April 23, 2025 • 18 mins
From Setbacks to Success: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Jake Setterlun** Join us as we dive deep into the inspiring story of Jake Setterlun, a 28-year-old entrepreneur who has faced a rollercoaster of experiences in the business world. In this episode, Jake shares his journey from starting out as a college student to becoming the owner of a million-dollar marketing agency. He discusses the lessons learned from his failures and successes, providing invaluable insights on resilience and the mindset needed to navigate the unpredictable landscape of entrepreneurship.
Listen on Podbean:
https://brainworkframework.podbean.com/
Connect with Jake Setterlun:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakesetterlun/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/optimizedjake/
Connect with Chris Troka:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-troka-3a093058/
Website: https://focused-biz.com/
Website: https://christroka.com/ #brainwork #framework #business #entrepreneurship #marketing #resilience #mindset
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's being able to focus on passionprojects for me throughout the years.
(00:04):
I've always had people that referralsteam members that came and go or
came and went, but people like Ialways kept in contact with, they're
always hitting us up for informationinput and everything like that.
And for me, how can I actually havean impact on helping people out?
I look at.
The 5, 10, 15 people that I, I've workedwith and gave input to over the years.
(00:27):
And that's really fulfilling if somebodyasks you, you know, about something
and they put into action what you toldthem and they grow their business.
You're listening to Brainwork Framework,a business and marketing podcast
brought to you by focused- biz.
com.
Welcome back to another episode.
Starting his journey at the ageof 19 while navigating college and
searching for his life's direction.
(00:48):
Along the way, he experienced bothremarkable success and setbacks
with failed ventures, scaling toa million dollar months, losing it
all and rebuilding from scratch.
Over the last 10 years, he'shad some incredible experiences.
Here with us today.
Milwaukee native and one ofmy neighbors, Jake Sutterlin.
So excited to have you on.
Thanks for joining us.
How are you today?
I'm doing all right.
Thank you so much.
(01:09):
Besides for the cold, I'm doing all right.
It's really chilly man.
We're just trying to stay warm hereup in the Midwestern States but so
excited to have you on and learnmore about your journey, take us
through this 10 year lifespan of yourbusiness entrepreneurial journey,
everything that you've accomplished.
So excited to hear from it.
Absolutely.
We can start from the beginning.
I was in school at college atUWM school for engineering and
(01:32):
my goal was, if somebody asked meas a kid, what do you want to be?
It was an inventor.
I've always liked makingdifferent products.
I've always like, if we do this tothis, that's an idea we could sell
or that's a product we could sell.
So I was in school for engineeringand Long story short, I wanted to
get into prototyping and start aprototyping business and I was at a
(01:53):
family event and everybody's like, whatdo you want to do after you graduate?
And I was like, I'm going tostart a prototyping company.
And my uncle is an engineer andhe was like, oh, that's a great
idea but you should get someexperience before you start that.
And me being a cocky 19year old, I was like.
Screw that.
I'm going to just start it.
So I had taken some marketingcourses in high school and I
(02:16):
knew how to build a website.
So I'm just going to start this thing.
Mom helped me set up an LLC and it gotinto it about a couple months later and
realized you can't just start a company
and people just don't come to you oryou can start a company but people
don't just flock to your door.
So I learned marketing and thenmarketing led me into being like,
I could do this for other people.
And now just full blown, own a bunchof different marketing agencies.
(02:40):
Been doing this for a while now.
Lots of ups, a lot of downsbut it's been fun so far.
That is an incredible journey.
When we were chatting before,talking about our experiences,
both being from Milwaukee here.
Trying to find our path, our journey, justknowing the 9 to 5 lifestyle wasn't for
us, wanted to create something different.
Seems like us entrepreneursare cut from a similar cloth.
(03:00):
Something going on with our brains.
You took about a year off.
From your space just to kindof coast but you still saw more
opportunity and you jumped backin to start more businesses now.
Yeah.
It was kind of a weird.
Obviously, working your butt off in thebeginning and ended up burning through a
couple of partnerships, not in a bad way.
It just didn't work outand found a partner.
(03:22):
We ended up creating about fivedifferent companies all kind of under
the same conglomerate and we kind ofgot to the point where we were just
out of the day and I was coasting.
And that was again, a year, two years,where it was just kind of like, I'm
just living and now, the last yearand a half, I've really been back into
it and just feel like I'm 19 again.
(03:42):
See opportunity everywhere,oh can do that, I can do this.
It's fun and I'm super excited, I'mmore motivated than ever and it's super
interesting having the same mindset Idid back then but now I have a different
amount of resources and expertise thatI can pull from to make things happen.
So definitely a cool time, atleast in my life currently,
just with everything going on.
(04:03):
Absolutely.
We were talking about that experiencebefore talking about motivation.
Is the motivation different when youwere 19 and just really hungry just to
make a living or get by versus now youhave an abundance financially secure?
Are the motivations different?
Yeah, it definitely is becausein the beginning I started out
doing my passion project was theprototyping and then from there it
(04:26):
got into marketing for golf courses.
That was the first partnership I hadand I was working with somebody from
high school and that was a passionproject for me too because I've been
golfing since I was like three years old.
I golfed in high school,golfed in college, so for me
this is going to work out.
I really like doing this.
I could do this for a long timeand it just didn't work out.
So when I Ended up partnering withthe individual that I've partnered
(04:49):
with on all the businesses.
We were doing marketingfor real estate agents.
And to be honest, I didn't know a thingabout real estate, didn't care about it.
So back then my parents are getting mad.
I'm back home living in their basement.
I need to make money and for thosefive businesses that we've started, it
was always, how do we make more money?
How do we build a team?
How do I have somethingthat can last a long time?
(05:10):
And absolutely now it's different becauseI have the expertise and the way that
I'm taking everything is I want to teachother individuals what I've done but
then I also look at it like I could builda portfolio of businesses that I own a
percentage of and help them scale becausefor me, it's like I could charge somebody
for that but that's not fulfilling.
(05:32):
So now it's how could I do moreJVs, partnerships, things like that.
It's different having money, I don'tneed to go try to make a dollar.
I can take a year trying to make somethinghappen and then once that happens, I'll
have the benefit, the money, all thatstuff from it will come at a later date.
So it's definitely different.
It's weird but it's fun because youdon't have to worry about that aspect.
(05:55):
Absolutely.
The motivations may be differentand over the span of 10 years the
space absolutely evolves as well.
What are the biggest changesyou've seen over the last 10 years?
This would be from 2015 on technology,digital marketing, AI is coming into play.
What are you seeing the changes?
What are what directionare you heading in now?
(06:16):
Absolutely.
I love talking about this because it'ssomething super interesting that we've
been selling marketing for a longtime and we've had to change up what
advertising platforms are we using?
Which ones are we giving our clients?
Which ones are we not giving our clients?
And I started off withjust meta Facebook ads.
We added in Google, TikTok came alongso we added that in and now it's really
(06:38):
been All about backend and voice AI,conversational AI, AI appointment booking.
So that's really been the biggest thingin the last year and half that we've
added in is, okay, we can get you leads.
We can do the marketing.
We can do all that fun stuff but howdo we turn those leads for you into
booked appointments without havingto place a setter into your business?
(07:00):
So we've added in, we've given allour clients voice AI, texting AI email
AI, that's all conversational, helpingthem convert leads into appointments.
Or if they no show, the AI isfollowing up, calling them.
So it's definitely cool to see.
It's a little weird, the firsttime you talk to voice AI.
But that's really where the market'scurrently at least from our point of
(07:21):
view of what we're giving our clients.
Absolutely.
Just the changes in technology and theshifting with that, it's just a new tool
that allows us to do more with less.
I love my AI tools, everythingyou mentioned from the AI chat
bots, to the voice, to the SMS,the personalized messaging.
Again, it's really just aboutbetter serving your clients.
You can generate as many leads asyou want but the person at the end
(07:43):
of the phone call isn't answeringor it takes a while to follow up.
All these things really factorinto the lead's decision to move
forward in their buyer's journey.
If you add too much friction, suddenlythey're not interested anymore and
they're going to go to your competitor.
So, I like that you're stayingahead of the game with these
new changes in technology.
What was the biggest growthperiod for your marketing agency.
(08:04):
What was working for you in your client?
Client acquisition was this heavily intoSEO, paid ads, relationships, referrals.
How are you buildingyour book of business?
Absolutely.
So we started off with a largemarketing retainer offer.
We were doing cold calling, we weredoing a lot of cold outreach, DMing on
(08:26):
LinkedIn and that got us to about 40,000 a month in reoccurring revenue.
We have about 20 clients and we realizedthat Well, COVID hit number one.
So that didn't help people.
They want to pay for that and then numbertwo, we realized like it's really hard
to get somebody to commit to that much amonth, especially we were in real estate.
So these are individuals.
(08:47):
These aren't businesseswith a big marketing budget.
So we ended up switching our offer to moreof this done with you product where it's
pay reoccurring on the backend for thesystem support, all that kind of stuff.
And when we transitioned into that model,we realized, we could really be using paid
(09:08):
ads because we can put a dollar into paidads and we can get five back even with the
sales commission and everything like that.
So that was 2020, we transitionedinto that model and since then we've
been almost like 100 percent paidads as far as acquisition for the
clients that we're bringing in.
Now that's obviously you havemeta, you have tick tock, Google,
(09:30):
we have a pretty large sphereof like where we're running ads.
We're not all in on Facebook.
That'd be kind of crazy but we areall in on paid ads and then once the
lead comes in, we're nurturing withemail, text message, that kind of
stuff but that really kind of took usto a point where we were able to scale
because now it's what's our bottleneck.
(09:50):
Our bottleneck was salespeople because Icould just go into Facebook ads manager
and it's like, okay, I want to double ourleads instead of spending 500 a day, let's
spend 1, 000 a day and I'm going to getdouble our leads and obviously it's not
that simple but pretty much how it went.
So.
We ended up scaling up andthis was like 2022, 2023 ish.
Our biggest months was a milliondollars a month and we had
(10:14):
that a couple months in a row.
Now unfortunately didn't last too long.
We had some issues with our backend and support and fulfillment.
So kind of crashed down from there.
We've rebuilt back up since thenbut 100 percent all in on paid ads.
We scaled up pretty high.
We scaled back, scaled up again sincethen but that's been the journey as far
(10:34):
as starting with the cold and then reallyjust transitioning all in with paid ads.
I'd really love to hear about thatjourney that switch between the higher
retainer model into something lowering thebarrier to entry and then the bottleneck
became that service and fulfillmentpiece which then you adjusted to.
But it's a part of the journey, boththe ups and the downs, you realize
that you could put something down intoa lower priced, more attractive model
(10:57):
scale into million dollar months.
But unfortunately that bottleneck cameinto play but you're building it back.
Now you're working on yourpersonal brand as well.
Tell me more about the shiftinto putting yourself out there
with the one on one coaching andpersonal branding you're doing.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So it's being able to focus on passionprojects for me throughout the years.
(11:18):
I've always had people that referralsteam members that came and go or
came and went but people like Ialways kept in contact with, they're
always hitting us up for informationinput and everything like that.
And for me, how can I actually havean impact on helping people out?
I look at the 5, 10, 15 people that I'veworked with and gave input to over the
(11:41):
years and that's really fulfillingif somebody asks you about something
and they put into action what you toldthem and they grow their business.
So that's what led me intodoing the personal brand stuff.
I'm not gonna lie, a lot of the pushnowadays is having a personal brand
that reinforces your businesses.
So that's definitely going to be a plusis the businesses that we're currently
(12:03):
in are going to benefit from me and mybusiness partners having a personal brand.
But obviously a big part of it isbranching off from everything I'm involved
in with those partners and everythinglike that and having something that's
kind of my own thing that I'm able towork on and take the way that I want
to take it and make the decisions nothaving to run it by two other people.
(12:25):
Absolutely.
There's something to be said abouthaving your own free creative license
when it comes to putting Marketingmaterial, the branding, the copy, just
the service and offering how you handleand work with your clients as a whole.
Yes, it's great when minds cometogether for certain projects but we
need something that kind of allows thatcreative outlet in in other in other ways.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
(12:46):
So now, after taking that break you'reback to it pushing forward into 2025.
Are you looking forward tosomething new and exciting
that you're pushing out there?
Are you doing a lot of thesame that you have been?
What's new coming downthe pipeline for you?
Yeah.
So a lot of cool stuff that we'reworking on with the businesses
still pushing forward but again,a lot of that's on autopilot.
(13:07):
So really the big things in the pipeline,big projects that I've been working
on is the personal brand stuff I have,thankfully have a solid team around
that helping me put out content, do thepodcast, like all that kind of stuff and
then we are going to be launching a schoolcommunity, super low barrier of entry.
I don't want to be selling crazy coachingprogram for 5, 000 or anything like that.
(13:29):
I'm just not that type of person.
So we are putting a schoolcommunity together for 50 bucks
a month, something like that.
Not a hundred percent sure on thatyet and I mentioned this before, my
big pie in the sky is doing more JVsand having a portfolio or Rolodex of
businesses that I'm involved when on apartnership level and able to just guide
(13:49):
them into growing the business, scalingto wherever they want to get to or
wherever we feel the business can get to.
But using the knowledge, using myresources that I have access to the way
we do things, implementing that intosomebody, maybe doing 10, 000 a month
and helping them scale to a hundred,200, but more on a JV partnership level.
(14:10):
Not pay me 50, 000 and I'llhelp you scale your business.
It doesn't attract me and I thinkthere's too many shams, fakers out there
and I just don't want to be associatedwith that, if that makes sense.
Absolutely.
No, you're providing a great value and youhave a different price point and you just
have a different perspective on how youwant to present that offer to the market.
(14:31):
Nothing wrong with that.
I love it.
I think there will be a lot of peopleinterested in that offer as well.
100 percent.
Thank you.
We're playing as it comes.
I mean, that could change in sixmonths, maybe we realize how we need
to do a free school group and just givemore value and stuff like that too.
So it could change as we go butthat's currently the plan right now.
I like it.
That is very exciting.
Where can people find andconnect with you online?
(14:53):
Just jakesetterlin.
com.
I have all my social media is linked onthere, kind of everything that we're doing
that's going to be the home to everything.
Everything I have going on withthe partnerships and anything that
we put out in the future is reallyjust going to be on my website.
Excellent.
We'll have those links available downin the show notes and the description
for everybody to get connected.
Now things that have helped you throughoutyour entrepreneurial experience.
(15:16):
Are there any YouTube creators orpodcasts or books that you would
recommend to others that have beeninfluential for you and your success?
Absolutely.
That's a really good question becauseI've recently just fallen back into
that whole education every morningcontinuing to perfect my craft because
like I mentioned, I was just out ofit and wasted years, ignorant to think
(15:38):
that I didn't need to be learning butreally have gotten back into Alex Ramosi.
He's somebody that I think forjust general business information,
really good to start there.
To learn more marketingstuff, jeremy Haynes.
Back in the day I was in hiscourses and have recently gotten
back into some of his stuff.
So he's been really good and thenMore of like on a salesy thing,
(16:00):
Grant Cardone is always good.
Again, not in love with his personal brandand everything that he talks about but
I do think from a sales perspective insome of his books that he's definitely
somebody to potentially look at too.
Nice.
Those are some great recommendations.
Definitely love Alex Ramosi.
He's value equation model.
Just love the way that breaks downinto how people perceive the value that
they get from an offer and I agree withtrying to distance ourselves with try
(16:24):
not to support certain personalitiesthat are out there with fear of
being like them because they may saysomething that's not like our style.
Yeah, 100 percent.
Yeah, absolutely.
If you could go back in time andteach yourself one thing that may be
inspiring for other entrepreneurs,what would you tell yourself?
That's a good question.
I think the biggest thing for mepersonally is, I look at what I
(16:47):
did and it's hard to say, do Iregret the way that I did things?
I worked, I did a lot offree work in the beginning.
A lot of time wasted.
I hate to say it because is it wasted timeor did that help me get to where I am?
I think for me it's definitely stickingto one thing and making it work.
Because I switched up a lot.
I had this partnership didn't workout, let's go find another one and
(17:08):
obviously that led me to where I'mat but could I have made it work
with the one thing that I stuck on?
And I'm happy that I stuck withmarketing agencies because I could have
gotten to affiliate marketing, dropshipping, all that kind of stuff but
I really think the biggest thing islike pick something and make it work.
However you have to do so becauseI really do believe like if you
(17:29):
want to do marketing for golfcourses, you can make that work.
What somebody else is doingmight not work for that industry.
It's fine.
You need to get creativeand try to figure it out.
So yeah, pick something and stickwith it and just make it work.
Even if you fail five,10 times starting out.
Absolutely.
It's a part of that learning experiencebehind every successful entrepreneur.
You don't see the nine failures behindthem that were the stepping stones
(17:51):
into what they built and created today.
So that's just a part of the journey.
It's a lot of fun though.
Absolutely.
100 percent agree.
Excellent.
Jake just want to wrap upwith offering you the floor.
Is there anything else that wehaven't touched on or talked
about yet that you were excited tochat and share with our audience?
I mean the only thing I'll just kind ofleave it on is, no matter what you want to
do, if you're listening to this, if you're18 years old starting out, if you're 35,
(18:18):
40, 50 if you stick with something and puttime towards it and just keep believing
in yourself, you can make it happen.
Very well said, Jake.
We appreciate you coming out and sharingyour tips and tricks and wisdom with us.
So excited to watch thefuture growth for you.
Congratulations to you.
Thanks so much.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you.
It's being able to focus on passionprojects for me throughout the years.
(00:04):
I've always had people that referralsteam members that came and go or
came and went, but people like Ialways kept in contact with, they're
always hitting us up for informationinput and everything like that.
And for me, how can I actually havean impact on helping people out?
I look at.
The 5, 10, 15 people that I, I've workedwith and gave input to over the years.
(00:27):
And that's really fulfilling if somebodyasks you, you know, about something
and they put into action what you toldthem and they grow their business.
You're listening to Brainwork Framework,a business and marketing podcast
brought to you by focused- biz.
com.
Welcome back to another episode.
Starting his journey at the ageof 19 while navigating college and
searching for his life's direction.
(00:48):
Along the way, he experienced bothremarkable success and setbacks
with failed ventures, scaling toa million dollar months, losing it
all and rebuilding from scratch.
Over the last 10 years, he'shad some incredible experiences.
Here with us today.
Milwaukee native and one ofmy neighbors, Jake Sutterlin.
So excited to have you on.
Thanks for joining us.
How are you today?
I'm doing all right.
Thank you so much.
(01:09):
Besides for the cold, I'm doing all right.
It's really chilly man.
We're just trying to stay warm hereup in the Midwestern States but so
excited to have you on and learnmore about your journey, take us
through this 10 year lifespan of yourbusiness entrepreneurial journey,
everything that you've accomplished.
So excited to hear from it.
Absolutely.
We can start from the beginning.
I was in school at college atUWM school for engineering and
(01:32):
my goal was, if somebody asked meas a kid, what do you want to be?
It was an inventor.
I've always liked makingdifferent products.
I've always like, if we do this tothis, that's an idea we could sell
or that's a product we could sell.
So I was in school for engineeringand Long story short, I wanted to
get into prototyping and start aprototyping business and I was at a
(01:53):
family event and everybody's like, whatdo you want to do after you graduate?
And I was like, I'm going tostart a prototyping company.
And my uncle is an engineer andhe was like, oh, that's a great
idea but you should get someexperience before you start that.
And me being a cocky 19year old, I was like.
Screw that.
I'm going to just start it.
So I had taken some marketingcourses in high school and I
(02:16):
knew how to build a website.
So I'm just going to start this thing.
Mom helped me set up an LLC and it gotinto it about a couple months later and
realized you can't just start a company
and people just don't come to you oryou can start a company but people
don't just flock to your door.
So I learned marketing and thenmarketing led me into being like,
I could do this for other people.
And now just full blown, own a bunchof different marketing agencies.
(02:40):
Been doing this for a while now.
Lots of ups, a lot of downsbut it's been fun so far.
That is an incredible journey.
When we were chatting before,talking about our experiences,
both being from Milwaukee here.
Trying to find our path, our journey, justknowing the 9 to 5 lifestyle wasn't for
us, wanted to create something different.
Seems like us entrepreneursare cut from a similar cloth.
(03:00):
Something going on with our brains.
You took about a year off.
From your space just to kindof coast but you still saw more
opportunity and you jumped backin to start more businesses now.
Yeah.
It was kind of a weird.
Obviously, working your butt off in thebeginning and ended up burning through a
couple of partnerships, not in a bad way.
It just didn't work outand found a partner.
(03:22):
We ended up creating about fivedifferent companies all kind of under
the same conglomerate and we kind ofgot to the point where we were just
out of the day and I was coasting.
And that was again, a year, two years,where it was just kind of like, I'm
just living and now, the last yearand a half, I've really been back into
it and just feel like I'm 19 again.
(03:42):
See opportunity everywhere,oh can do that, I can do this.
It's fun and I'm super excited, I'mmore motivated than ever and it's super
interesting having the same mindset Idid back then but now I have a different
amount of resources and expertise thatI can pull from to make things happen.
So definitely a cool time, atleast in my life currently,
just with everything going on.
(04:03):
Absolutely.
We were talking about that experiencebefore talking about motivation.
Is the motivation different when youwere 19 and just really hungry just to
make a living or get by versus now youhave an abundance financially secure?
Are the motivations different?
Yeah, it definitely is becausein the beginning I started out
doing my passion project was theprototyping and then from there it
(04:26):
got into marketing for golf courses.
That was the first partnership I hadand I was working with somebody from
high school and that was a passionproject for me too because I've been
golfing since I was like three years old.
I golfed in high school,golfed in college, so for me
this is going to work out.
I really like doing this.
I could do this for a long timeand it just didn't work out.
So when I Ended up partnering withthe individual that I've partnered
(04:49):
with on all the businesses.
We were doing marketingfor real estate agents.
And to be honest, I didn't know a thingabout real estate, didn't care about it.
So back then my parents are getting mad.
I'm back home living in their basement.
I need to make money and for thosefive businesses that we've started, it
was always, how do we make more money?
How do we build a team?
How do I have somethingthat can last a long time?
(05:10):
And absolutely now it's different becauseI have the expertise and the way that
I'm taking everything is I want to teachother individuals what I've done but
then I also look at it like I could builda portfolio of businesses that I own a
percentage of and help them scale becausefor me, it's like I could charge somebody
for that but that's not fulfilling.
(05:32):
So now it's how could I do moreJVs, partnerships, things like that.
It's different having money, I don'tneed to go try to make a dollar.
I can take a year trying to make somethinghappen and then once that happens, I'll
have the benefit, the money, all thatstuff from it will come at a later date.
So it's definitely different.
It's weird but it's fun because youdon't have to worry about that aspect.
(05:55):
Absolutely.
The motivations may be differentand over the span of 10 years the
space absolutely evolves as well.
What are the biggest changesyou've seen over the last 10 years?
This would be from 2015 on technology,digital marketing, AI is coming into play.
What are you seeing the changes?
What are what directionare you heading in now?
(06:16):
Absolutely.
I love talking about this because it'ssomething super interesting that we've
been selling marketing for a longtime and we've had to change up what
advertising platforms are we using?
Which ones are we giving our clients?
Which ones are we not giving our clients?
And I started off withjust meta Facebook ads.
We added in Google, TikTok came alongso we added that in and now it's really
(06:38):
been All about backend and voice AI,conversational AI, AI appointment booking.
So that's really been the biggest thingin the last year and half that we've
added in is, okay, we can get you leads.
We can do the marketing.
We can do all that fun stuff but howdo we turn those leads for you into
booked appointments without havingto place a setter into your business?
(07:00):
So we've added in, we've given allour clients voice AI, texting AI email
AI, that's all conversational, helpingthem convert leads into appointments.
Or if they no show, the AI isfollowing up, calling them.
So it's definitely cool to see.
It's a little weird, the firsttime you talk to voice AI.
But that's really where the market'scurrently at least from our point of
(07:21):
view of what we're giving our clients.
Absolutely.
Just the changes in technology and theshifting with that, it's just a new tool
that allows us to do more with less.
I love my AI tools, everythingyou mentioned from the AI chat
bots, to the voice, to the SMS,the personalized messaging.
Again, it's really just aboutbetter serving your clients.
You can generate as many leads asyou want but the person at the end
(07:43):
of the phone call isn't answeringor it takes a while to follow up.
All these things really factorinto the lead's decision to move
forward in their buyer's journey.
If you add too much friction, suddenlythey're not interested anymore and
they're going to go to your competitor.
So, I like that you're stayingahead of the game with these
new changes in technology.
What was the biggest growthperiod for your marketing agency.
(08:04):
What was working for you in your client?
Client acquisition was this heavily intoSEO, paid ads, relationships, referrals.
How are you buildingyour book of business?
Absolutely.
So we started off with a largemarketing retainer offer.
We were doing cold calling, we weredoing a lot of cold outreach, DMing on
(08:26):
LinkedIn and that got us to about 40,000 a month in reoccurring revenue.
We have about 20 clients and we realizedthat Well, COVID hit number one.
So that didn't help people.
They want to pay for that and then numbertwo, we realized like it's really hard
to get somebody to commit to that much amonth, especially we were in real estate.
So these are individuals.
(08:47):
These aren't businesseswith a big marketing budget.
So we ended up switching our offer to moreof this done with you product where it's
pay reoccurring on the backend for thesystem support, all that kind of stuff.
And when we transitioned into that model,we realized, we could really be using paid
(09:08):
ads because we can put a dollar into paidads and we can get five back even with the
sales commission and everything like that.
So that was 2020, we transitionedinto that model and since then we've
been almost like 100 percent paidads as far as acquisition for the
clients that we're bringing in.
Now that's obviously you havemeta, you have tick tock, Google,
(09:30):
we have a pretty large sphereof like where we're running ads.
We're not all in on Facebook.
That'd be kind of crazy but we areall in on paid ads and then once the
lead comes in, we're nurturing withemail, text message, that kind of
stuff but that really kind of took usto a point where we were able to scale
because now it's what's our bottleneck.
(09:50):
Our bottleneck was salespeople because Icould just go into Facebook ads manager
and it's like, okay, I want to double ourleads instead of spending 500 a day, let's
spend 1, 000 a day and I'm going to getdouble our leads and obviously it's not
that simple but pretty much how it went.
So.
We ended up scaling up andthis was like 2022, 2023 ish.
Our biggest months was a milliondollars a month and we had
(10:14):
that a couple months in a row.
Now unfortunately didn't last too long.
We had some issues with our backend and support and fulfillment.
So kind of crashed down from there.
We've rebuilt back up since thenbut 100 percent all in on paid ads.
We scaled up pretty high.
We scaled back, scaled up again sincethen but that's been the journey as far
(10:34):
as starting with the cold and then reallyjust transitioning all in with paid ads.
I'd really love to hear about thatjourney that switch between the higher
retainer model into something lowering thebarrier to entry and then the bottleneck
became that service and fulfillmentpiece which then you adjusted to.
But it's a part of the journey, boththe ups and the downs, you realize
that you could put something down intoa lower priced, more attractive model
(10:57):
scale into million dollar months.
But unfortunately that bottleneck cameinto play but you're building it back.
Now you're working on yourpersonal brand as well.
Tell me more about the shiftinto putting yourself out there
with the one on one coaching andpersonal branding you're doing.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So it's being able to focus on passionprojects for me throughout the years.
(11:18):
I've always had people that referralsteam members that came and go or
came and went but people like Ialways kept in contact with, they're
always hitting us up for informationinput and everything like that.
And for me, how can I actually havean impact on helping people out?
I look at the 5, 10, 15 people that I'veworked with and gave input to over the
(11:41):
years and that's really fulfillingif somebody asks you about something
and they put into action what you toldthem and they grow their business.
So that's what led me intodoing the personal brand stuff.
I'm not gonna lie, a lot of the pushnowadays is having a personal brand
that reinforces your businesses.
So that's definitely going to be a plusis the businesses that we're currently
(12:03):
in are going to benefit from me and mybusiness partners having a personal brand.
But obviously a big part of it isbranching off from everything I'm involved
in with those partners and everythinglike that and having something that's
kind of my own thing that I'm able towork on and take the way that I want
to take it and make the decisions nothaving to run it by two other people.
(12:25):
Absolutely.
There's something to be said abouthaving your own free creative license
when it comes to putting Marketingmaterial, the branding, the copy, just
the service and offering how you handleand work with your clients as a whole.
Yes, it's great when minds cometogether for certain projects but we
need something that kind of allows thatcreative outlet in in other in other ways.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
(12:46):
So now, after taking that break you'reback to it pushing forward into 2025.
Are you looking forward tosomething new and exciting
that you're pushing out there?
Are you doing a lot of thesame that you have been?
What's new coming downthe pipeline for you?
Yeah.
So a lot of cool stuff that we'reworking on with the businesses
still pushing forward but again,a lot of that's on autopilot.
(13:07):
So really the big things in the pipeline,big projects that I've been working
on is the personal brand stuff I have,thankfully have a solid team around
that helping me put out content, do thepodcast, like all that kind of stuff and
then we are going to be launching a schoolcommunity, super low barrier of entry.
I don't want to be selling crazy coachingprogram for 5, 000 or anything like that.
(13:29):
I'm just not that type of person.
So we are putting a schoolcommunity together for 50 bucks
a month, something like that.
Not a hundred percent sure on thatyet and I mentioned this before, my
big pie in the sky is doing more JVsand having a portfolio or Rolodex of
businesses that I'm involved when on apartnership level and able to just guide
(13:49):
them into growing the business, scalingto wherever they want to get to or
wherever we feel the business can get to.
But using the knowledge, using myresources that I have access to the way
we do things, implementing that intosomebody, maybe doing 10, 000 a month
and helping them scale to a hundred,200, but more on a JV partnership level.
(14:10):
Not pay me 50, 000 and I'llhelp you scale your business.
It doesn't attract me and I thinkthere's too many shams, fakers out there
and I just don't want to be associatedwith that, if that makes sense.
Absolutely.
No, you're providing a great value and youhave a different price point and you just
have a different perspective on how youwant to present that offer to the market.
(14:31):
Nothing wrong with that.
I love it.
I think there will be a lot of peopleinterested in that offer as well.
100 percent.
Thank you.
We're playing as it comes.
I mean, that could change in sixmonths, maybe we realize how we need
to do a free school group and just givemore value and stuff like that too.
So it could change as we go butthat's currently the plan right now.
I like it.
That is very exciting.
Where can people find andconnect with you online?
(14:53):
Just jakesetterlin.
com.
I have all my social media is linked onthere, kind of everything that we're doing
that's going to be the home to everything.
Everything I have going on withthe partnerships and anything that
we put out in the future is reallyjust going to be on my website.
Excellent.
We'll have those links available downin the show notes and the description
for everybody to get connected.
Now things that have helped you throughoutyour entrepreneurial experience.
(15:16):
Are there any YouTube creators orpodcasts or books that you would
recommend to others that have beeninfluential for you and your success?
Absolutely.
That's a really good question becauseI've recently just fallen back into
that whole education every morningcontinuing to perfect my craft because
like I mentioned, I was just out ofit and wasted years, ignorant to think
(15:38):
that I didn't need to be learning butreally have gotten back into Alex Ramosi.
He's somebody that I think forjust general business information,
really good to start there.
To learn more marketingstuff, jeremy Haynes.
Back in the day I was in hiscourses and have recently gotten
back into some of his stuff.
So he's been really good and thenMore of like on a salesy thing,
(16:00):
Grant Cardone is always good.
Again, not in love with his personal brandand everything that he talks about but
I do think from a sales perspective insome of his books that he's definitely
somebody to potentially look at too.
Nice.
Those are some great recommendations.
Definitely love Alex Ramosi.
He's value equation model.
Just love the way that breaks downinto how people perceive the value that
they get from an offer and I agree withtrying to distance ourselves with try
(16:24):
not to support certain personalitiesthat are out there with fear of
being like them because they may saysomething that's not like our style.
Yeah, 100 percent.
Yeah, absolutely.
If you could go back in time andteach yourself one thing that may be
inspiring for other entrepreneurs,what would you tell yourself?
That's a good question.
I think the biggest thing for mepersonally is, I look at what I
(16:47):
did and it's hard to say, do Iregret the way that I did things?
I worked, I did a lot offree work in the beginning.
A lot of time wasted.
I hate to say it because is it wasted timeor did that help me get to where I am?
I think for me it's definitely stickingto one thing and making it work.
Because I switched up a lot.
I had this partnership didn't workout, let's go find another one and
(17:08):
obviously that led me to where I'mat but could I have made it work
with the one thing that I stuck on?
And I'm happy that I stuck withmarketing agencies because I could have
gotten to affiliate marketing, dropshipping, all that kind of stuff but
I really think the biggest thing islike pick something and make it work.
However you have to do so becauseI really do believe like if you
(17:29):
want to do marketing for golfcourses, you can make that work.
What somebody else is doingmight not work for that industry.
It's fine.
You need to get creativeand try to figure it out.
So yeah, pick something and stickwith it and just make it work.
Even if you fail five,10 times starting out.
Absolutely.
It's a part of that learning experiencebehind every successful entrepreneur.
You don't see the nine failures behindthem that were the stepping stones
(17:51):
into what they built and created today.
So that's just a part of the journey.
It's a lot of fun though.
Absolutely.
100 percent agree.
Excellent.
Jake just want to wrap upwith offering you the floor.
Is there anything else that wehaven't touched on or talked
about yet that you were excited tochat and share with our audience?
I mean the only thing I'll just kind ofleave it on is, no matter what you want to
do, if you're listening to this, if you're18 years old starting out, if you're 35,
(18:18):
40, 50 if you stick with something and puttime towards it and just keep believing
in yourself, you can make it happen.
Very well said, Jake.
We appreciate you coming out and sharingyour tips and tricks and wisdom with us.
So excited to watch thefuture growth for you.
Congratulations to you.
Thanks so much.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you.
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