How Ryan grew his Agency from $17K to over $70K Monthly Recurring over the past 9 months

Alright, well, hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us on today's special session. This is part of the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. It's our agency success interview series where we interview successful digital marketing agencies in a variety of different verticals and a variety of different areas. And I cannot be happier today to be interviewing Ryan Davis from Davis Construction Marketing. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Honored to be here, man.

And, um, Ryan will tell the story, but as I understand, he's gone from like $17,000 a month of recurring to over $70,000 a month of recurring over the last, uh, 10 months or so. Has a lot of great insights to share with you on how to really grow your agency quickly, land clients on a consistent basis, and, and make the pivots necessary so that you don't get bogged down doing everything yourself. So without further ado, Ryan, just kind of introduce ourselves, uh, introduce yourself to the group, kind of who you are, the types of clients you work with, etc.

Yeah, man, thanks for the intro. And, um, you know, my name is Ryan Davis, and, um, so our company is Davis Construction Marketing, kind of a long name, um, but, uh, we, we, we service concrete coating companies, the guys that are doing your your garage floor coatings, things like that, like your epoxy garage floors, and then also painting contractors. So we service those two niches. And I want to say it is the 13th of October, 2020. We've already closed 5 deals this month. And I think that marks us at like, I want to say like 43 or 44 clients, something like that. And yeah, man, it's going great. Yeah.

That, that's, that's amazing. So yeah, hit a like if you're watching this on Facebook, or a yes in comments if you're interested in learning how he's getting that type of growth and kind of what's working best for him. I know I'm excited about, you know, kind of unpacking this further, uh, and, uh, kind of just hearing his, his success story. So you and I start— kind of got together about—

was it—

how long is it ago, like 9 months ago, a little bit less than that?

Actually, I signed up with 7 Figure Agency and I'll never forget it was March 1st, but it was my birthday on March 2nd, or I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. May 1st is when I signed on. And I, and, but my birthday was May 2nd. So I kind of was like a very exciting time of like, I'm turning 27 and I'm going to do this. Like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to pay that $1,000 a month or whatever it was I paid. And, you know, I'm gonna commit to this. It was May 1st of this year, 2020. Awesome.

And I guess, what were some of the challenges you were trying to face, or what were you looking to solve for in your agency at that time?

So, at that time we had, I wanna say like 15 clients, or like 14 clients, and it was myself, my wife, and that was it. And so we were just like so busy, like it was crazy, but we were happy 'cause we were making a little living and we were at about $19K in recurring revenue. But I just had this desire to go to the next level. I was like, I just knew that, I knew that God had big plans for me. I just knew it. And so I was searching for something. Previous to joining this program, I, I, I joined this program for Billie Jean's marketing, and I, and I— but it was like, it was— there wasn't great, um, support. It was kind of like, here's the course, good luck, type of, type of deal. Um, and so when I talked to your, your sales guy, um, forget his name— Arnaldo. Yes, he's the man, by the way. I've talked to him I talked to him and I'm like, look, man, like, I am not looking for a course. Like, so if this is a course, like, just let me know because I'm looking for something more hands-on. And he was like, no, I promise this is not just a course. I promise, man. And I'm like, and I'm like, well, you know, let's do it then. And so I was looking for more hands-on approach. I wasn't looking for a course, a sit-it-and-forget-it course. And so that's what I found here, man.

Awesome. So it sounds like you had already kind of dialed in how you were landing clients. You already had the niche. Um, it was more about how do you build the team and the procedures, right? Was that kind of the main thing you, you joined for? Like, what were like 2 or 3 of the big challenges you were looking to solve for at the time?

Yeah, I didn't know what to do next. I'm like, I just knew, um, I, I had a, a guy that I was in communication with, uh, Lyle Horst. And he was telling me, look dude, like this is what you could do. We had a similar structure. We run Facebook ads for clients. And he's like, dude, this is what you can do. And I actually reached out to him to have him mentor me. And he was like, look, I'm too busy, bro, I can't. And I'm like, gosh. So I wanted to get to the next level. I just didn't know how. So I was looking like, okay, how do I get from $19K to $100K? Like, how do you do that? Like, I didn't even know like what to do. Like, literally, I didn't know what to do next. Um, I just knew that I was tired of working from 5 AM to 10 PM with my wife every 7 days a week, basically, you know.

So those were the, those were the things you were looking to solve for. What were some of the things— because obviously you've, you've gone from, you know, that was like $17-20K to $70+ now. Um, you've built a team. What were some of the things you put in place in order to make that happen?

So some of the things we put in place is, um, in terms of people, we, we first got an account manager, um, and I actually talked to Jeff about that, Jeff Fisher, and I thought I needed a marketing assistant, and he was like, no, you need an account manager. And I'm like, what is an account manager? Like, what does that mean in my, in my company? And so, um, but that's what we did first. We hired an account manager And that way clients weren't texting and calling me at 7:00 PM on Sunday. So that was kind of cool. We had a kind of like boots on the ground person, if you will. And so that was first. And then we hired a fulfillment person to take some of the fulfillment off my shoulders. 'Cause I was, up until we had like, I wanna say like 25 clients, I was, I was doing all the fulfillment. So I was, I mean, you can imagine. So we did that. And then there was a couple other fulfillment roles, like a social media manager that we hired to do some organic stuff. And so that was kind of like a people we put in place, account manager and fulfillment. And then we got some really cool softwares that you guys recommended, GoHighLevel, things like that, that really, you know, automated some things. So yeah, those are some of the things we put in place.

That's awesome. So putting an account manager in place, about how many clients did you have at that point when you hired that position? Because I think that's one of the— like, I really believe the two first positions is operations, like doing the work, and then dealing with the client communication. And it sounds like those were the first two that you brought on. How much time did that create for you, and how hard was it to find people for those roles?

Well, we hired her, I think we had about 23 clients, I think it was. Yeah, 23 or 25 in there. And so we took your guys' advice in terms of job description, put it on Indeed, and that's where we had success was Indeed. I wanted to find somebody local so we could have company events like we just had on Saturday. And I saw some pictures of that.

I want to hear more about that. That, that seemed like a cultural celebration event with the team.

That was awesome. It was so cool. And, um, so we did Indeed, we hired local, we used your job description, um, and it took a lot off our shoulders. Not in the beginning, took— we were like diving into training, so, um, you know, that was a thing. Uh, but that was really, really cool though to get It took my leadership skills to the next level. It was like, how do I, how do I tell somebody what to do? Um, but it— but now it's like amazing, you know? Like, clients come through the company and I don't even talk to them, you know?

That's awesome. That's awesome. So amazing, amazing execution on that front.

Oh, and Josh, one thing I forgot, um, I know this isn't necessarily recommended, but it is, it is my story, is I hired a salesperson it kind of like, this guy like fell into my lap. His name's Danny, and I taught him everything I knew about sales. And so that was a big deal for us too. I was fully capable of having the sales calls. I'm not the best salesman ever, but I, you know, I was fully capable of getting the job done. And he fell into my lap, he needed a job. I said, okay, this is what you're gonna do. I told him everything I knew. And so that was a part of it too. Like, he had the sales calls, they came into the company, they onboarded, and then boom, they went to the account manager and then fulfillment. And so I don't, you know, I didn't even talk to people, you know. So it was kind of cool.

That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, to me, what we all want in our business is a business that can scale, right? That provides the money we need so we can pay the bills, live our desired lifestyle, but more importantly, the freedom so we can do what we want to do, the things that we do best. It sounds like you're kind of in that freedom creation phase in the business by putting these people in place. And impact, right? Knowing that what we're doing is impacting the clients, it's also impacting the people we, we hire. I think you're already like kind of planting the seeds of impact in the team that you've got. Um, it sounds like you're hiring local and you're trying to build that local team. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Well, I, I really had that inspiration hit me from you, actually. Um, I know you like that. And I like that too. I, you know, I'm just a people person. And so we do have 9 people in the Philippines that do one specific thing for us. But we have 4 employees now here in the Phoenix Valley. And I thought it was important. And really the main idea was like, hey, I want to get together and have lunch together. I want to go golfing together, have little events. We just took everyone to Topgolf and that was pretty fun. If you guys don't know what Topgolf is, you're missing out on a lot of fun. But we took everyone there and we just got to like get to know each other. And I just, I just had the vision of having a bigger impact inside of our company if we had the opportunity to communicate with each other in person, like once every 60 days. No doubt.

Something powerful happens when you've got a team and you know each other, you like each other, you spend time with each other, everybody's aligned towards the same, you know, vision and the same mission within the company. I think that's a big part of your rapid ascent and the success that you're having. What was it, you guys, was it a 1-year celebration or was it a milestone celebration that you guys were all hanging out at Topgolf?

Well, I quit my job last September, early in the month, early in the month. And we, we, we formed the LLC October 15th of last year. So technically our 1 year in terms of the LLC being formed was October 15th, but I really quit my job last September. So we were just celebrating, hey, it's our first year in business. And, um, I was, you know, I'm still surprised how excited our team members are to be a part of the team. Like With all the, like, all the figuring things out in the beginning and them, like, you know, obviously seeing, like, our imperfections, um, they're, they're super committed and it's, and it, and it's pretty encouraging.

That's amazing. That, that, that's, that's some congratulations on your success in that one year. To accomplish what you've accomplished in one year is, is extremely impressive, so kudos to you.

And it's not just me. Yeah, it's not just me. First and foremost, like, I give all praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Um, without him, I, I would not be here, let me tell you that. And without my beautiful wife, uh, Kristen— she does operations for our company. Um, she's actually in the other room killing it right now. Um, and I— she does not get enough praise and, and, and gratitude. And so it's like, there's, there's things that I do for sure, and Josh, I'm sure you could speak on this leaps and bounds over this, but, um, like, it is, it is a whole team effort, um, and, and glory goes to God.

100%. I'm glad, I'm glad you, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad that that's, that's how you feel about it, right? You have such a humble spirit, and you know that, you know, it comes from above, and so that's, that, that's powerful. So let's talk a little bit about kind of going back to the foundation the, the niche, right? With a part of this podcast, we're always talking about— let's talk about the business model, how you land clients, how you deliver results. But it all starts with, with niche. When you were starting this agency about a year ago, what made you decide to focus on the niche that you're in?

So for me, um, before I started this, this agency, I was a sales and marketing manager for a painting company that also did concrete coatings. So I really was in the niche before I knew what being in the niche was, really. And so I did in-home sales for that company. I knew how the office was supposed to run. I knew the marketing, I knew the ad spend, I knew literally everything about the business. And then before that, I was a sales and marketing manager and a commercial estimator for a, like, traditional flooring company. And concrete coatings company. So I really just kind of fell into it. And so one day, the company I was working at before I quit was Steve Holloway Painting. He's still a client of ours today. He was our first client. They were looking to get more leads, and this was before I even knew what like a marketing agency was. I didn't realize this was a thing until like literally a about a year ago, well, a little longer than a year ago, about 2 years ago is when I learned that running ads was a thing. And they were looking for more leads, and so, you know, this guy was Steve, I love this guy, he's still a mentor of mine, and he was like 61, I think, at the time, maybe 62. And they wanted more leads, and they were like, Ryan's 25 years old, he's gonna learn Facebook ads. And so I just like got initiated into this, this learning how to generate leads on Facebook.

And so that was, so you worked for this company, you kind of cut your teeth, you learned how it worked, and then, and I guess you just decided, all right, now I'm going to do this for other companies like this. Was that, was that how it happened? Or like kind of what was the next evolution in this process?

Yeah, and so they initiated, they they kind of told me, hey, this is what you're gonna do. I learned it, um, and I had a little bit of help along the way. I had a guy help me a little bit. He taught me how to boost post on Facebook. That's what he taught me. And then I took, I took it and ran with it. But, um, so I was doing that for a little while and we were killing it. I was, I was getting like 80 to 100 leads a month with, um, about $2,400 in ad spend. So I was getting 80 to 100 leads a month, 20 $2,400 in ad spend, and I personally wasn't making the money I wanted to make. I, you know, the company was doing $2 million a year, home improvement company. I just didn't feel like I was being fulfilled a little bit in terms of, you know, finances. And I always wanted, like, I always knew I had something great planned for myself, and I knew it wasn't doing in-home sales at that company at that time. And so I'm like, hey, I wonder if I could get leads for other companies. Like, like, I just wonder, um, because I was, I was either going to start a marketing company at that time doing what I'm doing now, or I was going to start my own concrete coating company. And the coating company required more money, like a lot more money. Like, I— and so I'm like, you know what, let me just throw this thing against the wall, see if I can, if I can do it, because it's only going to cost me about $1,000 to get going. And ended up costing less than that to get started, but And so I was like, you know what, I actually ran into another, you know, company that needed some help. I was like, hey, look, man, like, if you wanna have me help you, I can help you. I'll charge you $800 a month. You cover the ad spend and we'll see if it works. He let me do it, killed it for him. And then I got another referral. So my first, like, couple clients were referrals technically. But that's how it started, man. I was like, just kind of in a perspective of, I wonder if I can do this for somebody else. It's a low-cost entry in terms of, you know, money. And so that's how it started, man.

That's awesome. So, like, the lesson for a lot of you guys, and I think a lot of people miss it, when it comes to choosing the niche, everybody wants to go and find like this magic niche somewhere that's got the right metrics and the right average transaction value. And the best place to start always is, I've worked in this before, I've got some experience, I kind of understand the industry. If you can latch on to that, if you look at, you know, a lot of the people that have been on this podcast, that was their foray, right? They had worked in that space, or they worked with a client and got some good results, or they had a business in that type of business. That's gonna be the easiest path into a niche. Even if you look at the niche and say, this might not be that lucrative. So that's awesome. So you did it, you got the first guy. How did you get your first handful of clients in the niche? Like, what was the approach? Was it word of mouth? Or let's talk a little bit about that.

Well, the first guy— I forgot this important part— the first guy was the guy I was working for. I actually sat down with him. I said, hey, look, I'm gonna start my own thing, you know? And he's like, At first he was like, that's super, super cool, I'm excited for you. And then like towards that conversation, he was like, wait, like what about my marketing? And I'm like, well, that was actually a good segue 'cause I wanted to ask if you'd be my first client. And he was like, absolutely. And so I charged him $1,000 a month plus ad spend. And I was like, thank God, 'cause I'll be honest with you, I was living with my mom at the time. And I started this business out of my mom's office. I'm not gonna, you know, it was so interesting. I could go back so far back and everyone would be like, oh my gosh. But I started this in my mom's office. And so that $1,000 a month was like amazing, right?

It was a big deal, right?

Oh, it was a huge deal. And then I was actually running a painting bid and I ran into another painter in that same county. And I knew him kind of, and I kind of talked to him. So I ran into my second deal at a painting bid, literally. The third client was a referral from the first client. And then, so that's my first 3 clients, and I was making about $3,000 a month on that. And that was like the first like month or 2. And I'm like, and I kind of was like figuring out, okay, how do I get clients now? And so I started running Facebook ads. And in the beginning it was actually a Messenger ad and it was crazy, dude. I mean, I was running this Messenger ad and people were messaging me. I'm like responding at like 9:00 PM at night. And I'm like just trying to get a call booked. I'm like, book a call with me, I promise. And I ended up getting a couple clients from that. And so that's kind of how I got my first 5 clients. It was kind of a hustle, man. I love it. I love it.

Um, so yeah, I mean, you can't be shy about reaching out to the people you've worked with, reaching out to your sphere of influence. Usually that's where your first handful of clients are going to come from. Um, talk to us a little bit about the service. Like, what is it that you actually do for these clients? How do you charge for it? How do you package it? What does that look like in your, in your world?

Yeah, man. Um, so When I first started, I was charging that $1,000 a month. And then I was also offering an $800 a month option. I ended that like very quickly, but that's what I started with. And for $800 a month, I would run your Facebook ads for you. And that was it. I would just run your Facebook ads. That was it. And I would, and I would basically send your leads to a Google Sheet using Zapier. And that's how I delivered your leads. And a lot of it was actually boosting a post, and then we would— my wife and I would be on the back end of that boosted post answering the comments and the messages, converting those to leads for our clients. And for the $1,000 a month, I would do the Facebook ads, the same thing, but I would also do your organic posting. I would post to your page 5 days a week, one day, or one time per day. And so that was my two packages when I first started. So now, now we do similar. So basically for $1,550 a month plus ad spend with a $2,550 first month, we'll do Facebook ads. And it's a little bit better now, but Facebook ads will do your organic posting. We give them HighLevel And, um, really that's it, um, for the $1,550 a month.

And then for those who don't know, what you're doing with HighLevel is dropping it onto a pipeline and doing some lead nurture follow-up once the lead comes in through text message and phone.

Yeah, yeah, uh, and you know what, that's a big deal to a lot of these guys, um, and so we have a really cool snapshot. I, I now own a concrete coating company with my family. That's doing very well. And so we— I've like implemented this snapshot into their account, and so I just use that for everyone else, and it has all the campaigns, triggers, and you name it in there. Um, and a lot of these guys are blown away by that, but that's all we do for $1,550 a month is Facebook ads. We deliver pretty darn good results. Um, and then we have a middle package. We have a small, medium, and large. A middle package is, is all the same things— Facebook ads, organic posting, CRM. But we also do the Google Ads. We use 51Blocks. If you're in, if you're in need of a nice white label provider for PPC, SEO, websites, hit them up. Brittany and Michael are great. And then we also offer reputation marketing. We use Get More Reviews, works fantastic. And then we'll also build them a website in that package if they need one. We'll build landing pages for whatever we need. And I have a third package, which I've only got one person to sign up for this completely right now, but it's $4,500 the first month, and then it's $3,500 a month recurring. And that one just is everything, you know, Package 1 and Package 2 covers, but it includes SEO as well. So that's kind of what we're offering. And, you know, obviously everyone's taking the smaller package, it seems like, but, you know, we still get a nice $2,550 on that first month from that package. Um, so yeah, but that's kind of what we're offering. That's awesome.

So like $1,500, $1,550 a month is kind of what the average customer is paying, and the main focus is generate leads and inquiries with a system to follow up and convert those at the highest level possible. Obviously, you've got this dialed into a science because your clients are really, really happy with the results that you generate.

Yeah, you know, one of the cool things that I have, you know, is the experience working on the actual business, you know, for the coating company, for the painting company. I've been there, I know what it is to sell in the home. I, you know, I know all about that. Um, and so one of the things that is extremely important with our clients is the sales, uh, aspect. So like, what do you do when you get the lead? And so I typically am able to kind of like talk to them about that too, and I feel like that's a big deal.

Uh, yeah, and you know, but you conclude that with any client basically, look, I'm gonna generate the leads for you, I'm gonna put a system in place to follow up and then I'll help coach you and your team on how to sell these leads into book jobs.

Yeah, I don't— like, in the beginning, I was on the phone a lot, like, training guys on how to sell better and how to, like, how to have a better office. Um, and so I, I don't offer it now because it's, you know, I'm just too busy to do that. But yeah, but I— but every team member knows to keep an ear out, like, if they need help with it. I'm more than happy to do it. We just don't like throw it up up front. But they— everyone has an ear out if they need help with sales or how to call people and set appointments, all these things. Like, I try to get on the phone with them because I know it's just going to help, help them close deals and help them pay us more, you know.

No doubt, no doubt. So someone, uh, Thomas is asking the price on the second package again. I guess the audio cut out. How much is the price for the The second one that included the reputation and PPC.

So that one is $3,500 the first month and $2,500 recurring. Yeah, and everything's plus ad spend.

You know, we recommend a specific amount of ad spend, but what kind of, what kind of spend do you find in your market is required in order to kind of grease the wheels, so to speak?

On Facebook, we recommend that you spend $80 to $100 a day. Um, you know, you can get away with spending $20 a day if you're an owner-operator, you know, any— and, and all you need is 30 leads a month or 20 leads a month. But, you know, the guys that we're working with, a lot of them have, you know, multiple crews. And so I know that to get them a specific amount of leads, which is, you know, 50 to 150 leads a month, I need $80 to $100 per day on Facebook. And, um, on Google, we just throw it out there. We say we recommend $100, um, per day. Um, and the minimum though to work with us, we need $40 a day for Google and $40 a day for Facebook. It's kind of like a minimum to— or it's not going to make sense, right?

So it sounds like $1,500 to $2,500 a month management fee And then somewhere between $2,500 to $5,000 a month recommended ad spend. Is that right? Somewhere in that territory?

Yeah, like if they take the lowest package, which a lot of guys do, um, is, uh, really it's not that much. It's like the minimum amount is like $1,200 a month, but okay. Yeah, it's like $2,500 a month for the, for the ad spend roughly, plus that $1,550 management. So I mean, it's a decent amount of investment for these guys, you know.

Yeah, they're not used to advertising, or, you know, they've just been doing the penny saver, like that little flyer thing that gets mailed out, and you're coming in saying, let's dump $3,500 a month into your online marketing. It's a little bit of an ask. How long do you find it's taking between when they sign up and when they start to see return on investment and okay, I can see this makes a lot of financial sense?

Yeah, that's a good one. So really, I would say month 2 is typically when it happens. Now, if they're in a larger market, like if the audience size on Facebook is like 800,000 and up, we can just pump out so many leads that a lot of guys will have that return like within the first month for sure, you know. So it's pretty cool, you know, like they can close quite a bit of deals. So, but if you're in a smaller market, like if you only have a couple hundred thousand people we're running the ad to, takes a little time. It takes a little time to get going and get things ramped up. So I would say month number 2 for that one.

Got it. Very, very, very cool stuff. So, so let's talk a little bit about where, like, where you're getting the clients. So you've gone from $20K to over $70K, um, a handful of clients to— it sounded like, how many was it, 45 clients? What, where are the clients coming from? You know, what's working for you in terms of client acquisition?

Yeah, so really just, you know, when I first started really figuring out how to try to land clients, like that whole perspective, which was about when I had like 5 clients. I was doing Facebook ads, we were doing the Messenger ads, and then the Messenger ads turned into lead gen objectives, and that was a whole thing in itself. I mean, we pumped out so many leads. I mean, I just have Google Sheets just full of like hundreds and hundreds of leads. Tons of owner-operators, which was cool. Um, but, and then it turned into like a little bit more, you know, complex ads, you know, running conversion ads and traffic and all these things and retargeting. Uh, but that's, that's where we land our clients, is all Facebook ads. Um, I've, I've landed a couple clients, um, from Facebook groups. Um, I think I might have landed like 5 clients from Facebook groups. That's kind of like a hidden secret is, um, in our space, in the coding and painting space, there's some really big Facebook groups. And so I would, you know, I would post in there, hey, this is what I'm doing, here's a video testimonial, message me. And I landed a couple clients there. But for the most part, it's, it's all been paid advertising on Facebook to land all of our clients.

That's awesome. And you've got, you've got it really dialed in. You did a really nice deep dive walkthrough of kind of how you're landing clients for the 7 Figure Agency members last couple, couple weeks ago. And it was amazing. And thank you so much for sharing because you have some really innovative things you do for client acquisition through, through Facebook. Daniel's asking, what's the average cost to acquire a customer for you through Facebook? If you have an idea, on that? If you—

yeah, I mean, um, I can tell you that, um, with our retargeting, like the funnel that I, that I talked to you guys about— video view, traffic, conversion— um, those leads end up around like $30 to like $45 per— sorry, per booked call. So these are guys that seen ad, they booked their own call, they're getting enrolled into a to a campaign, uh, in HighLevel, and then my sales guy talks to them. And, you know, that's, that, that's what I mean by those, you know, $30 to $45 for that.

$30 to $45 per qualified appointment or per, per scheduled appointment, which is, which is really good. It's really, yeah, really good, uh, really good cost for a targeted lead in a specific vertical.

Um, well, well done. Now this is asking Oh, go ahead. The second aspect to that is, that's the funnel that I've kind of developed. But if I go straight for conversions to like a lookalike audience or something like that, those can be like around like $50 to $100 per booked call. So a little bit higher. And you gotta ask yourself, am I willing to pay for that? I am at this point. But yeah, so. The warmer audience, $30 to $45. If you go straight to conversions, it tends to be a little bit higher. Got it.

Ricky's asking about targeting. Daniel says thank you. I think Ricky, you're part of the membership. So there's a deep— anybody that's part of 7 Figure Agency, there's like a 2-hour long training that Ryan did where he walks you step by step through the targeting and the 3 different steps. So I don't want to rehash that too much on this session. Um, but if you need help finding it, just shoot me a PM. Um, Chris is asking— if Chris Novick is asking if you do any cold calling.

Not really, not right now, although I've done so much cold calling in the past. But no, I don't, I don't, I don't do it right now. Um, not that I'm, you know, opposed to it, but just I don't do it right now.

Yeah, I think, you know, the beauty of it is once you've got some client case studies and wins you can start to run ads and get clients to come to you pre-positioned to buy, right? And that's where we all want to get to in our agency, because that's when you shift from chasing prospects down to having the prospects come to you. I think you've, you've been an exceptional example of getting that done and seeing like a rapid ascent within your, within your business.

Yeah, 100%, man.

So, so let's talk now. We've talked about, we've got the niche, we talked about kind of what the business model looks like, what we're selling. It's, it's 3 packages, monthly recurring fee, very systematized service offering. Talked a little bit about how you're getting the clients, and you've got a sales guy now kind of in the middle, so you don't even have to do the sales meetings for the most part, right? It comes in scheduled into his calendar, he takes them through a sales process and either gets the yes or gets the no. It gets flipped— so flipped over to an account manager that does the intake process and kicks it off. Um, let's talk a little bit about the fulfillment, like How does the work get done once the client gives you the card and it kind of— now it's like, okay, let's get to work to get that ROI as quickly as possible.

Yeah, um, so, you know, they pay us, they onboard, we have a launch call, and in that launch call I have the account manager Jasmine. She's awesome, by the way. Um, and then I have Torrey, um, in that launch call, and he does our our Facebook fulfillment, the media buying, if you will. And then sometimes I'll jump on that call if I want to, if I need to, or something like that. But really, it's just Jasmine and Tori. They do the launch call, and we have everything in Google Drive. So they have a launch call template sheet, they have a whole, you know, SOP on how to do the launch call, get all the information, and they do that in about an hour to an hour and a half. 'Cause sometimes we actually do, we set up their business manager and we do a couple things that we don't wanna do later on. So sometimes it's an hour and a half. And then after that, well, automatically through Zapier, when they sign the document, I mean, it creates the Slack channel, it creates a project in Teamwork. It does all these things, which shout out to Danny Barrera told me to do that. So going back to, you know, the fulfillment after the launch call, Torrey going to Teamwork, he's got the task and the task template, and so he knows how to do everything. Um, and so the time frame is from the launch call to the time their Facebook ads go live, it's 5 business days. So we might extend that as we get busier, which I'm kind of feeling like we might need to extend that to 7 days or 10 days, but Right now it's 5 business days from your launch call, your Facebook ads will go live. And so, you know, we use Teamwork, it's great. We feel like it, you know, it works great for us right now. But yeah, I mean, it's super simple. We use Slack to communicate. So Jasmine might hit up Tori and say, hey Tori, this little thing over here, and Tori might hit her up, hey, this little thing over here. But yeah, it's done really through Teamwork and Slack. I love it.

So you've got it, you've got it pretty systematized. Um, where do you— like, how often do you find yourself doing the launch part or doing the work behind the scenes? Or have you kind of already gotten yourself out of that and you've got the team running with it, you know, the lion's share of the time?

So like, I just hopped on a launch call on, um, when was this? I think I did it on Friday. Yeah, it was on, I think it was Friday. I hopped on just to like do a training, if you will, and I wanted to kind of revamp and let them know, like let Jasmine and Tori know exactly how we want it done, how to do it right, how to build value, how to build a relationship in 5 minutes, things like this. So I did that on Friday, and I think they're good for another month or two, and I might hop back on and just kind of show them Um, so, you know, but we're kind of new still, like, as far as hiring these people. Like, yeah, I mean, like, my, my account manager has been with us for 4 months now. The— Tori's been with us for, like, I want to say, like, he's in his second month, maybe like 6 weeks or 8 weeks. Um, so, like, I'm, like, out of it now, but I'm, like, kind of, like, in Slack.

I, you know, I find myself in Slack kind of, like, still training them, like, monitoring it, making sure that the standards are set, that they know what to do and how to do it.

Yeah, so I'm not doing it, but I'm like back, like kind of overseeing it, overseeing it very closely. Yeah.

So there's, there's a mental shift you had to make that all of the, all of the listeners or watchers either had to make or thinking about or are going to have to make at some point, which is, well, if I'm the guy that, that owns the business that they bought from and I'm going to hand this off to an account manager aren't they going to be mad, right? They thought they were hiring me and now they're getting somebody else. How did you address that in your own mind and kind of what's been your experience as you kind of shuffled your way out of being the central point of communication with every new and existing client?

Yeah, that's a big topic. I will tell you this, especially because, you know, I'm like the face of the company, if you will, you know. Ryan, oh, he's in 'cause he come from in-home sales, he knows all about the business and all this. So they all wanna talk to me. I mean, I just had a guy, was it yesterday? Oh yeah, yesterday. And he like hit me up on Facebook Messenger before the call, hey man, I'm so excited to work with you, I've been following you for this and that. I'm very out there, so like, if I see somebody book a free strategy call, I go friend them on Facebook. and I don't do anything. I just friend them because I want them in my friend list just in case I— because I want them to see what I'm doing at all times and like, oh, like, wow, they're missing out. But yeah, so it's a big topic. But I will tell you this, all the clients that come through our new system, they talk to Danny on the sales call, they talk to Jasmine and Tori during the launch call. And, and, and I'm not involved, they don't have an issue. Um, when we're still training all the, all the clients that we had previous to Jasmine and Tori, and they still want to like text me, um, it doesn't happen as much, but there's like 3 clients that still are like holding on to me, you know. They're like, no, I know Ryan, I'm gonna, I'm gonna text Ryan because he's my buddy, you know. So we're still training them, but, um, it's a process. I, I I learned from Jeff, the biggest thing that I've done is when somebody texts me on Saturday and say, "Hey Ryan, this thing." I just text them back and say, "Did you send this to Jasmine?" And that's all I say. And they're like, "Oh crap, yeah, like what am I doing?" And so I just slowly train them like that. And so I have 3 clients that we, like we call in our company, we call them high maintenance. 'Cause they all wanna like text me. So we call them high maintenance. But really the, like the training, it's actually like you're training your clients. You're training them to do what you need them to do. And it's a process. And I'm not gonna lie, I had one client cancel on us 'cause he couldn't call me all the time. He actually canceled on us. And I was like, you know what? Hey, you can't make everyone happy, and that's okay. So it's a big deal, man, on how to do that right. And the biggest piece of advice I can give you on that is like join the 7 Figure Agency and get Jeff Fisher or somebody else as your coach and ask them how to do it. And it's amazing though when clients don't call you for stuff. It's truly amazing, man.

Yeah, and you know what, you've made the, you've made the transition quicker than most. Like, are you like, you're talking about hired sales, account management, and operations in relatively quick fashion. Some people take 2, 3 years to get to the place like, okay, now I'm ready for my ops manager, now I'm ready for my account manager. Um, I think a lot of it had to do with simplifying the service offering. Um, And then putting some systems in place and getting the right people in the right seats. How did you, like, if there was like one or two key lessons on how you made that transition from you doing everything, marketing it, selling it, fulfilling it, and then managing it to retain it, to like transitioning to having this team. I know it's early and they're still getting trained up, but like two or three key lessons on how you made that transition.

Yeah, so I would use an acronym, IKTA, which is I know that already. So getting out of that perspective, like, like, so if you come into the 7 Figure Agency Program or if you're running a business by yourself, get the I know that already syndrome out of your head. Um, and so that's what I came in with was like, okay, Like, I know I'm doing okay, but what do these guys have to offer? And you guys were telling me to do things. You guys were telling me, hey, you know, hire an account manager. I know it's going to be a little bit hit on your, on your profit margin because you're going to pay her this, but do it. Um, hey, organize your, your, your package. Take that out of your package, put this there instead.

You should do that.

And having that, that perspective of listening, taking advice That's the biggest thing that has benefited me, um, in terms of like, you know, getting from here to there. Um, because trust me, I've been in a place before where, you know, I'm, I'm pretty stubborn. Like, growing up, my dad tried to teach me how to throw a football better and things like this, but I wouldn't listen because I was, I was too hard-headed. And so I came into this with an open mind. So you guys told me to do this, do that, you know, do it this way. 'Hey, you should try this.' And when, when I listened, it was, it was, it was very simple. It's like, 'Oh, okay, like, okay, hire an account manager, have this structure of a package, charge this much, um, do monthly check-in calls, do all these different things.' And it's very, you know, it's, it's given me the ability to get clear on what I should do. So it was, it was really easy. 'Oh, okay, hire an account manager. Oh, well, Oh, we grew like this. Okay, higher fulfillment. Oh, this is awesome. I can do this now. You know, it was, it was that simple.

That's awesome. I like that acronym, right? Because if you think you know it all, you're not going to ever learn. You're not going to be open to different ways of doing things. Um, that, that's great. So, uh, Daniel's asking a question, and I think it kind of transitions nicely to the next topic, which is client retention, right? So now you've got all of these clients and you're doing a great job, but like, what kinds of things are you doing in order to create the great experience and in order to retain at the highest level possible?

Yeah, it's a great topic. Um, Daniel mentioned, do you get in touch with everyone? Of course we do. Um, we do a monthly check-in call that's scheduled. Uh, that's with Jasmine. We have like this check-in call template with notes and questions, and she does a great job, and we're continuing to get better at that. One thing that we've implemented is sending out a little gift to all the clients, and I was very surprised how they love this. We started out really small with a coffee mug with our logo, and I got so many texts from clients and emails and everything, "Thank you so much." I was like, "Wow." So we've done that, we send out a little gift, We, we do monthly check-in calls, um, and I think those two things are, are a big deal. Um, but also like the communication, um, we have a ticket system as well that is in Teamwork that Jeff— again, shout out to Jeff— told me to get this ticket system in place. That way when a client has a question, an issue, a new ad, this or that, it just Submit the ticket, and it sends them an automatic email, and then we communicate with them step by step. Hey, we took, you know, we took care of this on the ticket. We took care of that. Hey, we're doing this. We'll let you know when we're done. And it's that communication, that line of communication is always open. Um, so that's what we've done. We have a lot of room for improvement. Um, I'm still learning. Like, I just talked to Danny the other day, and Danny's like, hey, get proactive, don't be reactive. And so I'm like, like, I know I've heard that before, but wow, Danny, like, you opened my eyes. So now we're learning again. And I'm like, okay, so one of the things that, that we're doing now is we're going to get proactive. So every little step of the way, email, hey, just let you know that we did this. Hey, just let you know that we updated this. Um, and so I think the line of communication, the little gifts— Josh, you're like Like, if you guys don't know, Josh is the man of gifts. Like, I'm not sure if you're like this at home, but the gift boxes, the little gifts, the shirts, the little— I mean, we got to do a better job at those gifts, man, because those actually make you smile, you know?

Yes, the things that you get in the mail that you're not expecting outside, like you're paying for a monthly recurring agency service You don't expect to get a thank you card. You don't expect to get a welcome box. You don't expect to get something. And so the reason it has an impact is because it's unexpected and above and beyond the call of duty, um, and it creates that experience. All credit for the gifts that we send from 7 Figure Agency go to my wife Yesenia. She does an amazing job planning that stuff out, picking it, and making sure that it gets, uh, sent at a smart time horizon.

Yeah, yeah. So we have a lot of room for improvement in terms of client retention, um, but the biggest thing for us has been going through this program and learning what others are doing, and, um, and then the communication. I love it, I love it.

So as you look at this scale, right, as you look at kind of where the business goes next year and the year beyond at the growth rate that you have What are some of the positions you're thinking about or things you're going to need to change in order to, to keep up with the demand and keep the service at a very high level?

Well, um, I have one account manager managing everyone right now, and I, and I know that she's like maxed out. I can, I can tell. Um, and so Jeff, last month we had a call and Jeff was like, again going back to being, being teachable, I was like, Jeff, this is where we're at. This is our one account manager. He goes, wait, you get another 5 clients and then hire another account manager. And me, I'm just like, well, Jeff is giving me all these things over these past 6 months. Okay, Jeff, I'm gonna do that. So that's our next thing, we're gonna hire another account manager that'll free up Jasmine from a couple tasks. Um, so that's one thing that'll be huge. Um, and, um, we have our fulfillment guy, which is, which is great. And I might, um We might hire an operations manager. My wife does the operations. She really likes doing it though. So I mean, I think the reality is, is we have so many Facebook ad clients and it's extremely profitable. Really all we really need is, we could probably use a web developer. That way we could just build landing pages and websites in-house versus white labeling them out. And then the account manager, maybe a marketing assistant too. But I have Danny who does sales, and he can, he can do a lot of business development. So really, it's like the account management thing is, is what's going to be the biggest issue.

Yeah, I think it's probably around 25 clients, and then once it's above 25, you start— that account manager's got to they're starting to redline a little bit. You need to think, okay, now it's time to start recruiting for that next account manager to keep the, the workload balanced so the person doesn't stress out, but also so that the clients get a high level of service every step of the way. So it seems like you're thinking smart on those lines. In terms of— you mentioned VAs versus internal staff. Talk to me about your philosophy on like where a VA comes into play offshore versus the core team at your office there in Phoenix?

It's Phoenix, right? Yeah, yep, we're in the Phoenix Valley. Um, and so I've used, um, a guy, um, that I've used for a couple things, um, some really cool stuff. But, um, like the ones that we have, like, on, you know, on payroll, there's, there's 9 of them, and we run a lot of boosted posts for our clients and Messenger ads on Facebook. And we have this very strategic way of, imagine seeing an ad, it's a beautiful, you know, 2-car garage transformed. You're like, man, I'd love to have that in my garage. You've, Josh, probably in your area, you've probably seen one of our clients, OCD Flooring. You've probably seen their ads before if you're on Facebook. I might have, yeah. Well, you might as well sign up, man. You know, we'll come out and give you a free quote.

No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, right? But, uh, on these ads, the, the before and afters are just beautiful. They're— I mean, they're kill shots. And so the strategy is people will message in, hey, how much for a 2-car garage? Hey, how much for my patio? And we have an SOP of how to respond, and my VAs are responding, you know, 7 days a week, 8 AM to 8 PM Arizona time. And so we have 9 of them. They're just responding, converting people from, hey, I'm interested, how much? To, thanks for your interest, we don't give out ballparks, we need to set up a free quote appointment, each project's different, we got to come assess the project, you know, what is your phone number? Well, you know, we'll reach out for a free quote appointment. And they're like, oh, okay, here, here's my phone number. And then we send that to the client, you know, get their phone number, address, all that stuff. And so that's what they do for us. They're just responding to messages, comments, They're inviting people to like all of our pages, um, and they communicate with the clients if there's questions on a specific thing through HighLevel, um, to the client via text or whatever. So that's what they do for us. Literally, it's just one thing. Um, and trust me, I've, you know, I've tried to use ManyChat for this, um, and I'm trying to implement ManyChat a little bit, but with the complexity of the questions people have to ask Like, imagine what you would ask. You'd be like, hey, how much for, uh, my patio floor? I want to get my pool deck coated and my patio, but there's, there's these cracks. Hey, can you guys do this? It's pretty complex for the chatbot. So we, you know, I've just—

having a person on the other side there to engage, but they're working from a list of predefined variables, right? If they ask this, this is what you're gonna put. Um, and so they're engaging with the people on social media and in your two-way chat on HighLevel.

Yep, yep. And so we're learning new SOPs every, every week, you know. Hey, this question, you know, is this answer? So that's what they do for us. Uh, and I also use, um, I use the, the VAs. They've done some, some pretty cool things for us, um, in terms of video editing, um, scraping. You know, they've done this really cool scraping of Facebook groups. Like, they would scrape Facebook groups. It's just crazy, man. Um, so there's some cool things. Yeah, I love it.

So I think we've come, we've come full circle, right? We talked about the business model, how you're landing clients, how you deliver the results, kind of how you're growing the team and getting the work done. Um, this has been awesome. I mean, you know, what a tremendous example of how to really get things done right, grow and scale the business. If you have any questions post them in while we're still live. We got a couple minutes left. Um, and be sure to reach out to Ryan and thank him. Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time to share kind of what's worked for you and kind of how you're getting this done. Um, this has been great. If you had like one piece of wisdom for that agency that's just thinking about, man, I want to take things to the next level, um, what would that be? You know, you kind of in closing up today.

Yeah, well, there's, man, to funnel down to one thing, man, there's so many, there's so many. For me, I'll just share with you what's on my heart is, for me, I had a lot of personal things going on before I started this agency, you know, that like mentally, it like, you know, I used to tell myself like, I don't deserve this, like, I'm not good enough for this. I don't know if I can do this. Like, I'm not smart enough to do this. I'm not, you know, I don't know what I'm doing. And you have those self-doubt thoughts. I would ask you and I would encourage you to just look at those as complete lies. Those are complete lies. I believe it's from the devil. You might think it's from the earth, whatever it is. Regardless, they're lies. And like I'm telling you guys right now, from where I was a couple of years ago to where I'm at now, is a full 180 from job loss, from addiction, from— I'd even been homeless before, like, and now, you know, I'm married. Things aren't perfect, but, you know, I'm married to a beautiful wife, beautiful kids, business. I think we did like $75K last month. We'll probably do that or a little bit more this month. Like, just don't believe those self-doubt lies that, hey, I can't do this, I'm not good enough, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that, I don't have the money. All that crap, just those are complete lies. I would, I would just encourage you to push through those lies, um, because you, because you can do it. I'm telling you right now, if I can, if I could do it, you could do it 1000%. I love it. I love it.

Thank you, Ryan, so much for sharing. Congratulations on your, on your success. Um, feel free to reach out to Ryan in the Facebook group. He's a tremendous, uh, tremendous individual. Obviously willing to share. You'll find that's the case with most successful people, right? They like to share what's working and kind of give back. If you'd like to listen to more interviews like this, you know, definitely subscribe to the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. Be sure to jump into our group, the Local Agency Success, if you're not in there. We've got interviews with highly successful digital marketing agencies in a lot of different verticals that have gone to 7 figures. I'm sure Ryan will be 7 figures What, like, what's the time frame here? By the end of this year, right?

No, no, no, end of this month.

All right, I love it. Crushing it, crushing it, man. Well, thanks again. Really appreciate you taking the time, and, um, keep, uh, keep killing it, man. We'll talk to you soon.

Thanks so much.

All right.