Agency Success Interview with Cris Rodriguez

This is the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. Discover the strategies and techniques to grow a highly successful and profitable digital marketing agency with your host, Joshua Nelson. All right, well, hello and welcome. Thank you so much for joining us on today's session. I am super pumped to be interviewing today Chris Rodriguez from Grow Pro Marketing. Um, This is part of the 7 Figure Agency Podcast series where we interview highly successful digital marketing agencies from across the country. And I've known Chris going on, I would say like going on 10 months now, 10, almost a year.

Yeah.

Is that, is that about right?

Yeah. Yeah. I joined like at the end of the, right when kind of COVID hit is when I started looking because we took a massive hit in our industry. So I think I joined in like June or July of the 7-figure agency of last year.

Okay. And if my notes are right, kind of grew from about $30K MRR to over $65K, kind of on the brink of the 7-figure threshold over the last 9 to 10 months or so.

Yeah. Well, this month we're actually, we should be hitting, as long as all of the funds go through, $72K. So this would be— Nice. Technically our first kind of run rate towards, towards a million this month, which, you know, we're really excited about. Saw tremendous growth since, since we joined 7 Figure.

That's amazing. Well, congratulations. I'm sure everybody wants to hear kind of how you're doing it in your digital marketing agency, how you've had that level of growth, how you're serving the clients and retaining the clients. So if that sounds good and you're either watching this live, give me a yes in chat. Or if you're watching this on Facebook, give us a like or a yes or a one or something, just so we can get some engagement going. So, Chris, to kind of just start off, introduce yourself a little bit, kind of your background, how you got into digital marketing in the first place.

Yeah. So, my story is, you know, pretty unique. It's not like most agencies. I actually own a brick-and-mortar martial arts school. I've been a martial artist since I was 8 years old. I've had that business for 9 years and it got to the point where it was running itself, you know, really focused on developing a really strong team. And it's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school. So most people, when they think martial arts, they think like punching and kicking and blocking. We choke people out for a living and it's a lot of fun. And once it got to that point, I started getting a lot of questions from other school owners in the industry like, hey, how did your school become so successful? So I started consulting, um, just because the school was, you know, pretty much on autopilot. And, um, consulting, the number one question you get as a consultant is, how do I sign up more customers, right? How do I get more customers? How do I get more clients? And in a martial arts school, it's how do we sign up more students? And we had had a lot of success with digital marketing, predominantly Facebook ads and Google ads, um, with the combination of a phenomenal website built by actually one of our 7-figure agency masterminders, Stephen Reinstein. He's got a company, Market Muscles, that did our website. And we just, you know, when that question consistently came over and over again, I decided to start teaching school owners how to run Facebook ads on their own. So I started with this 8-week marketing mastermind, and we've had probably like 600 people go through the course. It's an 8-week course where We do 4 weeks on Facebook, 2 weeks on Instagram, 2 weeks on Google. And at the end of the course, I started teaching this in 2018. Every single time without fail, the school owners would say, Kris, this was amazing. I learned so much information, but holy cow, that's a lot of work. Will you just do it for me? And I kept saying, ah, you know, I don't really have an agency. I don't have the time. And then finally it was just kind of silly that I kept No. So I took on 3 clients that had gone through the 8-Week Marketing Mastermind course and got them great results that very quickly turned into 10 clients. And then I realized, alright, this is like legit and I can't do this on my own. So I started hiring remote team members, and Grow Pro was, was launched back in March of 2019. And then I started hiring my first remote team member a couple of months later. Later. And, um, you know, throughout 2019 and early '20, we grew to, uh, 14, uh, remote ad account managers. And I realized that I was not a great leader in regards to a remote team. It's not my strength. And I think that's something that's really important for entrepreneurs to figure out. What are you really good at? What are you not so good at? And I knew to— I knew how to, to, to grow and empower an in-house team because I did it with my brick and mortar. So I made the decision to, uh, bring it in-house to really try to build long-term culture, build a strong local team. And I don't know, it's just kind of like boring on your, on your own in front of a computer. I like working with people and being around people. And life was really good. We were growing, we were producing better systems, we came on with 7-figure Changed our pricing structure, which was like the one little tweak that immediately saw our client value increase, and everything was going really, really great. And then COVID hit, and we run ads for martial arts schools, and, you know, martial arts schools got shut down, including my own. And, you know, to be transparent, it was, it was tough. I wasn't just navigating COVID for my agency, I was navigating COVID for my martial arts school. I've got 8 employees there. I was navigating COVID for my consulting business, which I also do on the side. So, you know, we, we took a big hit there and lost about 30% of, you know, our clients. So, you know, that kind of brings us to COVID, and we were fortunate. We were one of those businesses that exploded once the, the EIDL loan started coming in and the PPP loans, and We recently purchased this office building, which was something that, you know, has been on my to-do for a little while, and it's, you know, bringing in extra money. We have a tenant, so now wearing this kind of like landlord hat. And yeah, we're just really rocking and rolling. We're sitting at 130 clients and 9 full team members. So, I brought everybody in-house. Full-time team members. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, you know, running the martial arts school for as long as I did, I started to lose passion for it. Been doing it since I was 8 years old, and the agency has really helped to reinvigorate that passion and, um, really allowed my ripple effect to go a little bit wider. So that's kind of a long story short on how Grow Pro got started.

I love it. So kind of born out of necessity, born out of like these other martial arts schools being like, hey, how did you do this? Like, can you help me do this? Started with education, and that education blossomed into some done-for-you marketing services. And, you know, here we are today with a really fast-growing digital marketing agency, which is phenomenal. Um, let's like rewind back to about 9 months ago. Agency was at about $35K monthly recurring, somewhere in that range. What were some of the challenges you were trying to solve for that helped to accelerate the growth of the business?

Yeah. I mean, you know, when my martial arts school, the third year my martial arts school was in business, I did $346,000. That year I got a mentor. The next year I did $522,000. I mean just almost a $200,000 growth in one year. Because I found the right mentor. And that mentor, his name's Mike Metzger. He's now, you know, become one of my best friends. And I didn't have a mentor in the agency. I was literally just, you know, making decisions by, you know, oh, I think that sounds like a good decision. Oh, pricing structure, let me see what my competitors are charging, and, you know, that's what I'll charge. And I just really had no direction. And I actually, you know, found you through your book. And I read your book within a day. I mean, just fired through it. And I remember I was lying in bed reading the book and I took a picture of it and I tagged you on Instagram. And you actually responded, which I thought was super, super cool. And, you know, what I was really looking for was a mentor. I was looking for somebody that would tell it to me straight, that would, you know, guide me in the right direction. And You know, it's, I think there are 3 mistakes that entrepreneurs make, just kind of like if we're going to generalize. And I've worked with like thousands of specifically martial arts school owners. And these are the 3 mistakes that I see them make over and over again. Number 1 is they don't hire fast enough. They wait too long, right? They're stuck doing $10, $12, $15 tasks. They have this mindset of, oh, I need to make more money and then I'll hire. When in reality, well, you hire so those people can make you more money, right? So, I think that's mistake number 1. Mistake number 2 is they don't reinvest their profits back into marketing, which is how you grow. It's how you scale. And then, mistake number 3 is they don't find a mentor. And I made that mistake until I found you. And it's, you know, it's so funny because I know the importance of having a mentor. And, you know, I had followed a couple of Facebook groups and a couple of, you you know, the gurus in this industry. And, um, I don't know, Josh, you're just such a genuine dude. And I just think in the marketing industry, there's a lot of people that are really great at marketing themselves, but not necessarily great educators and teachers. And, um, you know, that's ultimately what I was looking for is, you know, sometimes you need somebody to, you know, put you on the right path, to tell you the way it is and to set certain expectations. You know, when we do our, our, uh, 90-day roadmap, You know, I'll set a certain goal and you're like, ah, you know, I think you could go a little bit higher. So, you know, constantly pushing us to become, you know, the best versions of ourselves that we can be. And that's ultimately what I was looking for when, you know, I was finding Seven Figure Agency.

That's awesome. And thanks for all the kind words. I really appreciate it. So, if you were to kind of encapsulate, let's say, like 2 to 3 things that you changed in the business during that window of time that kind of helped you go, you know, almost double the revenue and kind of on this run rate? What were some of the key changes that were put in place?

Yeah. So, I've got 4 for you. Number 1 was the pricing. Yeah. The pricing structure and the program packaging. And it's so funny because the very first day that I met my martial arts school mentor, his name is Mike Medsker, the very first day I met him, he sat down and he said, Show me your, your pricing structure for your martial arts school. And it was the first thing that he changed for us. Same thing with you when we're doing the 90-day game plan, our very first kickoff, the first thing you told me I had to change was the pricing structure. And, you know, just dialing that in, uh, was, was just incredible. Our, like, our average client value was sitting at like $450, which I You know, when I was reading your book in one of the beginning chapters, it's talking about picking your niche. You specifically say find a niche that on average does $1 million a year. It's very hard to find that in our industry. But, you know, it's just an industry that made sense for me, right? It's just, you know, the industry that I'm in. So the pricing structure was the first thing that we implemented and really program packaging. You know, I didn't have packaging. I had à la carte courses. You know, pick this one or pick this or pick this. And being able to basically stack those services on each other allowed us to improve our client value. So, you know, that was huge. It's not just what you charge, it's how you charge as well. So that was kind of, you know, big takeaway number 1. Big takeaway number 2 was the minimum viable funnel. And, you know, as like digital marketers, we know that. And, you know, I'm really grateful for You know, you've gone through and utilized lots of different platforms which have gotten you to where you're at. And, you know, not now because we're 7— with 7 Figure Agency, I don't have to make those same mistakes. So finding HighLevel, which I honestly have a little bit of a love-hate relationship with— we are, uh, yeah, it's a phenomenal platform, but it doesn't work all the time. But setting up our minimum viable funnel and specifically the lead acceleration session. So, you know, it's funny, I, I still get your emails for plumbing and HVAC SEO because I love seeing the type of content that you put out. So, when I joined Seven Figure, I went to your website, I went through the, you know, your minimum viable funnel and opted in and, you know, saw your video and I literally sat there and hit play and then listened to you, typed out what you said and then paused and then typed it out again. And that's how I got the video scripts. I literally just sat there and typed it out. And then set up the minimum viable funnel and utilizing HighLevel and the triggers, um, you know, it's, uh, just really allowed us to hone in on the sales process. Um, so that's what I would say is, you know, biggest takeaway number 2 is, is the minimum viable funnel. And, uh, you know, very, very grateful for that piece.

So, so on that, just so I know, like the— what did you have? There was some type of appointment mechanism? Was it more warming the people up, giving them something to opt in for on the front end? What were some of the key things that you had to get in place to tighten that up?

I mean, you know, prior to the 7 Figure Agency, I would just hop on a Zoom call with them and talk. Like, there was no procedure, there was no system, and I was able to be successful with that because of the authority that I had built in my, in my industry, which I know it's a very unique story, right? Most, most agency owners don't, you know, you know, that might not be relevant to them, but I, you know, had put in a lot of time as a consultant in the industry, as a school owner, and people trusted me. And, um, you know, they, they trusted me because I put a lot of really great free content out. And the paid content, the courses that I put out, you know, this 8-week marketing mastermind course, I only charged $497 for. I mean, 8 weeks, 90-minute sessions. You get all the recordings. We had Facebook groups. You know, I would do Q&A sessions. And, you know, really just provided a ton of value for what I was giving. So I really didn't have a sales process prior to Seven Figure. And, you know, even today I have my sales mastery checklist, you know, straight out of Seven Figure. And every time I'm doing a lead acceleration session, which is really just a marketing audit, that's what we offer now. That's our, you know, way to jab, jab, jab, right hook, as Gary Vee would say. We do a marketing audit on their Facebook page, on their Google My Business, where they sit on the SERP and on their website. And again, it's just providing this, you know, massive amount of value up front, and, you know, that reciprocity usually kicks in. I will say that I've had to make some tweaks to the, uh, the marketing audit because unfortunately a lot of martial arts schools' digital footprints are really, really bad. And when I was going through the audit, it's like, oh, you need this, and you need this, and you need this, and you need this. And it, you know, sometimes was overwhelming. So now we tweak it based off of what their digital footprint, you know, looks like. And we just want to give them a couple of items, you know, and show them how we would be able to help them, you know, improve their digital footprint. So yeah, I mean, prior to Seven Figure, I didn't really have a sales process at all.

I love it, I love it. So increase the price in the package, then put the minimum viable funnel in place so people can, you know, kind of schedule an appointment, get warmed up, putting the automation in place. If you're getting value from these tips on, on how Kris was able to accelerate her growth, give us a 1 in comments just so we know you're there and this is resonating. Um, so those are the first 2. I'd love to hear the others.

Yeah, so next was, and You know, I just absolutely love when we hop on our calls, and I was just blown away, uh, you know, when we hopped on our first call, you shared your screen, you had my name, you know, typed out on the front, and you know, you had my, my 90-day game plan, and we did the current snapshot. And it's, it's just so funny because I know this because we do it in our martial arts school, which is just keeping super tight statistics. And you know, it was just kind of silly that, hey, you know, I do this in, in one business, why am I not doing it in this other business? And it's just because it's a journey, right? It's— you can't implement 100% of everything right in the beginning. Um, so keeping super tight statistics, and you know, that really was prompted by the snapshot. And one thing that I never want to do is hop on a call with you and you ask me what my numbers are and I'm not able to tell you. Because I know as a consultant, the only way that I can help a client is to know their numbers, because your numbers are going to tell us where, you know, you're, you're weak and where you're, you're strong, and it's going to guide us to, to hit our goals. So, you know, the sales and tracking retention, it's bookmarked on my computer. I think it's like the second bookmark. I'm in there every single day updating it. Um, and that, you know, was just a huge takeaway. Um, I tell clients all the time, math is the path. The data should be driving the decisions in your, in your business. And very often as entrepreneurs, especially when we're first getting started, we develop, you know, relationships with clients. And, you know, that was, that was something that, uh, you know, I had, and I had to make sure that I was, you know, making data-driven decisions in the company, not just emotional decisions in the company. So that was really my third, you know, biggest takeaway. And it was just prompted by your organization that you have and the structure that you have with helping us achieve our goals.

So just getting clear, okay, here's where we're at, here's where we want to go, key targets for the month, quarter, year, and having something the whole team is organized towards. Okay, here's what we're trying to accomplish from a revenue growth perspective.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Love it.

And then there's one more, um, and you know, uh, success leaves clues, and a lot of people that I would consider successful were utilizing EOS. And when I found out that you were utilizing EOS, that is— that's what I needed to take the push and dive in. And we've been operating with EOS, I'm gonna say since like August of last year, and it has completely transformed our company. And, you know, I just cannot recommend it enough for building a really strong team. And, um, you know, we're, we're fully on board EOS. We had our annual, our first annual meeting last month. Uh, it was an 8-hour meeting. It was, it was so amazing. And, you know, my biggest takeaway is typically when I would do meetings, it would be me talking at my team. And what I love about like the Level 10 meeting and the way that EOS is set up is that it, it produces a more collaborative environment. And when you collaborate, you, you just get better. And, you know, things that I would normally do on my own or have, you know, very specific ideas about, um, once we collaborate with the team, it just— everything elevates. So EOS has been, you know, huge for us. I'm super pumped that you're bringing in an EOS implementer for the, the, uh, the Mastermind, uh, you know, clients. I mean, what a huge value add. We have our first training session tomorrow, which I'm super pumped for. Um, but, uh, you know, we talk a lot about systems in our business, and typically those systems are for our clients, right? For us to be able to do deliverables. Not very often do we talk about the internal systems that really just allows a team to work really well together. And we just have some, like, amazing synergy going on. Uh, we just hired two new members, an ad account manager and a marketing assistant. And, you know, part of our interview process, and I learned this from the martial arts school, is we do a team interview. Because what I don't want to happen is, man, I find this rock star and then they come in and it messes up the culture and the vibe and the environment. So we had been interviewing for a couple of weeks and we brought some people in with the team and it was just really, you know, the trust level You know, I had multiple team members come up to me and say, I really appreciate you considering my feelings on hiring. I've never had a boss ask me if I want to work with this person. And, you know, we've, we've done a, you know, a very conscious effort to building a lot of trust in the EOS system and the way the meetings are set up allow for that to happen. So, you know, biggest takeaway Number 4 would be having that extra little push to go ahead and implement EOS. And, you know, it's not an overnight thing. It takes time, but it's definitely, you know, an investment of that time and for your team.

So, so good. And a couple of people are asking, what's EOS? So EOS is the Entrepreneur Operating System. Look up the book Traction by Gino Wickman. It kind of lays it out. It's just, it's the way to develop your leadership team, how to handle your level your meetings with your team, to organize it so that you have a leadership team that steps up and it diffuses the pressure from you doing everything in the company and really having a business that can start to operate with, with a group of people around you. So amazing work getting that set up and dialed in in your business. And I'm sure as we start to, you know, mastermind this as a group, it's only going to get better and tighter and more effective.

100%. I'm so excited for tomorrow. I saw it's a 4-hour session, cleared the calendar, and, uh, yeah, just super pumped.

Awesome. David, thanks for dropping that link in. That's, that's perfect. So, okay, so looking back now, these are the 4 things that you implemented, um, that have, have really helped to accelerate the growth. You know, looking back, would there be like 1, 2, maybe 3 lessons that you could say, you know, as I did this, these are like 2 or 3 lessons that maybe you learned or that you might change or that you could kind of help somebody with?

Yeah. So, one that has been just really powerful to me lately is I ask my, you know, as entrepreneurs in general, especially agency owners, there's just so many hats that we have to like wear, right? And there's so many different skills that, you know, we usually want to develop. I, you know, jokingly call myself a skill collector. Like, If there's a course out there, I want to take it. If there's a book, I'm going to read it. There's an event, I'm going to go, go to it. But I think what can happen very often is that we focus on the wrong things or the little things. So one thing that I have been, and this was really just in 2021, have been super focused on is I ask myself this question before I start my work each day. And I ask myself, is this going to have a direct or indirect impact on the bottom line of my business? And if it ha— if the answer is yes, it's going to have a direct impact on the bottom line, then it needs to be on my to-do list for that day, and it needs to get scheduled in, in my time blocking sessions. If the answer is, hey, it might have an impact, but it's going to be an indirect impact and it's going to be down the line, then I have got to delegate it. And I think there's this misconception between delegating and deciding. And they talk about this— Michael, I can never pronounce his last name. He's the guy that wrote Profits First, and he also wrote Clockwork. But he talks about— Mike McCallowits. There we go. McCallowits. You know, in the book, he talks about doing, deciding, delegating, and designing. And I had found myself for pretty much like the first year and a half of my agency being stuck in that doing. And when I thought I was delegating, I was not delegating. I was stuck in deciding. And what that means is, is very often when we think we're delegating something to a team member, well, we're actually— like, delegation means empowerment and also that they can make a decision on their own and feel empowered by it. And oftentimes that's not what we do. We say, okay, this is how you do it, go ahead and do it. And then they've got to come back to us to make a final decision. And that is, that is not delegating. And I was spending a lot of my time in the doing and also in the deciding. So in January, you know, obviously this is when we, you know, re-look at our goals. I had made a commitment to offload my doing items. So I sat down for each one of my companies, my martial arts school, my consulting, my agency. We're also getting into real estate investment. And I looked at everything that I have to do in each one of those companies, and I wrote down the amount of hours that it was taking every single month. And in January, I started small, but I was able to buy back 10 hours, which 10 hours might not seem a lot, but 10 hours of deep focus work, making sure I'm focusing on things that have a direct impact on the bottom line, That has helped us. I mean, last month we were at $60,000, this month we're at $72,000. That is a direct impact to the bottom line. So now the next stage is in February, what else can I offload? And the major thing was training. Our team is growing, and when your team grows, um, it usually is a punch in the face to your systems and processes. And we committed as a team to get all of our systems and processes in, in Teachable, which is like an online platform, in a course. So that allowed me to buy back 16 hours a month of training just by simply Loom recording every single system that we have. We got together as a team, uh, we started with the ad account manager position, which is one of the biggest positions and requires the most technical and, and strategical, uh, you know, knowledge. And we had a meeting that lasted 2 hours. We wrote down everything an ad account manager needs to do, and then we split it amongst 5 people. Like, all right, you're gonna shoot these 15 videos. I'm gonna shoot these 15. You're gonna do these 15. And in under a month, we had our entire ad account manager position now in a training course. And we did it for the next position, and we're doing it for the next position. And that has bought that 16 hours a month in training Um, you know, that, that I don't have to do. And those hours not spent in doing or deciding now allow me to spend it in delegating. And that doesn't mean you don't do anything. I mean, we're still doing some things, but ultimately I want the majority of my time to be spent in designing, designing the business and really designing a better life for my, my team members, right? My team members take care of my clients. It's my responsibility to take care of my team members. And, um, we've actually implemented something about 6 months ago that I think would be very valuable for everybody that, uh, if it's cool with you, I'll share.

Absolutely.

All right, so we are, you know, we're in our office, we're in front of a computer literally all day. And what I wanted— what I didn't want to happen is for people to come to work and feel like it was monotonous. That Monday is the same thing as Tuesday, same thing as Wednesday, same thing as Thursday. And when you're in front of a computer all day, you're not really moving around, right? This is a much different business model than a martial arts school, right? Like, completely different. So, you know, I really sat and I thought, what could we do on a daily basis that would get people excited to go to a meeting, right? I mean, you say the word meeting and everybody's like, no, I don't want to go to the meeting. Well, I'm a huge fan of Jim Rohn, been following him for a really long time. And he has a quote that says, work harder on yourself than you do your job. And one of our core values at Grow Pro is we create a modern and fun environment. And that was really important to me. I wanted to create a modern and fun environment for the team. So every single day we have something that breaks up the monotony of the day. So Monday is Monday motivation. This is where I present a different personal development training for my team, whether that's, hey, this is the Cliff Notes to one of my favorite books, or hey, this is how you should be time blocking so you can be more effective, or this is how I was able to get 100% out of consumer debt. So showing them how to budget properly. So that's Monday. Monday's motivation day. Tuesday we have our Level 10 meeting, which is a 90-minute meeting, and there is a lot of to-dos and rocks that come out of that. So Tuesday is just our typical Level 10 meeting. Wednesday we go outside and we get vitamin D and we go for a 30-minute walk together. It is required. Go put your, put your walking shoes on and we are all going to go outside. We are in Florida so we can do that right now, and we just go for a walk together to get some sunshine. When you are inside in front of a computer all day, You got to get that. Thursday is podcast day where we all get into the conference room and we listen to a different digital marketing podcast. And as we listen, we pause and we discuss, and then we listen and we pause and we discuss. I kind of wanted it to be like a book club, but everybody kind of reads at, you know, different speeds. So at least the podcast, we would all listen to it together. And then Friday is game day. We legit like play Family Feud. This month they had some online games that they wanted to play. 30 minutes we play games and then we do a 60-minute training session. And the conversations and the trust that has been built in these specific time periods, you know, very often, you know, an owner would look like, oh, that's a waste of time. They should be Listen, if your team loves where they're at and they love what they do, they're going to work super hard for you. And this has really helped us to be like this. And, you know, even with these new two hires, you know, everybody's excited. Our last Friday, our ops manager used to be a yoga instructor, so she brought in yoga mats for everybody and she brought them through like a breathing and a meditation session, and they loved it. And that's the type of business I want. That's the type of people I want to surround myself with. And, you know, that has really been game-changing for us and building the culture of our team.

I love that. If you love this, put in chat here, love it. I see Nina Mendoza wrote, loving this. Thanks, Chris. Ricardo said, this is awesome. I'm really enjoying it. This is great stuff. A couple of cool resources you referenced there, Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, great book on how to put these systems and procedures in place. And that whole strategy of breaking up the week, I think, is really around culture. It's not just around the fundamentals of doing a job, but developing a workplace that people actually want to be in so that they do give you 110% and so that you don't have a revolving door, where somebody comes into the company, you train them up, they get to a certain level of competency and their next thing is how do I go get a bigger paycheck? Like you can, it sounds like you can get around that by creating a culture like you're doing where people really love what they're doing and they wanna be there and they wanna give 110%, which is awesome. Gabriella says, so good.

Mario's asking, can you repeat Tuesday's activity? So Tuesday's our level 10 meeting. The Entrepreneurial Operating System has you do a Level 10 meeting. The reason why they call it a Level 10 meeting is because if you were to rate meetings from 1 to 10, the goal is for it to be a 10. And very often, you know, we find ourselves or can find ourselves in meetings that should have been an email, right? Like we just wasted 30 minutes of time that could have been an email. So the Level 10 meeting, it requires a lot of focus on everybody on the team. And, um, that's, that's what we do on Tuesday, and it eats about 90 minutes, you know, of our, of our day. So that's the main focus for Tuesday.

Amazing stuff. Joanna says, hope this is recorded. Yes, it's recorded. We'll make sure you guys get access. This is awesome. So I just want to shift gears for a sec. So we talked about kind of how you bridge this gap. We know that the, the niche is martial arts. We know that the service offering is, is a monthly recurring based Predominantly, maybe talk a little bit about what you do for the clients that you work with, kind of what the package looks like today.

Yeah. So, you know, since we came on board with the Seven Figure and we refigured it, we have at the top of the line is our Online Dominance Complete Program. Completely stole the name from Josh. Like, it's like, why reinvent the wheel? And, you know, because we are in a niche that the average business is not doing a million, our prices are, you know, definitely lower than, than what most agencies do, which is why we have to have, you know, a higher client count. But our Online Dominance Complete, it's our Mac Daddy package, and it includes Facebook and Instagram ads, Google and YouTube ads, database reactivation, blogging, reputation management, and social media management, where we actually post for our clients, but it's not stock images. Everything is authentic. So we actually set up a Google Drive where they dump tons of pictures and videos, um, you know, because I just— I'm not a huge fan personally of stock images. So that's our Online Dominance Complete package, and it's $1,500 a month. We do a 3-month agreement, and then we're on a month-to-month. All of— and when I say all, I mean all— all of the industry marketing agencies in, in the martial arts, right? Like the well-known ones, um, they do something very similar. Nobody's doing 12 months, and, and I'm not saying, you know, oh well, you should do what your competitors do, but that's what just kind of felt right. Um, our next package, we have our social media management and pay-per-click authority. Again, straight stolen from Josh, and that includes social media management where we're we post for them, and then Facebook and Instagram ads, Google and YouTube ads. Our most popular package, and that's $999 a month, our most popular package is our Pay Per Click Authority. And it's the most popular because it gets people on the most popular platforms for pay per click, Google and YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And the way that we position it is that there are two completely different types of marketing, right? If Josh and I are riding our bicycles and our bicycles break down, We're not going on Facebook to find a bicycle repair shop. Where are we gonna go? We're gonna go on Google, right? We have an intent, and that's what Google is. It's intent-based marketing. And what I consider Google to have is my today buyers, right? If a parent is going to Google and searching for martial arts in Tampa, Florida, they have an intent. Facebook, completely different. Why do we go on Facebook? We go on Facebook because we're bored. We go on Facebook because we want to be entertained, because we want to get in an argument with somebody, because we want to catch up with our friends, right? So Facebook is more interest-based marketing where we're really allowed to plant the seed, right, and then use our nurture systems to develop that relationship, to move the customer in the customer journey. And I look at Facebook more as future buyers. Not saying you can't immediately turn a Facebook lead around, absolutely, but just kind of in general. So what do you need? Do you need face— do you need today buyers or do you need future buyers? You need both. And, you know, because we present it that way, I believe it's, you know, our most popular program. It's $750 a month. And then we have a starter package which is just Facebook ads. And that, you know, that structure— I used to offer just Facebook ads and just Google ads. And when we tweaked it and said Well, no, if you want Google Ads, you also have to have Facebook. And we stacked it. It really drove a lot more people to go to that Pay Per Click Authority package, which ultimately helped us to increase our client value. So those are the 4 packages that we do. We don't do any à la carte anymore. It's a 3-month agreement, and then they're on a month-to-month.

Awesome. Thanks for breaking that down. Zach actually says, really appreciate you elaborating on the price, because that's something I've been struggling with, and that helps. So that, that's awesome. Um, looks like David posted a link to your website, and they're saying website looks good, nicely done, great stuff. So thanks for elaborating on that. Um, I'd love you guys to kind of type in chat here, like, what are some of your key takeaways? What are you liking from this, this interview? Um, let's talk about what everybody likes to talk about most, which is like, you're landing 7+ clients per month. It's— I think you're on track for 10+ this month. Like, where are the clients coming from? What's working for you right now in terms of new client acquisition?

Yes, so, uh, 7 Figure Agency webinar model, that's really our main form of marketing. So each month we do a webinar, and it works exactly how Josh teaches it. He says more than likely those people aren't even going to show up to your webinar, but they're going to book the lead acceleration session prior. And, uh, the last one that we did was the 2021 Internet Marketing Plan. I actually did it with Stephen Reinstein, um, uh, who's a 7-figure agency client. And, uh, we had like 100 people show up on it, which was really, really great. And that alone produced 10 clients, that one webinar. Um, so this month we're doing 8 Simple Steps to Creating an Irresistible Offer. So we have that on February 23rd. So the webinars has really been the main focus and ways to bring people in. Kind of silly to say, and this is something I had actually been struggling with that we had talked about, I have never ran paid advertising for GrowPro. It's— I kind of had it stuck in my head that, you know, if I had to run paid ads and I had to go find people, then, you know, I wasn't good enough. And it's just so silly. It's a silly thing that I had stuck in my head. So we actually just started filming a commercial. I took a page right out of your book, literally saw the one that you just launched. I think it was with Paul the Plumber. Sat there with the video, hit play, typed out the script, and we shot the video. And because all of our clients are going to be at this event next week, we took a couple of our top-performing clients and asked them if we could interview them at the event next week so that we can get the remaining footage for our first commercial. So really, it's been webinars, it's been word of mouth. You know, word of mouth can absolutely help you grow, but there's a tipping point. And, um, you know, the webinars have been phenomenal. I, I will say, with webinars, it's gonna take time, it's gonna take practice. So I don't know if our viewers know, I have my degree in education. I was supposed to be a teacher. I've been teaching martial arts since I was a teenager. So being on lives and, you know, being on Zooms is something that feels really natural to me. So, you know, when you're doing these webinars, if the first one doesn't knock it out of the park, well then guess what? You got to do it again and then you do it again and then you do it again. And the compound effect is eventually going to take over. And it's just, you know, how do you become confident in anything in life? You have to be competent in it. And how do you be competent? You gotta do it, right? So webinars has been, you know, the main focus of our marketing strategy. And just really the authority that I've built. I write an article for Martial Arts Success Magazine every single publication, which has been huge. You know, I think that's something that pretty much everybody can do because magazines need writers. Like they, are foaming at the mouth for content. And if you provide them with an article that provides value, then you're going to get published in a magazine. And that, you know, I'm not saying that the magazine article is now suddenly going to bring you 5 or 10 clients. What it's going to do is help you to develop your authority. And, you know, that's what I want. I want people, when they think of Chris Rodriguez, I want them to think like, she is the expert on digital marketing in our industry. And I don't want them to think about anybody else. But the authority, that's a marathon, that's not a sprint, that doesn't happen overnight. And so, those are really kind of the main ways, the webinars, the authority that's been built, writing for publications, and the fact that I own a martial arts school immediately allows me to build rapport with my clients.

Yeah, yeah. I think really important for everyone to take note of, you're really entrenched in the industry. Right? So, it's not like you've entered the vertical like some of us, okay, I'm gonna go in this particular niche and I'll buy an email list and I'll email them and invite them to a webinar. Like, you're in the industry association, you're writing for the publications, you're at the events and kind of speaking at the events. And all of that, like, really positions you as the go-to expert. And then when you add a little rocket fuel to it with Facebook ads and with webinars that you promote that are just information-based, it really can fill the funnel on a consistent basis.

Yeah, and, uh, you know, I am on a mission to prove that I can do this in another niche. Um, I'm not there yet because we have not exhausted all of our options in our current niche, but that is on, you know, when we're doing our 3-year or 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year plan, within 3 years, our goal is to dominate another niche because, you know, these skills, yes, I focused on the martial arts industry because that just made sense. You know, my skills aren't going to go away. Those skills will work in another niche. But, you know, I think one of us, you know, a superpower that entrepreneurs can have is having blinders on. You know, saying no sometimes to certain opportunities can actually propel you even further in life. And if we tried to dive into a new niche right now, it would completely split our focus. So I— it's something that I want to do, but I'm keeping my blinders on until, you know, we really dominate this market. There's, there's 30,000 martial arts schools. We're running ads for 130, you know. It's like we haven't dominated it yet. We're doing well, We're, you know, we're growing, but, you know, in the future, that is one of our goals.

Yeah, just, I think that's a wise move, right? Stay, stay focused where you're at. You know, yes, that's a vision down the road. You know, stay, stay in your lane as long as, as long as you can until it makes sense to do otherwise. Bob says you're an inspiration. This is, this has been wonderful.

Awesome.

Let's talk a little bit about retention. Right? So, now we've got hundreds of martial arts studios paying us a monthly fee to do these works. What are you doing to retain the clients, to keep them engaged? And just kind of share some tips on that front since you're doing such a good job in that area.

Yeah. So, this is just a page out of our martial arts book. People flock to excitement, but they stay where they are loved. All right? And If I go on Facebook right now and I start scrolling the newsfeed, I'm going to see a brand new marketer trying to enter the martial arts niche, another person guaranteeing just absolute ridiculous results. And the way that we've been able to, to keep our clients— so in 2020, we had a 5% attrition. Now our goal is to be at 3%, but we— our industry also got hit very, very hard with COVID you know, school owners you, you're told by the government that you can no longer run martial arts classes. Like, martial arts is a combat art. I can't get better at martial arts unless I'm punching and kicking and grappling, right? We were fortunate that we had Zoom, that for jiu-jitsu we could buy grappling dummies and we could teach the kids to use pillows while they were doing the class. But, you know, we lost about 30% of our clientele, you know, in March and April. So if I removed that, my attrition would be where it needs to be. Um, but again, people flock to excitement, they flock to the newest, latest, greatest hack, but they ultimately stay where they are loved. And part of that, um, one thing that we do that I truly believe helps with attrition is I teach a monthly masterclass to all of my clients on a different digital marketing skill that they should implement. So this month, it's, uh, the, the title is The Only Phone Script You Ever Need. You know, I can get a client 100 leads, but if they can't get those leads to walk the feet through the door, then it doesn't matter, right? That, that's what they ultimately want. And yes, you've got an email, and yes, people prefer text message, and yes, you gotta leave voicemail. But if a lead opts in to Martial Arts School A and Martial Arts School A doesn't call and the lead also opts into Martial Arts School B, and Martial Arts School B does call, they're gonna have a better chance of building rapport. So for me to help my clients level up their skill set so they can get better results ultimately will keep them as a client longer with me. So that's one retention strategy that has worked really, really well. Um, the, you know, the other thing is just Constant communication, you know. Um, one thing that I will say, we predominantly hire millennials, and I would say the average age in our company is like 23. All right, so we've got young kids, and they did not grow up on the phone. They grew up doing this. So one of the things that we've really had to implement, and we do this on our Friday trainings, we're actually going through a customer service training with them right now is getting them to understand, listen, if you can pick up the phone and answer the question in 30 seconds, that's a better option than 15 emails going back and forth and back and forth. And you also have to understand your clients. You know, I would say the average age of our clients are like 45, 50 years old. These aren't people that necessarily grew up with computers. They're not technologically savvy. They're at an age where they did talk on the phone. So communicating with your clients in the way that they want you to communicate, not in the way that you want to communicate, I think is really, really important. And yes, people do love texting, but do we want to have, you know, 50 texts back and forth when a 30-second conversation, you know, could have, could have, you know, fixed that? Um, so just constant communication. And if there is an issue with an account being ahead of it. Your clients want to know two things. They want to know if you have their back, and they want to know if you have a game plan. And for what we do, pay-per-click, right, we have 130 clients. We have some clients, they get $2 cost per lead. We have some clients that get $40 cost per lead. Same exact strategy, same exact strategy. There's only two variables: the assets that they provide, the pictures and the videos that they provide, and their location. And we do know that the platforms are auctions, and the more people that are vying for the attention of your audience that you're trying to advertise to, that can increase your cost. Well, that's crappy for us to say, hey, listen, you're just not in a really good location for us to advertise, right? One of our core values is, you know, we give results, not reasons. So if a client isn't performing well It's, you know, our duty to let them know, hey, we see you, we're aware of it, we've got your back, and this is what we're going to do. I want to get ahead of the objection before the objection comes, right? So I think educating your clients and helping them become better, right? If we work harder, you know, we want to work harder on ourselves than we do our jobs. If they can level up as an entrepreneur and a business owner, they're going to get better results with our services. And having constant communication with the clients and staying a step ahead has really been, you know, like our two greatest, you know, retention strategies.

Love it. So many gold nuggets there. So many gold nuggets, right? Uh, number one, they leave— number one reason they leave is perceived indifference, right? They— what was the exact phrase? Was they stay where they're loved, right? So you need to be showing the love. Don't hide behind the technology, right? Yes, we can text message, email, we can automate a lot of stuff, But you got to train that team to pick up the phone, have those conversations, and stay ahead of the problems. Let them know what you're doing, what you're changing. If there's an issue, be the one to let them know and kind of shed the light on that. So, so good. Would love to have you guys in comments, like, what were some of your key takeaways? We talked about landing clients, we talked about retention, we talked about, you know, building the team and kind of building the culture. Would love to hear some Cliff Notes takeaways in the chat. So we're coming to the end of this interview. I think this has been awesome. Um, Chris, if you were talking to that agency owner, that's whether they're at $10,000 a month or $50,000 a month or over that, like, if you had like one or two pieces of insights for them or, or suggestions, what would they, what would they be?

Yeah, um, you know, I'm gonna bring it back to the three biggest mistakes that I just think in you know, in general entrepreneurs make. They don't hire fast enough. They don't reinvest in marketing and they, they don't find a mentor. But sometimes people do find a mentor, but they do not do exactly what said mentor says, right? It's like the mentor gives them a recipe to make chocolate chip cookies and they take the chocolate chips out and they put raisins instead. Like, who wants an oatmeal raisin cookie over a chocolate chip, right? I don't. So I think that's another huge mistake is that they do find a mentor, but they don't follow what the mentor said. And you, you've gotta follow the, you know, you gotta follow the recipe. You gotta follow what they're telling you to do and don't try to, don't try to change it up. Right. There's no point in reinventing the wheel. Now, the other thing about that, there are many different ways to run a successful agency. There are many different ways to run a successful martial arts school. So what I do think is you've got to find a mentor that has the same core values as you do. And that's one thing that attracted me to Josh and the Seven Figure Agency. You know, it's not this like glitz and glam and these ridiculous email subject lines that just make my eyes roll when I see them. You know, it's, it's, it's honest, it's transparent. And that's in line with my personal core values. So, you know, you guys, you have 7-figure agency, just pull the trigger on it. And, you know, I was in the OnRamp group for, I think, 3 days. So when I hopped on board, I basically told my wife, I said, I just joined. I've got X amount of hours of videos that I need to watch, and I am going to binge-watch these over the next 3 days. And I had gone through the course literally in 3 days, and I was out of OnRamp. And so often, you know, we see the shiny new object and, oh, I want to do the course. Like, knowledge is not enough. And just because you, you know, intellectually understand something, right? I can listen to something and intellectually understand it. That doesn't make me a master of it. If I want to be a master of it, I gotta put the action in place. And, um, you know, I think people do understand they need to get a mentor, but sometimes when they do get the mentor, they try to change the recipe and they don't take massive action. And, um, you know, I, uh, it's funny, you have recently had me start tracking my free days, uh, and when you said like, Chris, how many free days do you have? Like, what's a free day? What do you mean by free day? Does that like I don't check my email or I don't go into the office? Um, you know, and, and for me, I, I honestly, I get anxiety when I'm not working because I love what I do so, so much. And, you know, just being that passionate and exciting about what you do gives you the fuel that you need to take action. Um, you know, I, for people that come on board, like when you when you're on OnRamp, why does it take 6 months to go through the videos? You could go through it in 6 days if you really, really wanted it. So it's, you know, about, yes, pulling the trigger and finding that mentor and following what they do to the T, but also taking massive action on it. And even on the days that you don't feel like doing it, that's the most important day. When you don't feel like doing it, that's the most important day that you should.

100%. Great, great stuff. Kris, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for being such a great inspiration. And I'm so excited to see where you're going to go over the next 12 months and kind of where things continue to blossom in your business and in your life. If somebody wants to connect with you, is it best to just connect with you in the Facebook group? Or what's the best way for someone to connect with you if they want, you know, just want to get to know you better?

Yeah. If we're being 100% honest, I absolutely cannot stand Facebook messages. I just, I'm not a fan of Facebook messages. I love email. So my email, uh, is midgettwister@gmail.com, and it's the most professional sounding email you're ever gonna hear. Um, so midgettwister@gmail.com. David, thanks for dropping that in there.

Awesome.

That's the best way to connect.

Yeah, be sure to, to thank Herb either via email not via personal message, but maybe in the Facebook group. Hey, thanks for sharing. Thanks for the insights. Um, Chris, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for your time. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you guys for the interactive engagement on today's session. Uh, we'll be sure to get this recording out to you ASAP.

Thanks for your time and energy, everybody. Make it a great day.

You too.