.

Oh, that's so high. You pulled up family override.

Oh man, it was amazing. And I'm like, okay, this is. I can see myself making a bunch of cash with doing.

I would still be taking calls.

Yeah. And I didn't know what an appointment setter was or even the title of being a closer was. He was just like, here's my Instagram password. Go find more leads. You can obviously make money. Here's my password. So I started into in sales and then in 30 days I took him from doing like 15, 20k a month to like his first 100k month, bro.

Then I'm really glad you're actually a rare bird because there's usually two camps. The ones who are just, they get the setter skill set and it's hard for them to transition to close because they're so used to setting. That was more so me. Like media buyers have A hard time. Like being great right from day one generally, because you're setting calls, a calendar, and then opposite side closers get a little bit too spoon fed and then don't want to do outbound. So what, Talk me through that. Like, how did you get both sides?

Yeah, I was just hungry and I feel like because of the way that I was being compensated to as well and like the opportunity I was, I. I didn't know there was another way to do it. And I feel like today's closers, they get kind of sold on a dream. Like, hey, you just show up on your laptop wherever you want to be at. You don't have to go and hunt in and get any leads or anything. So I wasn't consuming any of that content.

I just knew you weren't a Cold Gordon fan ahead of time.

Yeah, I was like, all right, I got to just go on this Instagram account and just figure it out. If not, then I'm not gonna be able to pay any bills, so. So that's kind of where it came from.

Dude, that's so funny. Yeah, I used to have a thermometer behind me when I was quote, unquote, being an entrepreneur. A hundred dollar clients and all it was was $3,000 a month. And every time I made a sale, I would just bubble it up. My wife told me that if I couldn't get, couldn't make $3,000 a month, I had to go back and get a real job. So that actually happened for four months. I was successful and then I missed the 3K. Someone churned or something probably, and I had to go work as a director of marketing. But it was the best thing that happened to me. So what, what happened to you after that? How long did you stay? Or did you burn out pretty quick?

No, I stayed for about a year and a half and I actually ended up getting equity in the company. And like, everyone was super. Yeah, everyone was super young. So, like, I don't know why he gave me equity. I mean, I was just closing, but.

Like, we had something good. Like business owners are dumb, but not that dumb usually.

No, I. I generally think this was so stupid. There was five owners. It was five. It was five owners. And like, we're really excited. Oh, we're doing numbers and everything, but the money is getting split five different ways.

Dude, that's. That's cool. I like when people are loyal to the people that got them there, though. Like, even if it was quote unquote dumb financially, like, the fact he saw value, that's like, even just him making the offer of any percentage, I think is the cool thing.

Yeah, it was. It really was. And. And that. That kind of, like, made me realize, okay, I can do something more. And. And that's when I branched off by accident. I actually was like, let me get a little bit out of my comfort zone. I just put on my laptop just closing all the time. There was this guy. He's actually in all the school ads right now. His name is, like, Smitty the Goat. He's like a business credit.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at the time, I'm not going to say his numbers or anything. He wasn't doing anything, like crazy. Like, he was just starting to build his brand and everything. And he invited me to basically speak on his stage for his birthday Mastermind event. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, I've only done closing, but I guess someone wants me in our industry.

Are people doing Masterminds at their birthday party?

Exactly, exactly. So I'm like, all right, this is a little bit out of my comfort zone. Let me just fly out, go and do it. And when I get to the event, he's like, hey, I don't actually want you to just speak. I want you to host the whole entire event for me. And I'm like, whoa, let's like, MC the thing.

That's a big ask.

Yeah. And I'm like, all right. I guess I wanted to get on my comfort zone. Let me do it. And everyone that I was emceeing for at the Mastermind the event, they were all like, online coaches. They were doing, like, really good numbers. So from doing that at the event, I built, like, a bunch of relationships with them, and they were like, hey, I want you to do my sales. I want you to do my marketing. Just from me being the MC and hosting the event and introducing myself. So I started bringing on some clients, and then the whole thing kind of blew up, and I'm like, all right, I don't need to work at this agency and do this anymore. I can start, like a coaching coaches type of offer. And that's what I ran for about two years straight.

And, guys, if you're listening to this, that's the way to do it. Like, if you're going to coach coaches, ideally, you should have been good at coaching something before that. It's like, people try to skip there, thinking that's the easiest way to make money. It's actually harder because, like, for. Especially for Anthony to be the sales trainer. Sales trainer, you get like, there's a level of respect that comes with that, that people are going to suss out. So, yeah, it sounds fun to just sell, you know, sell stuff like that. And you're like, man, they're just selling coaching coaches to coaches. It's. It's not that easy. So for every Tony Robbins, there's like a thousand broke life coaches. I always say so. Dude, that's super cool.

What?

Give me some game then. What? What should I have done better on that intro if you emceed? Because I'm getting better at this every episode, but I'm not. This is. This is day one for me, essentially. You know, not actually, but for all intents and purposes. So I intend to get better. Like what. What would you have done if you had to emcee yourself?

No, like, like generally, like, I think, I think you're already like a natural edit. I think you're really good.

I had no idea, but thank you.

I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I literally, I was so nervous when I was at the event, but I brought my wife, well, my girlfriend at the time, and she was like, oh, that sounded really good. Like, you did a great job.

And.

And then people just kept coming up to me wanting services, so I was like, let me just launch this offer and maybe like three or four years ago. I feel like there weren't as many people going like after coaches back then.

Yeah, there wasn't. It's just like it's gradually expanded and that's what happens. It's like when the money's good, it attracts more people over time until it doesn't, and then certain, certain niches kind of go away. Certain ones expand. So. But I love it personally. So, like, it's. As far as, like, your sales. Were you ever in a sales leadership role where you had a floor under you or if you. You were like rep and then entrepreneur?

No, no, no. So I was a rep and then my. My main responsibility at the agency was the management, so I had to like, hire all the SDRs and all the AES.

What challenges do you run into there? Because I had a really hard time figuring out how to hire SDRs originally.

Um, I feel like nobody wants to be in sdr, so that's like the, the biggest bottleneck. Yeah, yeah.

It's like the office of the remote, closer lifestyle that gets. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And you, you generally have to like, like sales. I feel like sometimes people just get in it only for the money, but you gotta actually love the game. So. Yeah. Endless amount of hiccups. Though, like, literally all the time with hiring, like, SDRs. Like, I. When I'm setting expectations with like a new partner, a new client, I'm like, this is going to be one of those roles where a lot of people are going to come in, a lot of people are also going to come out, but the very best ones are going to stay and stick to the offer. But yeah, like, like I was telling you earlier, Nick, I was running that coaching coaches offer, and it was about a 3 or 5k offer that I was doing, and it was more of a coaching program. Like, we weren't doing too much. It was just like, here's a funnel. And then show up to some weekly live calls and we'll show you how to like, basically do outbound, because that's how I was scaling up the market.

That was your method. Yeah. And that's. That's the thing most people don't know. It's like, it's not just a coaching coaches offer. It's usually with a qualifier of like, I have a lead acquisition, client method that I'm teaching. Not that they're like teaching them how to be a better coach, which sometimes. But, yeah, they're already a coach. Right.

Yeah. And yeah, that, that offer, it was mainly towards beginners, so we were bringing on about like 203.

That's tough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the. The community was so strong. People really liked it and everything. But then one of the people inside of the community, she was like a real estate coach. And the time that I met her, like I said our services were like 3 or 5k. My closer closed her for like 15k. Instead I was like, what are you doing?

Like, I've never, like, rabble on it and just did it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, what are you doing? He was like, yeah. Like, you know, I think that like, you know, she had the budget. We can raise our prices. Really. I was like, okay, bro.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, but this, it was like this random African lady. She had like less than 500 followers. And I'm like, all right, this is gonna be challenging. Challenging to help her and everything. And she ended up actually, like, being like one of the most successful people in the program very, very quickly.

And.

Yeah. And I was like, all right, cool. Let me start, like, trying to do some like, one on one time with her and actually getting to know her because I like client success people. And she was like, hey, I want to launch like, you know, like a boot camp. And I was like, sure. I was like, let's let's launch it together. And historically, the whole entire time when I was running the business, I would never do any, like, JVs or partnerships. And she grew from like, 500 followers to a hundred thousand followers, just, like, going through ourselves.

What's her name or what's her handle?

Yeah, we.

We can bleed.

Yeah. Building. Building wealth. Building wealth through rentals. I can even drop it here in the chat.

Okay. Yeah, I just. I didn't. I was like, shoot, is she in jail now or something? Or.

No, no, she's still crushing it. She's still crushing. This is her. Her handle in the chat.

That's happened to me before. That's instantly where my head went at. Had a business partner and went to jail, and I was like, dang.

But, yeah, that's. Yeah, that's her and everything. But, yeah. So we launched the offer. I got her, like, on a really good revenue share, and she did, like, 200k in. In about 48 hours. I was like, holy. Like, this is just as much like profit that I was making with bringing on, like, all these different coaches, all the beginners. I just launched her, and I made, like, double the amount of profits that I'm making in a month bringing on all these people. So that's when I realized that my model was broken and I need to start changing things up and getting people on, like, a revenue share.

That says a lot about you. It's often. I find it really refreshing that you would put a student on like that at all. A lot of times people love talking about their students and their testimonials until. Until one of them starts to try to outshine or, like, looks like they might outshine them. To me, that's the ultimate sign that you did something right or.

Well, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And at the time, like, I didn't know of anybody actually, like, doing a model kind of like that. So I didn't have, like, the full confidence to make a complete pivot, but I knew my heart wasn't really in the. The model that I was doing before, but I never made any pivots or changes or anything. And then I ended up actually coming across you. I have no idea how I found you at all, like, online, but I was like, this guy's doing what I want to do. And I didn't know he was. You're behind Jamil's offer. I think that's his name.

Jamil.

Yeah. Yeah. Because the agency I was. That I was working with, that I got the equity in the closer over there was actually one of the top closers on one of Jamil's offers before Astro. Yeah. For Astral Flipping. And he used to tell me, like, yeah, I'm closing over there. I didn't know what it was. I was like, what are you doing? I said it.

That might be where you. Yeah, maybe it came in because that's. That's the first brand I started after I left consulting.com. god bless. Was Astro flipping with Jamil and Josiah?

Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, this guy's doing what I want to do. So it gave me some type of validation. But a lot of my. A lot of my foundation literally came from working at that agency that was doing about, like, 100k a month. So I knew that I had bottlenecks that, like, if this is my foundation and who I've learned from the most and, like, my growth wasn't going to be ended up limited. I don't know if you ever had a. Like, a situation like that before where you're like, okay, this is my foundation. Or maybe I need to go back and actually learn more. Because I know you said you were doing your media buying at like, a hundred dollars a month, and then you wouldn't work for the agency.

I feel like that right now. Like, that's why I even brought it up. Like, give me some advice, because I know that after a while, the business is all. You start to get attached. Like, I left the CMO seat for a couple years at New Reach before coming back, and I'm a big believer in redemonstrating confidence. So, like, if I come in and do stuff, like, it's telling the team. I was like, I haven't taken sales calls in five years. I took some the last seven days here. It's been fun, like, to get back in it. I get back into media buying. I just want to get my feet wet again. Just so that I have not only the respect of the team, but the conviction that I know what I'm doing still. Because if I don't, I'm like, shoot. You steer the. You steer the wheel. Now I'll just be CEO. So for me, that's the importance of. May be it's different for you, but, dude, I. I would love to even hear now that you have that there's probably ways for us to work together pretty quickly. So what's your, like, process? Cause here's what typically happens, and then I'll tell you the next phase of the company for us. So what has historically happened is that I find an undercover expert that doesn't want to teach, try to convince them to teach. Because I'm like, you're the best. Like, you don't realize how good you are. Like Jamil was doing and Josiah were doing 50 to 80 house flips in Arizona per month. And you had Joe Schmo down the road teaching. And that's fine too if you're. As long as you're doing one deal, I feel like you can teach, but like three deals a month. And I was like, you guys don't know how much I would crush this. I've worked for a real estate investing company. Clever investor. I can, I will destroy. So that ended up happening. I forget how I convinced them. Maybe we all knew each other maybe from that era through a mutual. So they let me do it. But that was the first brand and I only had the track record of being in consulting.com at that point to really booster my reputation. So that went well. And if it didn't, I don't know if I'd be here. Like that first brand hitting and then sub two a year later with pace also hitting gave me a ton of confidence. Probably too much. Probably too much ego. I started to think I could make anything work. But we would always go from zero to one. And if I could show you a graph of Astro since you're familiar.

I.

Want to avoid this problem and if you can help me avoid this problem, I would love to figure out a way to work together. So the first people think Astro was a huge success right out of the gate. And it, I mean, it was like on month one. But it's because Jamil, Josiah, I was media buying and the two business partners were taking calls. So we didn't have a sales team. We had and then Josh shout out to Josh Montovan left his corporate job at PayPal as a lawyer to take sales calls for us. And then eventually Josiah and Jamil were like, I can't, you know, keep doing this. We need to find sales reps. You can see where this happened and you can see where I actually found a good sales manager, brought him in. He brought in his reps much like you, let's say a young, you know, a younger Anthony Carter here. And then we shot up. So guys, like, if you're watching this and you're wondering what does Anthony do again? Basically solves, I think this ramp up. Unless I'm wrong.

You're right.

You're right.

Sweet.

Amazing. So in which case the next phase, the company which you maybe find appealing is we're starting now to get people who are post revenue that want to work with us because of the track record after we had especially sub 2 and it was doing 60 million a year. The portfolio is running around. We'll see 80 to 100 million a year. It's, it's becoming harder and harder to maintain and launch these brands because you dilute your talent. So right now we have over 10 info brands, over 5 SaaS. And you can imagine, maybe, maybe you could hint to is why I'm doing this podcast. The podcast is really kind of for this next generation of people that hopefully both me and you can inspire. Like I want to provide an entrepreneurial environment to where like you can get your legs or your feet wet as an entrepreneur. Feet wet. I don't even think that's an expression, but you guys know what I meant and not have the risk of like financial ruin. So for me that was what I needed to make the jump. Otherwise I would have probably not been an entrepreneur.

Yeah, no, I definitely hear you and I, I feel like it just comes down to like being able to have real humility and I feel like sometimes people just don't have that. And all humility is, is just freedom from pride and ego. But that can end up getting in your way because you know, everyone wants to be where they want to be at. Right. Everyone sees like the large entrepreneurs online like yourself like literally crushing it. But, but they don't want to do like the hard part, which is putting your pride aside and working for somebody and just getting the right insights and information out of the right foundation. So that's awesome. Yeah, that's.

Dude, thank you for saying that because I, I usually lead with this. It's not only do I find it to be more. You're right. Like people like us mislead sometimes making it seem too easy, but not intentionally. It's just like you're. You don't want to usually talk about all low lives and it's a depressing podcast, so. But half of our brands fail that we've launched like we are successful 50% of the time. Entrepreneurship is very hard and if, if we. I hadn't had those few wins like that made up for it and made me so happy. Like I wouldn't have the grit that I have today in order to keep going.

Yeah, and like I said, I've talked about a lot of like 100k months, 200k, like the six figure market and everything. And I would always see people online talking about million dollar months and I found out like the right model was actually partnering with people, instead of only charging, like, upfront 3 or $5,000 from that experience with the person I told you earlier, but I never really made the pivot. I continue to do, like, the program. And then one day actually went under a cyber attack. My company did. So my media buyer, she clicked on a link inside of the ads manager, and. And it liquidated our whole business. Bank account. It liquidated clients, bank accounts, credit cards, everything. And at the time, like, if you go to my ig, like, I was. I was in Greece, and I just proposed to my wife and everything. And not to get too spiritual, like, this is a spiritual attack. Like, something is going on. Like, this is insane. Yeah. So I had a. I had to make a pivot. And I remember, like, this is, like, the darkest times ever. A week later, this. This random guy DM'd me. And he was like, hey, I have a cyber security program. I'm doing 100. What? Wait, what is this? Like, all right, this is crazy. He's like, I'm doing. He only. He only had, like, less than 2,000 followers on his Instagram account. Only, like, videos of him, like, singing. Really? And he's like, hey, I have, like, a cyber security coaching program. Um, it's doing, like. I think it was doing, like, a hundred, maybe 200K at the time. Um, but he's like, I feel like with your help, you can get us to a million dollars a month. And I'm like, he believed in you. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, all right. Because he came. I. I don't know. Like, he came from, like, an ad or something. And I told my appointment setter at the time was like, don't set up any meetings. I don't feel like talking today. Like, I'm just tired of it. And then he was like, no, you gotta talk to this guy. You gotta talk to him. And I was like, all right, let me speak to him. We got on the call, and he showed me his model. I'm like, how are you doing? 100, 200k a month? But you're not showing your face. You're not running any ads. You don't really have, like, anything at all in place. How are you getting leads? He was like, I'm just doing partnerships. Like, I'm just doing partnerships. And I'm like, well, you're not even the one partnering. How are you doing this? And then he showed me something that blew my mind. I'm like, this is something new. Because in this whole online space, I feel like everyone's been doing the same things. Either it's ads or like organic. This was basically like affiliate partnerships at scale. So basically, long story short, I ended up parting with them and then about two or three months later, we went from like 200k a month to over a million dollars a month in profit for about six or seven months straight. Like at a set, like every dollar we were spending, we were making back like $30.

So talk me through how that works, because when I've worked with sales, like leaders who they either bring their own team or the team is there and they're coming in and riding the ship, making them work hard, like improving. What's more. So your style or do you do both?

Yeah, I would say up until this time of working with this company, I still did not have a lot of things figured out. Like, I didn't even know what the difference between sales management, sales operations, sales directing was. I didn't know a lot of that information until actually you started scaling this offer. And. But, like, what was your original question?

Basically, do you bring your own talent or was the talent there and you like to come in and whip them in the shape.

Yeah. So I. I prefer to have talent and already there. But then I do bring in my own talent too, as well at the time.

Appealing to me, that's appealing that most people, I feel like, want their own guys because they know them.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a mix of both. It's been a really mix of both. But what I found is when you're going into somebody's organization, it is a lot of headaches when there are already closers there, because a lot of closers.

You'Re there because there's a problem. Usually the sales manager just got fired, and now you are like, all right.

Does this guy actually have my best interest and things when it comes down to it? Yeah.

Usually entrepreneur wants to scale. They may or may not be delusional about getting the million dollar months. And they're like, hey, man, nothing was working before. I don't know why. 5x business.

Yeah. And he was still taking sales calls, and he only had one closer and they got to like 200k a month.

Oh, that's a really good sign. It's crazy.

Yeah. And I'm like, all right, okay, cool. I. I see what's going on here. And he told me, this is what blew my mind. Nick. He was like, yeah. Each time someone pays me for the program, their first payment's not even owed until a year and a half. So imagine if someone joined your Program right now. They didn't have to pay.

Learn that from.

I'm telling you I do. I was. I was like, I had to bring some game to the. To the.

I've heard of like worst practices, but that's not even in the ballpark of worse. Like, weird.

Yeah. But here's the thing. He would get all the cash. Well, 50 to 100 of the cash up front. Yeah.

He was an expert. Cool.

Through the finance partner.

Crazy. Always. Gosh. Gotcha, gotcha Still. But yes, he was now with just one other guy. So you came in, you presumably didn't have like an army of people yet like you said, so you couldn't just blow it up easily. So what was your approach?

Yeah, he didn't even have any appointment setters. Like, he had no setters on the offer.

Right?

Yeah. And had the unsuccessful e commerce background. But I also had all the background with scaling up organically. The way that we were scaling the offer was leveraging. This is a lot of detail, but we.

Oh, dude, I think my audience likes this stuff. I'm pretty sure we. We know that, right, Amy? We can. We can either bars and tone this out or keep it in. But I think you're good, man. Get into to the details on Joe Rogan, like, this probably a bad idea, but on here is good.

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, because we were leveraging like work from home meme pages as the main traffic. Because if you think about it, someone wants to get into cybersecurity. Most people don't really like cyber. They just want to work from home.

They just want the security.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we kept going from different, like work from home pages and influencers and travel influencers and getting them to promote the offer. And then they would just come in and we would just pay them. Sometimes we'll pay them a little bit of cash up front, but a lot of times they were just down to post it to give awareness to their. To their audience.

And those ones to me. I'll. I'll.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm talking like we get thousands and thousands of leads and like the. The spend was very, very minimal that we have to pay up front. But as far as like the approach on like the. The sales side, the lowest hanging fruit was they weren't even calling up any of the no shows. They didn't have any real like CRM tracking in place. There was no management, there was no sales process. And then on the marketing side, I just. I'm really good on the organic side, so I was Able to just like 10x all their lead flow. And. And at the time, my wife, she was also a closer too. So I brought my wife on and she sold like, I think it was like 350k the first month that she sold on the offer. So, yeah, I was like, okay, here we go.

Yeah, I wanna, I wanna double date with you guys on date night. You guys are just gonna close everyone else for free.

Yeah. So, but what have you seen on the organic side though, Nick? Like, have you guys ever just like, what are your thoughts? Like, there was a lot of.

What's interesting is that when people say organic strategy, there's two sides of it. There's organic outbound cold, and then there is organic inbound attraction making content. Those two are very different. So like someone like yourself, I was just going to say, like, we have a very complimentary skill set. Because guys, when you launch a brand, don't do what I do. Unless you're good at media buying. Like, unless you're a media buyer, do not start at zero and start spending money on ads. Like@consulting.com. i remember that biting us so hard is me and Sam started promoting that we went from zero to $30,000 a day and spend like, we scaled that. I'm like, yeah, just don't scale up. Just start at 30. And then for the next year, everyone asked me how we did it and I was like, okay, yeah, like, not everyone should do that. That was the scariest day of media buying I've ever done because nothing was optimized. But it was also the most fun. But yeah, because both of us hands on dials, like laptops next to each other, 1400 campaigns, just like tweaking stuff. Like, to me, that was a good day. I'll always remember. Stressful for anyone else. So even for us, like, we had money. Sam had done well before he met me, so he had funded the bank account with, I remember, $4 million. And I was like, Holy crap. We were both 26 years old and I was like, this is more budget I've ever given in my life. I'm going to freaking crush here. Or like, this is going to be so much fun. Like, we can't fail. So that, that's kind of that initial. That's one way to do it. Don't recommend it. This is my accountant, which is also. He has a custom ringtone just for him. I know anytime that 21 and Drake.

Play, I saw the core values of the company, man, I saw the core.

Did you like them?

Yeah, that was. Dope that was dope.

Yeah. It depends how you feel about Drake now. Like his reputations, you know, a little bit better now. But last year I was like thinking about switching to Kendrick values. I was like, dang, Kendrick really hit him hard. But yeah, regardless where. Where paid media and then what you were like doing sounds like a blend of organic, but through advancing partnerships, like, that's super smart because a lot of people don't know how to approach important like quote unquote, important influencers. Right. Do people ever look at your follower account and get nervous around you?

Yeah. And I'm like.

Right, right. It's just like, I've been desensitized. But I was nervous around big influencers. I had a lot of them yell at me early in my career. I remember one was, I went over the shoot ads and he's like, why the fuck are you here right now? It's like, I'm so sorry. So just shoot ads or it'll be 30 seconds. So that was my experience, but I got over it pretty quick. For most people, they just look at it as a status thing and that's like, obviously why some people do it. And it's a nice side effect for growing your social. So there's that. But social growth in the form of content or like follow for follow or shout for shout or whatever it is. Those are all to me like tactical marketing shenanigans that get you off the ground but shouldn't be the main strategy. So, like, what you did is actually harder, which is actually get people to like you and promote you, sometimes for free without an affiliate commission. So. And these are people that are used to getting paid. So you end up doing something right.

Yeah. And we, we drove them just straight to a funnel from their own account. So like the business, we had like a million dollar month, I think, only it had like less than a thousand followers at the time still.

Oh, dang.

Yeah. Like the business account.

How are you finding these? Like, how'd you know? Like, which one's the target?

Just. I'll even. Maybe I can drop.

I love screen sharing.

Hey, yeah, it's. I'll drop you. Actually, I can share screens real quick.

Whatever you're comfortable with. I can blur it out too.

Yeah, so this is her. She goes by work from home mother. And it's like Morgan. But we just kept going back to her. Like every. Every dollar we spent with her, we made a hundred dollars back.

That's nice. That's high. Roas. If there was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I would have to go probably like pretty far back.

She's gonna get like a hundred people asking her to promote something today. I. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, a lot of times, like did you provide them value in return? Like a lot of times we do resets or cross promos in our industry. Sometimes not. Sometimes it's one sided relationship.

Yeah. So what we ended up doing, some people, they'll be so interested in the program, they're like, I want to get a tech job too as well. Okay, we'll give you the program in exchange.

Holy crap. That's the way to do it, dude. You must be pitching the opportunity like you really believe. And I can tell you're a big conviction guy.

Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. And you know, like when, when we, we would, we didn't only just go after influencers, we started going after like businesses and SaaS products too as well. Because if you think about someone trying to get into cyber security or trying to get a tech job, well, there's all these SaaS products, like an AI resume builder as an example. So the AI resume builder that we ended up finding, they have specific sections with their platform where people are going out to apply for cyber security jobs. So they can give us all of that data of everyone applying for cyber security jobs and then now we can go and target super smart guys.

That's like one thing I don't talk enough about because it's like the fifth quiver in my like, you know, tools of just me. I always do paid media and then once it takes a while for me to like exhaust that before I even move to organic. So like that I got good at, you know, we're decent at it, we find partners, but it's mainly because people see our ads everywhere. So it makes it easier for me to approach. I've never done it from the beginning.

Yeah, yeah. Like I've never had like the craziest media buying background.

So I feel like I can't wait then for the first project together we're going to do some damage. Where you guys are going to watch this and they're like, dang, they actually just got the deal done right there. What are you looking for? I'll just segue right into it. What's like the perfect ideal client you're looking for right now?

Yeah, yeah. I would say someone that just has strong operations too as well and they can also handle fulfillment because you know, when you're, when you're scaling up too aggressively, then we're out of a, out of a partnership. Because the other person can't fulfill on all the new clients. So having solid fulfillment, like you said, conviction to, like, I don't want to do anything that I'm not fully convicted and just sold on myself. Like, hey, this is the best thing ever. Because I'm the type of guy, like, I'm all out. So, like, when I started working with this company, like, I literally, I moved out. Like, I moved me and my wife out to Houston to go all in on the company and just scale the mess out of all the partnerships.

So, yeah, yeah, I'm really glad we had this conversation. Pleasant surprise. That's like, that resonates. That gives me. Gives me chills here. So that's why I do what I do, too. To me, I'm like, if you're. I'm like, it's. If someone picks on our brands, I'm.

Like, it's war then.

And that is like, you're wrong and I'm right. And operating from that is so much more fun than operating from. I can't tell my mom what I do. I think she'll think it's a scam. Like, that's. That kind of sucks to live life like that. So I wouldn't suggest it, guys. Life's too short.

It's not fun. It's really fun. So.

Well, dude, at this point, I'll make a call to action or. Next step is we're doing a free Mastermind. I don't know if you've caught any of these before that we're doing, but normally I would second to CTA here and go, hey, guys, as you know, I'm just trying to, like, interview the top 1% of people in the info space, people who are actually doing it, whether it's the growth operator or the actual expert. True experts. Experts. Like I said, these people are usually doing high seven figures, high eight, sometimes nine. And we're doing a free Mastermind in October link and details. I started telling the date and we don't have it locked, so it will be in October, but dates in the bio or the description below. And what I will say is that there is going to be such a dope room. I would love to have you there. I wasn't sure going into this. I didn't know about the cybersecurity, so I remember seeing him like, yeah, he seems like he's probably doing big things, but I'm not sure. So, dude, I'm really glad I got.

To know you 100%, man. Thanks for having me on the podcast.