Ep 006: Cold Calling Strategies that Helped Mark Petree from Clix Profit Close Nearly 50 Clients

All right guys, welcome to episode 6 of Growing Your Agency. Super excited today, uh, joined here by Mark Petrie of Clicks Profit. Mark, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan.

Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about— so I know you have, uh, you have an agency, you've been doing this for a while. Tell me a little bit about how you got into, into the space, and then also you know, did you, did you start out as your, your own boss, or did you kind of, you know, work at another agency, then you broke out on your own? Tell us a little bit about the background.

Yeah, so I started off as a marketing director working for a company that rented big video screens. If you've ever been to like a concert or any sort of like sporting event, you see those huge video screens. Yeah, we We essentially rented those to events. And so I did that for about 10 years. And that's when I started learning Google AdWords. It started out, I just started cold calling people trying to find clients and that wasn't working out. So I was like, it'd be a lot better if they could find us, right? That's when I started digging into online marketing, started Google Ads, and really got pretty good with it. Just read everything I could on it. Then about 2.5 years ago, I left that company and I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. It's such a small little niche industry. At first I started looking for another gig within that industry.

Oh, the screen, the screens, you mean in the screen industry?

Yeah, I was the marketing director for that company for 9 years. So I had a ton of experience in the industry. And so I started looking around for another gig in that industry and to find something that would have had me making comparable money, I was going to have to move to like Texas or you know, or to the East Coast. I didn't really want to move, and so I was kind of like, well, fuck, what am I going to do with my life? And so I've got this skill, I know Google Ads, I'm pretty confident with it. And so one of my friends who does SEO, he had a client, it was a, it was a limo company actually, and this guy was running Google Ads. He was spending like $8,000 a month and My friend said, can you check out his account? Because he thinks he's wasting a lot of money, um, in his account and it could be doing a lot better. So I checked out the account and I completely redid everything and I got him down to spending $3,500 a month, but probably tripled the number of leads he was getting. So his ROI was like insane.

What was he spending? Sorry, what was he spending?

Yeah, he was spending $8,000 a month. And but he's in a really small market. And so, um, I, I switched things around, got him down to, yeah, $3,500 a month in spend, but he was getting even more leads at $3,500 than he was at $8,000, like 2 to 3 times as many. So he was, you know, over the moon. He was super stoked. And I just— look, I'm sure there's a ton of these. I'm sure there's a ton of these guys out there. That have really horrible Google Ads campaigns that are just pissing away money. And so I just picked up a phone and I started, started calling. And so that was 2 and a half years ago. Fast forward, now got, you know, just a little over 4 dozen clients. And so, wow, most of them I've gotten from cold calling. And, uh, well, recently I've been getting more referrals and I've been getting more inbound stuff through relationships. But, uh, yeah, so that's pretty much— yeah, today.

Love it, love it. So, uh, a couple things I'm gonna dive in there. So when you looked at the account, um, what were some of the things that you were able to do? Was it, you know, were you— was there any negative keywords that just weren't added in there? Like, what were some of the things? Because I just talked to someone the other day actually on, uh, one of the podcasts, and they were saying how a lot of these agencies who are marketers who I guess are running AdWords, especially if they're incentivized by getting paid percentage of ad spend, you can blow through ad spend by doing just some broad match keywords and not using a lot of negatives and it's pretty easy to get that ad spend up there. So what were a few tactics that you did when you took a look at the account and I guess now that you do with your current agency when you look at someone's account and you say, oh, this is This is a little, little, little loose, looser than it needs to be.

Yeah. So, so yeah, I mean, generally speaking with most accounts, it's still the same, the same issue. The first thing I always look at is the search term report and I just see how many irrelevant searches they're getting. This account was getting over probably 60% were irrelevant searches. He was using a lot of broad match keywords in the account, which you shouldn't do. He didn't have many ad groups, so the click-through rate was low because the ads weren't, you know, he wasn't using like SKAGs, single keyword ad groups or anything like that. So once I switched over to, you know, just using the other 3 modified broad, phrase, and exact, and kind of rebuilt the campaign. So his click-through rate went way up. I added a ton of negative keywords. He had a decent landing page. He was actually just using his homepage, which I usually use landing pages with clients, but actually his website converts pretty well. And so we just kept using his website. And yeah, just those changes. I did some bid modifiers based on location and mobile versus desktop, but I don't think that's where most of the results came from. I think it really just came from getting, you know, going from having, you know, 30 to 40% relevant searches to going to like 90 to 95% relevant searches. Like That made a huge difference. Also lowering his cost per click. You know, he was bidding at too high of a position. He was going for like, you know, he was like 1.3 to 1.4. And so if you bid at like 2.5, you can, and also, you know, just having a really high click-through rate that gives you a better quality score, which, you know, you pay less per click. So I mean, I probably dropped his cost per click by about 50%, you know, got rid of all those irrelevant search queries he was getting. And so just those two things alone is how you start to see a multiplier effect. And so that's how, that's how he ended up getting those results. And so, uh, yeah, he was, he was pretty stoked.

Yeah, that, that's amazing. That's, uh, that's all really good stuff. So going, going then into, you said you get a lot of clients through cold calling. I'm very intrigued by this. We do a lot of cold calling ourselves into agencies. Talk to me about, you know, the process that you go through. Where do you get the lead, you know, your list from? Are you going to people that you see are advertising on AdWords? Are you going into, you know, specific verticals? One, so it's a couple-part question, like how do you create the list for yourself? Are you testing a script? And then what kind of tools are you using for your outbound calls and all of that? You know, walk us through that because I think that's, you know, a big pain point for a lot of agencies, a lot of marketers. How do I get clients? You know, 4 dozen clients yourself. That's a good amount of clients. So yeah, walk us through that.

Yeah, so really when I first started out, what I did was I would just go online and I would look for— for one, I would recommend if you're starting out, stick to one vertical, one industry, because once you can get really good results in that industry, you can use it as a case study It makes it easier to build the next campaign and can predict a little bit better, you know, as far as the results you can get for a client if you kind of have some sort of benchmark for the results, you know, your other client got. So as far as in the beginning, yeah, I just, I went online and I searched and I looked for people that had shitty ads, shitty landing pages, and I called them up because I assumed they weren't getting great results. These days I don't do any of the calling myself, but generally what I will do is I'll hire some outsourcer off Upwork to build me a list. I use the website isearchfrom.com, which is great because you can search from different IP addresses and see local results. Yep. And so I'll have an outsourcer go through and go through the top, let's say, 200 cities in the US for a particular keyword, and then just have them copy and paste the URL of the domain into, you know, like a Google Sheet. And then I will have someone go in and try to find the contact information associated with that URL because having the owner's name really helps a ton. Um, and, and even, even with doing that, I typically tell my, uh, my, uh, appointment setters to do a little research. Don't just— because a lot of times information's incorrect. So a lot— so I usually have my appointment setters go to the website first, just do double check, make sure the name is right. Because you get one shot and then you can't touch it for, you know, probably 2-3 weeks, you know, until you're back, or maybe even longer. And so that's, that's pretty much— yeah. And so, yeah, and I definitely have a script that we use. Um, generally how it works is I won't have them get into too, too much detail.

So they're setting demos for you, right? So, so you get You go to Upwork, you get— tell them to create the list, go to these 200 cities or whatever, use this word, build the list, Google Sheet, you get the site, you get the name, and then the appointments. So, so a data entry person does that, then the appointment setter goes down, calls, calls down, hey, I'd love to set an appointment with, with Mark, he's a Google AdWords specialist, expert, whatever. Got it.

Okay. And then, um, between that, one part I left out, I use HubSpot. HubSpot's great. And so HomeSpot allows you to, you know, it'll count how many calls, it'll record the calls so you can really start to fit. Because what you want to figure out is, you know, how many calls does it take for an appointment? How many appointments does it take for a sale, right? That's how you can figure out how to scale. Um, exactly.

So how many— by the way, I'm just really curious because we're very sales-driven as well. Like, what's your close rate? And by the way, are you the— are you the only one closing right now? They're all for you, right? All the, all the demo?

Yeah, actually. So, um, yeah, I'm the only one who closes. Yeah, that's, that's one of the toughest, uh, things too. That's the thing that stops from scaling really quickly is because I only have so much time in the day and I'm the one who's got to be doing the closing. Um, so that, that definitely, that can slow things down a bit, but, uh, And that's why recently I haven't been doing— I've been getting into pay-per-lead a little bit, um, because I like that a lot more because I don't have to be there to close it. You know, these sales guys can close it. You're just looking— so essentially pay-per-lead is you find clients that just pay for leads. So you still— I'm still doing the same thing. I'm still building a Google or Bing ad campaign Um, but instead of ad spend plus retainer fees, it's just all in.

Hey, you only get results if I— you only pay if you get results.

Exactly. It's an easier close. Uh, sure, there's more risk involved. I mean, you have to be pretty confident you can get the leads and get them for a certain amount of money, or you're going to be— or you're going to be losing money. But it's much— you can scale much, much quicker. Because the weakest link of the PPC management is me, you know, and my time. But with paper lead, it's a very easy close because they're not paying money. Well, they do pay for me, they pay a small upfront, but that's credited towards the leads. So if they're not getting leads, you know, I'll refund them. So that's what I've been focusing on more lately. I'm still doing the PPC management, but not doing cold calling for it anymore. But not to say you can't. That's how I built my whole business. I found it really— it can definitely be more of a grind selling PPC management than pay-per-lead. And so it's a little riskier for the pay-per-lead though.

Yeah, totally, totally. And I'm really interested in the pay-per-lead stuff as well. We'll talk about that in just a second. So talk to us about, um, how, you know, you're charging. So like we're talking about, you know, obviously the pay-per-lead, um, I get that, but typically are you charging, you know, percentage of ad spend? Are you doing retainer? Is it based on like scope of services? Like what does it look like pricing-wise? Is there a setup fee? I think a lot of people are, you know, trying to figure that piece out. Um, What does that look like?

Yeah, so there's— I've used two different models in the past. One model is, you know, you charge a setup fee, then a monthly management fee. They own the account. Um, what I've switched to recently, um, is I own the account. I don't charge a setup fee.

Yep.

I don't even give account access. Uh, all I try to determine with the client is, okay, how many phone calls do you want a month? You know, how many leads do you want a month? What would, uh, you know, a successful month look like for you with regards to how many leads you get a day or a month? Trying to figure that out. And then, um, then yeah, building out the account. Um, just doing a, you know, I don't do, uh, I haven't been doing contracts for those types of clients because I don't have to because I own the account.

Yeah.

I'm gonna— this is something I'm trying. I've only been doing it for 2 or 3 months. I've been loving it so far. Because clients tend to focus on metrics they don't understand. When you send reports about impressions and clicks and all this shit, and they see, oh hey, my impressions dropped by 10%, and then they hit you up, and none of it matters. Like, it only matters to us because we understand the data, but— and they don't. And so they're concerned about all these vanity metrics that have no don't make any sort of difference.

I totally get that. I mean, that is so funny you say that. I feel like I used to say that all the time and I've been talking about this a lot recently. It's like almost that like mid-funnel stuff that helps you optimize. At the end of the day, they should be paying it. I think the thing that matters to them— clicks, impressions, page views— even, you know, none of that should matter. It's like, how much did you spend and what did you get for it? You spent all in ad spend plus retainer, whatever it is. It's like you spent $5K. You get 100 leads, $50 per lead, you close 20%, you got 10 sales, average sales $1,000, you made $10K, you spent $5K. You know, like, that's what I feel like should matter to them. And I definitely agree that I feel like so many times you give them too much information, they start just asking, you know, not that you want to not have them ask the questions, but, you know, it's like if you're, you know, a pest control company, right, you're not gonna— if I'm the homeowner, you know, why would I— I'm not gonna ask them like, hey, what kind of like you know, spray is that? Like, what are the ingredients of your spray?

It's like, oh, exactly, doesn't matter.

Like, we're getting rid of the bugs, you know?

Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, what kind of drill are you using? It's like, no, just, just put a hole right there, please. You know, so I think that's, uh, look, if you're a really big agency that's working with, uh, really big clients that they have a whole marketing department Sure, then, you know, if you're, if you're working with people that actually understand the data, that's different. But most of my clients, uh, I would say, yeah, 90% of my clients, I work directly with the owner. And most of the time the owner has a small understanding, but nowhere near, you know, the kind of understanding that, you know, one of us would have. And so I try to get them to focus on You know, the metrics that matter, which is, yeah, total number of conversions, total amount of money spent, and if they can track it, which not many do, but return on ad spend. You know, that's, that's really the only things that matter. And I swear, the biggest headache I have is getting emails from like clients getting reports and they're like, hey, why is this dropped? And it's like, you know, so I'm gonna switch it up.

Yeah, I think you and I were messaging. What were we messaging about a few weeks ago? Because like it was, it ended up being like a user error. I totally forget what it was, but it's like, yeah, it was on the weekend. Sometimes I forget, I forget what it was, but it's like when people go into the account, and I've even heard some people, you said you own the account, so you might not have this problem, but like they'll go in, you know, AdWords sometimes gives recommendations. The owners will like accept the recommendations.

That literally just happened to me. Yesterday.

Really?

Yesterday, yeah. I was talking with my account manager and she was like, yeah, he made, you know, all the client made all these changes. I was like looking, I'm like, why the f— like, what the hell? And so I called him, I'm like, hey man, what's going on? He's like, oh yeah, he was like, yeah, Google recommended I do all that stuff. I'm like, you know, just don't make any more changes. And that's why I'm like, most of my clients still own their accounts and are getting reports. I wish I would have been doing this from the beginning. I really think It's how you sell it. If, if you're confident selling it this way, you will get clients. My whole problem all along is I, I felt like that it wasn't the way things were supposed to be done because I read so many articles that said no, the client should own their account, they should own their data, all this other stuff. And while that might be— I don't know, I, I don't want to subscribe to that anymore because I really want to get my clients the best results possible, but also without me having a huge headache. And I think it is actually better for everyone all around when it's this way, because then they can just focus on the things that matter and they don't have to worry about these reports that they don't understand.

Yep. Yep. So, um, so, so transitioning into reports, so talk to us about, um, how do you report to the clients? What is your cadence? Is it weekly, you know? And then What is— is it a call? Like, is it, you know, like, how do you report to them?

Yeah, so it is weekly, but it shouldn't be. So that's one thing I would change. I'd probably just send one report a month. I've just been doing it a certain way, and I'm starting to find out that's not the— especially someone who's only spending $1,000 a month, you know, and they're only getting like, you know, a couple hundred clicks a month, they don't need reports every week. But right now, how I— yeah, right now how I have it set up, it's weekly. Um, my thought process in the very beginning was like, oh, that'll like, you know, they'll begin a report every week, so they're gonna see, oh yeah, I'm on top of things. And as far as talking to my clients, there's some clients I talk to, you know, that hit me up once every week or two. Um, fortunately it's not that many. Um, and then Most of my clients I rarely speak to, and they're fine with it. I'm fine with it. If there was one thing I would have done from the very beginning that I, I totally wish I would have gave my cell phone number out to all my clients. A lot of my clients have my cell number just because it's, you know, they will use it and they will hit you up. And now that I've brought on an account manager and I'm not doing everything, some of them have you know, are okay with the fact, okay, now there's a new system, I'm gonna email first, and if it's an emergency, I'll call the 800 number or whatever. And if it's really a big emergency, then I can call Mark. But then there's some clients who've been with me from the beginning, they're like, no, fuck that, I'm gonna call you. So yeah, no, I'm not following your new rules.

I'm a homie, I'm going straight.

Exactly, you're my guy. Fuck all that, rules don't apply to me.

Yeah. So, okay. So you brought on— I was actually thinking about that and I forgot to ask. So what's the team dynamics? Do you have an account manager? You're outsourcing a lot of stuff to using Upwork. Is that kind of how it is now?

Yeah. So right now I've got just two appointment setters/sales— well, now they're kind of salespeople since they're doing the pay-per-lead sales for me. But so I have two of them in office and then I have one account manager. Which I'll probably need to get a second one soon just because, yeah, it's quite a few clients to, you know, have only—

Yeah, I mean, almost 50 clients, right? Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. That's, that, I mean, that's a, that's a lot of clients, you know, especially if you're doing weekly meetings. I mean, to have what, 50 just reporting?

Yeah, no, well, fortunately all the reporting is automated, but yeah, I mean, look, there's— whenever you have that many clients, there's always so many things that come up, and I've found You know, too much of my time is still being dedicated to account management, which I would really like to remove myself from that so I can just focus on bigger picture stuff. But yeah, I need to probably find another account manager soon, probably sooner than later. Be better to hire one sooner and not need them than to hire one too late and be like, oh shit, you know.

Yeah, it's always, it's always hard kind of growing the business too, because it's like, you know, cash flow-wise and timing, it's like, do I hire them early and then not have capacity for them and then them grow into it?

Exactly.

Then it's like, if I'm too late and I'm overflowed, then the customers aren't getting the best service as possible. So it's kind of like that weird, you know, timing, cash thing that you gotta, that you gotta deal with. So what are you using for reporting?

I use Swedoo. Yeah. I was going to switch. Yeah, or Swydu or Swydu. I was going to switch to Google Data Studio, but you know, I also use Bing Ads. And so I was, I asked in an AdWords group about, you know, Google Data Studio and Bing Ads. And I think they said you can even use Google Data Studio for Bing Ads, but you know, they charged me like, I think like $110 or $150 a month and to switch everyone over, I'm like, that's going to be a major pain in the ass. So I kind of decided against it. So it's been working, you know, it's easy, it's all set up, it just, yeah, you know, runs reports every Friday.

So awesome, awesome. All right, so we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up here. I just have 3 or a couple questions to ask you, uh, at the end. Um, if you were looking to break into, into online marketing, digital marketing today, you're at a job, you're maybe at an agency and you want to work for yourself, what would you do? What would be the first thing you would do to to, you know, get a client and to break out on your own?

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think I would, yeah, pick something, whether that's, you know, PPC, SEO, it probably wouldn't be SEO just because I think that can take a long time to learn. But I guess getting really good at PPC can take a while too. Just, yeah, just get in, start learning something and try to get your first client as soon as you can. I think a lot of people spend too much time in the learning phase. And not enough time in the action phase in the beginning where really how you're going to make money isn't through your PPC skills, it's through your sales skills. And so if you can't bring on clients, if that's the route you want to go, you know, like agency stuff, if you can't bring on clients, you're not going to make any money. So you could be the best PPC person in the world and, you know, if you can't sell, then you're doing it for nobody. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, uh, get as good as you can get, but don't worry about, you know, getting too good. Look, the first client I got, I lost in 3 weeks, you know, which was crazy to me because I had experience and I, I thought I knew what I was doing. Actually, no, not my first. My first client is still with me today. My second client that I got was only with me for a few weeks. And look, to this day, I still lose clients, you know. Well, everyone does, but meaning there are some campaigns I build to this day that I'm like, why is this not getting leads? And yeah, racking my brain. It's so frustrating because I feel like, you know, I'm pretty good at this point. I know what I'm doing. I've been doing it so long, but I still have clients that for some reason or another, I'm like, I don't know why, but I just can't get this person leads. Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often, so Yeah, that's good.

All right, final question. What is your morning routine?

Oh, um, it's nothing crazy like yoga or anything. I, I pretty much just get up, drink some coffee, um, check emails, uh, take a shower and get into work as soon as I can. Pretty much, I don't linger. I used to work from home for the longest time.

That's what I was gonna say. So it looks like you have an office.

It's made like massive, massive difference for me. I'm just not one of those people.

All right, you there?

Yeah.

All right, so sorry. So yeah, yeah, so you said you're not one of those people, and then that's when it paused. So you're not—

oh yes. So what I was saying is, yeah, I spent too much time working from home. I wish I would have gotten an office sooner just because, yeah, my business has been like this since I've gotten an office. And I think it's because when I'm here, I'm just all in, you know. And when I'm at— when I was at home, I was all in for an hour or two and then I'd go fuck around, you know, and then come back. And, you know, here I am 100% focused, so Yeah, yeah, I, I, it's—

I also agree with you that separation. And I even— so like, you know, I was working from, you know, home, and then I was like, I just actually sometimes just needed to get out because I was like, I'm going crazy, like I need to like talk to other humans and stuff.

Exactly.

And that was good. And now we actually got another space, like another office space where I actually have to travel because I was like just walking to work, and now I have to travel, and I just feel like just mentally having that, like, I have to like leave and go to work, that it's like I'm all in, I'm not doing anything else. Because like you said, it's like you're at home, you're like, I can kind of like do something else. But here you're just like— I also think being around other people, like everyone else is grinding, and then it's like that just like lifts you.

Well, yeah, no, I mean, if I was here by myself, I wouldn't even be as motivated. When I'm here with other people and they're all, you know, getting shit done, I'm like, you know, I'm not going to fuck around.

Yeah.

Especially because I'm paying everyone, you know, get to work. Yeah. So awesome.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm super excited to have you on. Can you tell everyone a little bit about your website, where to find you, all of that?

Yeah. So yeah, I'm at clicksprofit.com, just C-L-I-X profit. And, uh, yeah, hit me up if you have any questions. Um, just add me on Facebook, Mark Petrie, uh, 2 E's at the end. And, uh, I'm always happy to help new and upcoming agency owners and answer any questions or whatever. So I would be happy to help.

All right, awesome. Mark Petrie, thank you so much for joining us, guys. That was episode 6 of Growing Your Agency. Thank you, Mark, and we'll see you later.

All right, peace.