7 Figure SMMAs Are Switching To This Simple Agency Model for More Profit and Less Work w/ Sam Carlson

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam (00:00):
In upex last year, we did 1.

(00:01):
7 million leads at an averagecost of 12 and 18 cents.
You're worried about whatto learn, who to learn from,
whether you should pursuethis niche or that niche.
Here's what I'm going todo in five or six months.
I started feelingbulletproof entrepreneur.
When you look at what you cando, when you combine a software
company and a coaching company,you can get some crazy outcomes.
Your impulse to build aproduct as an entrepreneur.

(00:22):
There's is your downfall.
That is what isgoing to kill you.

Keaton (00:25):
How's it going, everybody?
Welcome back to anotherinterview with the one, the
only Sam Carlson joiningus all the way from Boise,
Idaho, near Boise, let'scall it close enough.
And he's got someupdates for us.
If you listened tothe last episode.
One of my favorite episodeswe've ever done on the podcast.

(00:47):
And this one, I thinkwe'll probably blow
it out of the water.
So I can't wait tocatch up with you, Sam.
Good to have you on.

Sam (00:55):
Thanks, man.
I appreciate you having me back.

Keaton (00:57):
Yeah.
So give us an update.
It's been a big six or sevenmonths since we last spoke.

Sam (01:03):
Yeah, we got a lot going on.
I mean, um, I guesssome of the macro.
Um, update some of the coolthings we have going, uh,
well in my own life, I senta kid off to bootcamp, um,
you know, about a month ago.
So that's, you know, kindof crazy at all the kids
and wife, they're all doinggood family life is good.
Um, sold the agency.

(01:24):
Um, it's been probably aboutsix months ago, um, which
is great because, um, Youknow, that agency obviously
brought me into where I'm attoday, learning everything.
I was, I did that for the betterpart of nine years, right?
And so that's why Apex kind ofbecame what it was is because

(01:47):
of that background, but we soldthat that way, um, me and the
team, uh, including my directorof operations from that agency.
Could come over to up packsand we could serve, um, all
of our awesome agencies whoare trying to replicate that
success, those, that same model.
Got it.
So we brought the team over,uh, a hundred percent focused
on, um, making both up X inour community, um, the best

(02:13):
product and the best placeto learn how to, um, how
to win in the agency game.
So,

Keaton (02:20):
so cool.
So it was more of a focusthing then, Hey, we're going
to have this big payday.
So you look at

Sam (02:26):
focus and resources.
Yes.
Yeah, that's right.
But focus and resources, right.
Um, the, our directorof operations, her
name is Heather Kelly.
Uh, she ran that entire agency.
She started as a parttime stay at home mom
doing support for us.
Uh, kind of graduated throughthe ranks, learned how to
run our entire business.
She's a genius at high level.

(02:48):
She's a genius at Apex andshe knows the operations and.
Me and my partners, wheneverwe would be doing, whether it
was daily classes or creatingcontent or customers or whatever
it was like, man, if Heathercould come over and do this,
it would be so much, such abetter experience for our agency

(03:09):
customers, because they'reworking with a person who has
done how many onboarding calls.
Right.
You got a questionabout onboarding dude.
She's done a ton of them.
Yeah.
Right.
So it was resources.
It was my focus.
You know, I still, um, wasgetting calls from customers
about not necessarily servicestuff, but Hey, can you come
speak at this conference?
Hey, can you, whatever it was.

(03:30):
And it's just distractions.
Right.
And we really want Apex to be.
The best thing possible.
And I think that just focusingand removing distractions
was right for that time.

Keaton (03:46):
Um, I love like that type of employee you don't, it's
impossible to hire cause it'sa higher plus train situation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that model of likegive them a little bit and
if they crush it, then.
Give them a little bit moreand and that growing over years
is really cool Hey guys Justjumping in here to give you
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(04:09):
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(05:53):
Um, just because I know there'sgoing to be a lot of people
asking this, give us some morecontext on the sale itself.
Sounds like it was a merger,but like how did the, how did
the payment structure work?
How big was the agency whenyou sold it and are you
completely hands off or wasthere a transition period?

Sam (06:11):
Yeah.
So, um, we actually mergedwith one of our top Apex users.
Um, it was a agencycalled grow local.
So they obviouslyknew our model, right?
Um, uh, So they came in and,uh, they're just juggernauts
when it comes to sales.
And so if nobody was acquiringcustomers over at patient

(06:32):
stream, you know, the, isit, we did have some churn.
low, we did have some, so webrought them on to really say,
Hey, let's kind of merge these,these things, these powers that
be, and, and really have a, uh,a more dynamic, um, relationship
between the two of those.

(06:52):
And they're greatguys over there.
Uh, really great guys.
Um, and man, they are gogetters, enthusiastic,
um, and just.
You know, their vision forpatient stream, to be honest
with you, got bigger than whatours was for patient stream.
It started meetingour vision for what we
want Apex to be, right?

(07:14):
And in a way, we kind ofadopted their vision of
where they wanted to take it.
Right.
And, um, so we didthat for a while.
And, um, after a while, wejust said, you know what?
I think you guysshould take this over.
I think you guys should takethis thing to the next level.
There's nothing like buildingsomething and having yourself

(07:38):
be really proud of it and likeseeing it do awesome stuff.
But when somebody else cantake it to another level, it's
a, it's a different thing.
It's actually really cool.
It's really cool to see them.
They added in somecoaching elements to it.
Which, you know, we wereeffectively straight
software at that point.

(07:59):
And people might think that'sawesome, but when you look
at what you can do, when youcombine a software company and
a coaching company, you canget some crazy outcomes, right?
So they really starteddoing a lot of that.
And, um, we were, we stayedon for months in terms of like
the, the, uh, acquisition andin terms of going through,

(08:23):
Hey, we're handing overthe batons in terms of team
staff, everything merged,the companies did all that.
Um, and then theyjust took it over.
And in terms of like thesale itself, we're under
an NDA, a fancy NDA.
Uh, but everybodywalked away happy.
Yeah, that's cool.

Keaton (08:41):
It must be kind of like, uh, uh, Jeff Bezos
handing off the CEO role moment.
Like this has grown,you know, obviously the
same level as Jeff here.
So congratulations there.

Sam (08:55):
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if I'mon the same level as Jeff,
but you know, again, likeit was like a win win.

Keaton (09:03):
Right.

Sam (09:03):
Because you get in a situation where those guys
are hungry and focused.

Keaton (09:08):
Yeah.

Sam (09:08):
And you know, because of Apex, because we're
hungry and focused withApex, our, you know, our
satiety level to take patientstream to that next level.
It wasn't there anymore.

Keaton (09:20):
Yeah.

Sam (09:20):
You know, it was, it was a good agency.
It was, it was almost like wekept that as a case study to
say, Hey, this is the modelthat you guys need to build.
I mean, we had over when,you know, when we were
running that, and by theway, that agency built Apex.

Keaton (09:34):
Okay.

Sam (09:35):
You know, so it paid the bills, it paid the developers,
it paid everything that agencydid all that, where there
are no patient stream, therewould be no up X, right?
And so that modelwas really awesome.
But as soon as up X took off,I started to, um, really enjoy.
And love helping agenciesreplicate that success.

(09:58):
Right.
And so that became my focusand where your focus is, that's
kind of where your energy goes.
Yeah.
And in a, in a way it wasn'teven, it, it, it became less
fair to our customer base andto patient streams potential
to stay at the head of it.

Keaton (10:17):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
But that's great tohave like when, when the
potential can be fulfilledby someone else, that's.
I think very few entrepreneursactually get to that, that
level where they can handoff something like that.
So congrats.

Sam (10:32):
Well, and those guys before we merged, I mean,
they were doing threetimes the revenue we were,

Keaton (10:37):
okay.

Sam (10:38):
Right.
So they were crushing it.
These guys are just hungry.
And so they're greatguys to merge with.
Yeah.

Keaton (10:46):
So the, uh, patient stream.
That was a combination ofkind of the OPEX SaaS model
and some legacy clients thatwere more done for you, right?

Sam (10:56):
Yeah, so PatientStream was probably an 80 20, you
know, just a rough delineation.
Um, about 80 percentof our customers were,
um, straight SaaS.
Right.
Meaning we onboarded them.
Uh, we would doweekly calls, right?
We offered proactive support.
So if ever, if, if you know,somebody who's running their

(11:18):
own ads and we'd never wantedsomebody to run their own ads
and that lack of confidenceto have them churn because of
just not feeling confident.
So as soon as they wouldrun their ads, we would in
a way, so it became kind ofswaths, we would say, Hey,
we noticed your campaign.
We're starting to, the leadcosts are starting to go.
So we made some adjustments.
You should see those change overthe next three to four days.

(11:38):
have an awesome day.
Right.
And so we did those things,but it was very minimal.
Like I said, over a hundred,that agency patient stream
had well over a hundredcustomers and it was run
by a part time stay at homemom and a part time PA.
Um, and then we did keep,and what would happen, this

(11:59):
was just like organic, right?
Uh, people would, Wantus to do it for them.
It's we actually outsourcedto, uh, a company.
Uh, her name is Jen Troy,the Troy method, man.
If you guys are, by theway, if you're in like the
chiropractic or patientmarketing niche, you should
look up the Troy method because.
We completely outsourced the,uh, you know, calling, booking

(12:24):
appointments, all of that stuffto them, they managed their
performance in terms of, theywould give them reports on a
monthly basis saying, Hey, webooked this many appointments.
We made this many calls.
You got this many leads.
And they did that as a fullservice provider to them.
And we just got apass through fee.

Keaton (12:42):
Nice.

Sam (12:43):
Right.
And that was a really slickmodel because we trusted them.
They did a good job andwe made some more money
on each of those clients.

Keaton (12:52):
Yeah.
And where it's full service,like it's one thing to
have a white label agency.
It's another thing to havea white label call center
reporting media buying.

Sam (13:02):
I would say that the, the key to making the, you know,
the, the SWAS model, I guesswe would call what Apex plus
high level is, is really slick.
It's very simple.
Right.
When you add in that donefor you element, I would
say the secret to success.
is a call center.
We didn't even call hima call center, but a call
center that narrowly focuseson that one niche, because a

(13:28):
lot of call centers are, youknow, outsourcing to India
or whatever, just, you know,whatever are doing that.
And so their caller, thecalling agents don't have
that one little bit ofcare, nuance application.
They don't have that extralayer and that is what really

(13:48):
moves the needle, right?
And so the fact that herbusiness was specific
to new patient marketingmade it a perfect fit.

Keaton (13:58):
Yeah, that's very cool.
So since then you've launcheda program, which I want to talk
the majority of today aboutthat because just the name
I've, I've heard people silentlybegging for this program over
the last year and a half sinceI sold my agency and have been

(14:18):
more in the coaching worldwhere it's like the name of
the program is agency MVP.
And there's a lot of peoplelooking for, Hey, I want to
work about 20 hours a week.
I, I want some more timeto spend doing what I enjoy
hobbies, family, friends,and I don't want to spend my
entire life on support calls,onboarding calls, et cetera.

(14:42):
And because there's so muchinformation and misinformation
out there from the guruverse, people end up with
these bloated agencies.
And so when I heard MVPand kind of some of the
principles that this wasbuilt on, I was like, Oh.
Sam's going to crush with this.
And as we know, it alreadyis producing a lot of

(15:03):
these results for people.
Yeah, it's awesome.
So a little bit of context forthose listening, but I'd love to
hear the origin story from you.
How did you come up withthe, like, why, why sell the
coaching in the first place?
And, and what'sthe origin there?

Sam (15:19):
I appreciate that question because I will say this,
I did not want to create.
This program, I really did not.
Like I, like Apex is, youknow, promoting Apex and
building that business is abig lift already, but luckily
we've got a great team.
But so I'll, I'll say this interms of context, maybe mid

(15:41):
2023, me and the two co foundersof the other founders of Apex
started looking at our differenttiers and we were looking at
our users and we wanted tosee, you know, what, what.
It's healthy for retention,like churn rates for
our different users.
And if you guys don't know,Apex bases are pricing

(16:01):
off of the amount ofcustomers you have, right?
So if you have zero tothree customers, sub
accounts and high level,it's 97 bucks, four to 10.
It's two 97 and then 11 toinfinity and beyond, uh,
is four 97 and the two 97and four 97 price point.

(16:22):
Our, our churn isreally healthy.
Like really, I don't knowexactly what it is, but
it's like really good.
Like once people, once youget customers using Apex, they
don't want to stop using it.
So, you know, thus, youknow, that's really sticky,
um, retention for us.
But the 97.
Was pretty not good.

(16:43):
Like the churn rate wasn't good.
And as business owners, youknow, what, what doesn't get
measured, can't get managed.
And so we started lookingat that and we're like,
well, why is that?
But why, why is, whyis that price point?
Why are they struggling so much?
We know the tool, you know,you kind of go through a
little bit like, Hey, ourtool's really good, man.
It's not about us.
It's about them.
Yeah.

(17:03):
And so I started doingsome customer research and
really when people wouldcancel, I would just.
Do a phone call.
We'd send exit surveys and wedid that for a couple of months.
And these two recurringproblems came up.
The first one's pretty obvious.
You know, I don'thave any customers.
Right.
And there's a lot ofreasons why somebody
might not have a customer.

(17:23):
I don't know howto make an offer.
I don't know howto pick a niche.
I don't know, um, likewhat to offer that person.
A lot of different things thatyou can do that would cause
you to, um, not have clients.
And I think there'sother people that already
teach how to get clients.
Right.
But this other one came up andit was kind of like sneaky.

(17:45):
Like I didn't expect this one.
And it's something Icoined as agency overwhelm.
Right.
And I think you kindof alluded to it.
Like people havebeen asking for MVP.
Well, I didn't knowthat this was going on.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I'd get feedback as,I don't know where to start.
There's so many things to learn.
There's so many features inhigh level that I don't know

(18:06):
which I should be using, whichI should be, you know, whatever.
And it was just overwhelmed,overwhelmed, overwhelmed.
Like everything was overwhelmed.
Everything was confusing.
Everything was complex.
Right.
Well, as a lifelong entrepreneurmyself, I remember as an
entrepreneur being in this kindof like boom and bust cycle.
And not feeling that confidence.
And the thing that changed itfor me was in around, around

(18:29):
2014, I got the opportunityto work with this really
successful, um, business owner,like super successful guy.
And he mentored me.
And he showed me what to do.
He taught me businessprinciples and he kind
of laid it out for me.
And the crazy thing was all ofthat time as an entrepreneur

(18:49):
previously, I had all thesedots, you know, of, of failure
and some success and whatever.
When I worked with him, Iconnected all those dots
and it took me probablyfive or six months, which
sounds kind of crazy.
But in five or six months, Istarted feeling a bulletproof.
Yeah.
Entrepreneur, right?

(19:12):
And so with that kind of asmy own background, my own
experience, as I was looking atall these people, I'm like, Oh
my gosh, I think these people.
Need a paint by numbers or,or I think they need a program
that walks them throughin sequence, by the way,
because mentorship doesn'tteach you things scattered.
They teach you this thingfirst, then this, then this.

(19:33):
Right.
And I said, I think thisis what they're asking for.
So I took a small groupof our users and I said,
Hey, I'm thinking ofcreating this program.
Here's what will be in this.
Well, I first said, youguys all feel confused and
you all feel overwhelmed.
That's what I've learned.
You're worried about whatto learn, who to learn it

(19:55):
from, whether you can haveconfidence in that, whether,
you know, you should pursuethis niche or that niche.
I get it.
I've been there.
Here's what I'm going to do.
I hadn't created theprogram at all yet.
Here's what I will do.
I will create a program thatgoes through a minimum viable
snapshot for high level.
That doesn't mean, by theway, minimum viable product
is MVP, but it really standsfor most valuable product.

Keaton (20:19):
Hmm.

Sam (20:20):
Because if you like, there's a, I think at
Leonardo, uh, Leonardo daVinci said, some simplicity is
the ultimate sophistication.

Keaton (20:27):
Yeah.

Sam (20:27):
Right.
So we're going to give youthe most simple approach
to the market, including anagency snapshot, sub account
snapshot, our ads library.
That is simple.
Like you only need six to 12ads in your library to crush it.

Keaton (20:43):
And

Sam (20:43):
we're gonna help you build this.
If you guys are in, Pay me2000 bucks and I'll build it.
I was kind ofhoping nobody would
out of the 24 people, Ithink 21 of them paid me.
And so clearly it was like,boom, you know, yeah, this is
exactly like you said, this iswhat we've been asking for is

(21:06):
what we didn't know we needed.
Um, And so we started buildingit and we would drip out one
module per week in a small betagroup, uh, without promoting
it, without doing anything.
And, um, so it got donemaybe two months ago and
we're super proud of it.
And it's a pretty cool programthat we've got together.
So agency MVP, uh, it's a simpleway to build the model, by

(21:30):
the way, that I built in APEX.

Keaton (21:33):
Yeah.
Right.
And that's what I really wantto get into is like, what is.
The deeper I get intoentrepreneurship, it's
all about the model.
It's like committing to,I don't know, a spouse
or a business partner.
Like your model ischangeable, but it's.
If you can set things up fromthe beginning in the right way,
you're going to save yourselfso much headache down the line,

(21:56):
divorcing, so to speak, fromthat model and trying to adjust.
So, uh, this is what I believeto be the best place for
people to start right now iswhat you're about to describe.
What is it?
And what is that?
You know, what isthe snapshot include?
What are the?
The base principles thatpeople need to start with.

Sam (22:18):
Well, let's, let's do this.
What are some of the coreproblems that people have
when they're, when they'restarting their agency in
order for your agency agencyto crush it, you have to
relearn a couple of things.
One of the big things isoffer like offer has become
such a cliche, ubiquitousthing that lives out there.

(22:38):
Right.
And because wheneverwords, Yeah, Become cliche.
They lose their meaning andthis should be a scary thing.
And if you're listening orwatching this, if you think
you know what an offer isand you think you can create
offers, that is not how youcreate that you do not build
an offer by creating it.
You can only discover offers.

(22:59):
Right.
And, uh, there's a guy namedHarry Brown that has a book
and it's, I think it's titledthe secret to selling anything.
And he's got a couple ofquotes in there that are
really like, and one ofthem is you can't motivate
anyone to buy your things.
You have to identify amotivation and then create the
sloot or create the solutionthat matches or satisfies,

(23:21):
satisfies that motivation.
Right.
And to put a finer point onit, he's also the same guy that
says, ask people what they wantand then sell them that thing.
Okay.
And so when I look around,do you know what Daryl
Eves is by the way?

Keaton (23:37):
Yep.

Sam (23:38):
Okay.
So Daryl Eves, I was at aconference with him this
week, this last week.
Um, I got a funnystory about him.
Cause

Keaton (23:44):
YouTube guy, if anybody doesn't huge

Sam (23:46):
YouTube guy, uh, Mr.
Beast mentor, um, Just huge.
You OG

Keaton (23:52):
YouTube.
Yeah.

Sam (23:53):
I didn't visually know what Daryl Eves looked like.
Okay.
And I stood next to himwith the buffet line.
He had a YouTube hat on.
I'm like, Hey bro,you're a YouTuber.
It's a little embarrassing.
It's like, yeah.
And I'm like, Oh, youat the conference?
He's like, yeah.
He gets up onstage the next day.
I'm like, Oh, that's terribly.
It's like, Oh my gosh, I hadhis audio book up off my phone.

(24:15):
So anyway, sorry.
This is a little sidestep.
It does.
Dovetail back into this.
There's a couple of thingshe said, and it was very
validating for me to hearthis too, because I mean, that
guy's way ahead of me, right?
He said, how many of youin this room have a niche?
And this is a room full ofagency owners, by the way.

(24:37):
And most of the roomshot up their hand.
How many of you havebroad agencies, like
three or four people?
And he goes, you guys are goingto really struggle with YouTube.
And you guys are really goingto struggle with your agencies.
And I was like, Oh, we havea niche conversation coming.
Cause you know, I'm, I'm theriches are in the niches.
Right.
Um, and so he went through allof the reasons why you have to

(25:02):
have a niche, both in your, foryour YouTube content, as well
as your business more broadly.
And that's the first thingthat people do wrong.
Okay.
So.
You know, you asked aboutwhat's in the snapshot and
all that kind of stuff.
The funny thing, Keaton, wedon't touch software or the
snapshot until week four.

Keaton (25:22):
Nice.

Sam (25:25):
And we don't do that because your impulse to build
a product as an entrepreneuris, is your downfall.
That is what isgoing to kill you.
You don't build products,you discover them and
then you assemble them.
Right.
And when, when we go through,we do a very deep dive.

(25:46):
It's all thebusiness principles.
That I learned from my, uh,mentor that go into the first
three weeks of understandingyour audience, really
understanding your audience.
Um, understanding theirdemographics, understanding
their psychographics,understanding their
online behavior andtheir offline behavior.

(26:07):
Understanding, understandingtheir impulses based on
their, uh, demographics.
Are they Gen Xer?
Right.
Are they, uh, arethey a baby boomer?
All of these things matter.
Okay.
And when you can do it, right.
Um, there's, I got a, a quote.
On our MVP webinar, where aguy named Daniel Nugent agency

(26:31):
owner for like four years,won the SAS preneur award
last year, tore his agencydown to build an MVP agency.
So last, last year, 2023, hegets, gets the, uh, SAS preneur
award and he hates his agency.
He's just like, dude, wewere just overwhelmed.
Seven figures fine.
But had to tear down, hebuilt this one, right?

(26:52):
And he said on this video clip,he goes, I've never, I've been
in the, he said, I've been inthe click funnels and marketing
world for four years and I'venever heard anybody talk about
how to create offers and doresearch like you guys do.
He goes, I got in a brandnew niche, did my research,

(27:14):
follow the formula,put my offer out there.
And in his words, he goes, andit just bites, like meaning he
puts it out there And peoplelike, yes, that's what I want.

Keaton (27:24):
Yeah.

Sam (27:25):
So the same way you were talking about,
you know, agencies havebeen hungry for this.
Yeah.
That's living in the ether.
Like those sentiments, thosesituations, those feelings
are living in the ether.
And really what you are isyou're a receptor to frequency.
You need to be able to identifythat frequency so then you can
convert it Into an outcome andyour ability to do that and

(27:52):
develop that muscle, that skill,which it is a muscle, right?
Like anything else iswhat will make it whether
you're successful or not.
And by the way, once you getthat skill, it doesn't matter
if it's a marketing agency,it doesn't matter if you open
up a, you know, a soda shopdown the street, whatever
it is, you can make money.

(28:12):
Right.
It's just about going about themethod and the formula properly
so you can execute properly.
And that's what goes into MVP.
And by the way, thesnapshots are almost a
checklist of what not.
To include.
Okay.
Doesn't mean you can't

Keaton (28:32):
drop moment for every beginner.
It was like, tell mewhat's in the snapshot.
Like, like list it allout and you're like, Oh,
it doesn't have this.
I don't need that.
I need a snapshot that has,I don't know, twice anything.

Sam (28:49):
We have a guy, another video testimonial,
hilarious Gary Rieger.
And he goes.
He says in our community goesyou guys should have seen my
rat's nest of snapshots thatI had my agency And he, he
tore it all down and startedfrom scratch and just is

(29:10):
building it up the right way.
Listen, if you want to dodifferent things, like there's
some people who teach sevenfigure agencies and like add
all these different services.
You want to know what theproblem with building an
agency like that is for me.
Okay.
I'm in my forties.
I'm more about lifestylethan I am about revenue
is every feature.

(29:31):
You add branches off into threechannels of either service,
support, tech, um, training,whatever it is, it branches off
into those different things.
It also branches off intoadditional reasons why people
should quit your service.
Okay.
Because clarity is thefriend of conversion.

(29:54):
Complexity will kill you.
Right?
And so we all havean in an MVP dude.
I'll just keep talking.
My bad.
If you know, sorry,you're just keep going.
We have this, um, there's alesson called that we call
the law of entropy, right?
And every entrepreneur hassuffered from, from entropy,

(30:14):
meaning I'm close to my thingthat I'm building and a customer
tells me, Oh, it would be coolif we, okay, I'll add that.
Right.
And I'll add that.
Add up over time and beforelong you start getting
customer complaints.
Your retention is likeyour churn is going up.
Okay.
You have to hire more people.

(30:34):
So your margins shrinkand you're thinking, well,
we're doing the businessmodel that everybody
else said we should do.
But what you don't realize isit's death by a thousand cuts.
Keep the main thing, the mainthing, the thing that made
my Apex agency so successfulwas because we basically gave
them a dialed in ads library.

(30:57):
A button to push to getleads and then a streamlined
clean workflow and thenproactive communication.
Like that was the broadframework of how we did it,
how we maintained it as whatwe teach in MVP and how we
got clients is what we teach.
Yeah.
And then VP.

Keaton (31:15):
So it reminds me of like everyone.
They can flash the a hundredK months, but like, if you're
making a hundred K, you've gota partner, you've got a team,
you're actually taking home 10.
I'd rather take home 10 with a15 K a month agency and one VA
and a couple of softwares thanI would with a hundred K agency.

Sam (31:35):
Yeah.
And then how manyhours you got to work?
Exactly.
Your partners, you know,

Keaton (31:39):
you can flash the revenue number, but it's,
it's all, it's a sign of asophisticated entrepreneur when.
You know, you and I cansit here and be here.
Someone's like, they're, they'redoing a million a month in a.
You know, full service agency.
And you're like, man,that sounds horrible,
terrible, terrible.

(32:01):
And that's like the dirtysecret that they don't want to

Sam (32:03):
talk.
Nobody talks aboutthis, by the way.
And those are the guys thatare getting the clicks.
Those are the guysthat whatever.
I mean, maybe they're,and they're probably
smarter than me.

Keaton (32:11):
Yeah.

Sam (32:13):
I will say, and you're probably the same way because
of your current, like whereyou lie in the environment,
like where you say ourplacement, I get a bird's
eye view into many agencies.
And it's man, I just simplicityis the ultimate sophistication.
That's all I can say.
And like my webinar says howto build a lifestyle agency.

(32:37):
And I use that word lifestyle.
Because it's notjust about money.
Money is important.
Okay.
But money is not revenue.
Money is profit.
What you get to keep.
That's what youshould be focused on.
Um, there's a guy, uh, do youknow Quinn Nolan, by the way?
Uh, rings a bell.

(32:57):
You should have him on.
You'd really enjoytalking to him.
Okay.
Um, Quinn Nolan,he's a solopreneur.
So what I mean, no VAs,one dude, he's got a pretty
decent size YouTube channel.
Um, that's how he getsmost of his customers.
And all he does is the upX plus high level model.
And he makes like30 grand a month.

(33:19):
With one dude,

Keaton (33:20):
and

Sam (33:20):
he's not like out there with crazy customer support.
He just keeps it simple.
In fact, he has twotemplates, two ad templates,
and I'll tell you this.
He's got two ad templatesand then he got crazy
and doubled them up withthe same ad template, but
instead of a short form leadform, a long form lead for.

(33:43):
Right.
You're talking about twotemplates, but duplicated
it's the same ads.
Yeah.
The discipline.
That it takes to staythat simple makes
that dude bulletproof.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's what you want.
I mean, oh my gosh.
By the way, he's like,I don't know, 25 or 26
making a ton of money.

(34:03):
And just having it simpleand he's figuring this
out at a young age.
Yeah.
I didn't figure it out.

Keaton (34:08):
That works discipline.
That's what it is.
That's what it is.
Um, yeah, it's when I thinkthis is a Naval quote.
It's like, well, the Navalquote is retirement is when
you stop trading tomorrowfor today or you stop
trading today for tomorrow.
Um, but I think he hassomething else as well.

(34:29):
That's like being richis when the money you say
no to feels better thanthe money you say yes to.

Sam (34:36):
Oh yeah, that's good.
And that is, that

Keaton (34:39):
is for anyone listening.
That's like, I don't knowabout this whole thing.
Like when you get to the pointwhen someone's offering you
money and saying no to itfeels better than saying yes
to it, it's an unlock into.
Like, okay, there'ssomething else going on here.
Like this is a, a lifestylething instead of just how

(35:00):
much energy and time andresources can I put into this
for like some future payoff?
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I reallylove that quote.
Okay, socustomer research is step one.
Um, so that when you, you know,most my assumption and view

(35:24):
of this is in my experience islike people are going to arrive
to like 80 percent of the sameproduct, but 20 percent of
it is going to be so informedto that niche that when they
drop it and they say thosefew things that just resonate.
Yeah.
It's like, here's what I need.
Um, so even going, even ifyou feel like, you know,
it going through those,that process is so powerful

(35:45):
just for that extra 20%.
Um, that's right.
And um, the, the psychographicsthing you talked about,
one of the exercisesI used to do was with.
My students is like, thinkabout like when you're asking
somebody for a thousanddollars, 2000, 3, 000 a
month for marketing, here'swhat you're asking them for.

(36:09):
It's really take home theirtake home income, not the profit
or revenue of their business.
Like let's say they'redoing a million a year,
but they're taking home ahundred K and you're asking
them for three K a month.
That's a, a.
Almost 40 percent oftheir take home income per
month that you're askingthem to risk on something
that might not work out.

Sam (36:30):
Yeah.

Keaton (36:30):
And that sales conversation, like no wonder
they're bulking at price.
Like let's move up the ladderor find something cheaper
or, you know, uh, figure outanother way to pitch that.
But, um, anyway, so crucial.
I just wanted to, that,that little exercise
had a couple of peoplementioned had been helpful.
So I wanted to mentionit, but, um, What's the,

(36:55):
what's the model?
Like, what are youactually selling?
What's that 80 percentthat tends to be the same?

Sam (37:00):
Yeah.
Um, so we know that, well, okay.
So just a note on nicheselection, um, niche
selection is important.
Right?
One, making sure that youpick a son, Mitch, and then
to making sure that youdon't work with broke people.
Like if I just want to bepragmatic, make sure their
customer value is goodenough to where if they
make a sale or two, they'repaying for me and then some.

(37:23):
Right.
And, um, so like work withpeople who can pay their bills.
That means that thatmight exclude, you know,
the window cleaner.
I don't know what the windowor what a window cleaner makes.
I don't know.
It might exclude some peoplewho are, you know, More broke.
It also might, you might learn.
In fact, we've had a couple ofpeople who have gone through
our process and learned thatin fact, they don't have

(37:46):
a niche with any demand.
Right?
We've had people, um, comethrough our program and
be like, you know what?
We've been working on thisniche and trying to pitch it
and whatever for six months.
And because of the waywe did our research, we
actually didn't have a niche.
So, I mean, better late thannever, but the amount of time

(38:07):
that you save just by doingit properly and no demand,

Keaton (38:10):
you mean like they're already booked out for like
years and they don't feellike they need, or they don't

Sam (38:14):
believe like there's a culture.
There, there are niches wherethere's a culture where, uh,
like I heard, uh, one lady sayPilates today, like apparently
all Pilates instructors don'tbelieve in advertising at all,
like they're, you know, andat some point if that group
think becomes a culture, youhave to be aware of that.

(38:35):
And if there's like a smallpocket of people who do
get it, okay, well, great.
But that's not enoughto build a business on.
Right.
So, um, so it's justgoing about that research.
Right.
And then the model.
Is yeah, there's onething that every person
will always agree on.
Do you want more business?
Yeah.

(38:55):
So lead generationbecomes a big part.
Of doing that.
And if we make it specificenough, then it become, it
can become really compellingto our, to our customers.
Right?
So the specificityis really important.
The simplicity isalso really important.

(39:19):
To all you APEX users who comein and take our entire ads
library and resell that, I wouldencourage you not to do that.
We get a lot of people thatjust say, Hey, look at all these
templates, put them all in.
That's not the wayto do it, right?
And the way to have likecustomers that look at what
you do, see the value andthen stay for a long time.

(39:40):
It means you're goingto have to have clarity.
And then adoption, like they'regoing to have to use your tool
for a good amount of time.
And then once they use it, theynever, once you get somebody
past four months, and reallyit can be, there's a way to
shorten that timeframe, butthey're using your tool.
They're not, they're notgoing to put it down.
Right.
It's critical to their business.

(40:02):
Uh, yeah.
So the model is,uh, lead generation.
We, we obviously lead with Apex.
That's the modelI know intimately.
Right.
So I can teach it.
I can show people how to do it.
Um, And then just turning thosepeople into customers for a
long time, how to do that.

Keaton (40:21):
Um, there's one thing you said there that I want
to push back on because Idon't think, I don't think
you believe it at face value,but I want to, maybe you do,
and I want to dive into it.
There's people will neversay no to more business.
I actually found that to be.
untrue in that when the juiceis not worth the squeeze, like

(40:45):
a lot of, and this is sort ofthe subconscious calculation.
A lot of people aredoing are like, Hey, do
you want more business?
Maybe they've beenburned by agencies.
They're like, I don't know.
You're right.
But it's also like,at what price?
Like if I'm paying 2, 000 fora 3, 000 customer and my profit
margin is, I don't know, it's80%, like I'm only making 500

(41:08):
on that because I spent so muchon the advertising and then
also in a lot of these, like.
Maybe not built toscale type businesses.
There's this questionof like, I, how much
can I actually handle?
And, um, more so than that,like I'm, I'm just burned

(41:33):
out as a business ownerand I don't really want.
Like, yeah, if, if, if youjust get me the jobs and
they're delivered and they'resigned, sealed, ready to go
and everyone's perfect, sure.
But I don't want leads.
I don't want to siftthrough the leads.
I don't want to haveto deal with that.
Do you find what's your takeon that whole conversation?

(41:53):
No,

Sam (41:54):
I agree with you a hundred percent and you know, here's
Every new agency owner shouldunderstand your acumen and
skill level in business reallymatters And in marketing, by
the way, there are feelings.
There are, uh, cycle graphicsthat you need to be aware of.
Um, in whatever niche you,um, in, in whatever niche

(42:18):
you decide to go into.
Right.
Um, a lot of niches hadbeen hit up by agencies
and have been burned.
Like you said.
And so knowing that needsto be at the forefront of
your mind because you haveto have a tool against that.
And there are some people whoare just overwhelmed and, you
know, maybe they're at capacity.
So yeah, maybe they don'twant more business, but

(42:38):
broadly speaking, peoplewant to make money.
Um, finding them newcustomers can do that, but
doing it the right way.
Is really important.

Keaton (42:48):
That's what I'm getting at is like, it's,
they care how it's done.
They're starting, the market'sstarting to get pickier where
it's like, it's not just,yeah, send me a bunch of leads.
I'll sift through them.
It's like, I wantthe right leads.
So

Sam (43:02):
you, you want to lean into something I
call the value frame.
Okay.
And the, like people understandand people understand the,
uh, the phenomenon of afirst impression, right?
The first time you meetsomebody, you like in a
split second, you have allof these judgments, uh,
prejudiced, good, bad, whatever.

(43:25):
About them.
That is in everythingwe, everything we do.
And marketing is noexclusion to that.
So your advertising andhow you generate leads
for a business needs to gothrough a particular frame.
For it to be effective.
So imagine we'll, we'll usethis, this value first frame.

(43:45):
So imagine you meet a girlin a bar, you go up and she's
dressed in wherever theydress like in bars and you're
like, Hey, this is my firstimpression of this person.
Okay.
Take that same exact personand then meet them in church.
Those are two different frames.
Those are, you entered intothe room in two different ways.

(44:06):
When it comes to yourcustomers, too many of the.
Agencies roll out by being thehot chick in the bar, right?
Your customers don't want that.
They want healthy,qualified people.
And there is in fact, aformula to doing that.
Um, which it starts with whatframe are you going through?

(44:28):
What are you, what are the firstthings that you're representing,
telling them, promising them,admitting to them, not saying
to them when they first see you.

Keaton (44:40):
Yeah.

Sam (44:41):
Okay.
What is that?
And then how do you delivervalue before anything else?
All right, that's the veryfirst part of the scenario.
Then to just tacticallyspeaking, does your
advertising speak to abroad group of people?
If it does, it's not specificenough to hone in on a

(45:05):
very singular motivation.
I'll give you anexample of that.
So I think I told you wehad, like my agency had
a published case study.
Did I tell you this?
A published

Keaton (45:14):
case study

Sam (45:14):
published case study by, by, uh, Facebook.

Keaton (45:16):
Oh, wow.
No.
Okay.
So it's ringing a bellnow, but I don't remember.

Sam (45:21):
Yeah.
So we had a published casestudy, um, 2019 or something
like that, where, whereFacebook came back and they
said, Hey, You guys aredoing marketing, right?
We want to publishthis case study.
We were like, dude,this is crazy.
We're, we're going to bethe only agency in our
niche that has a publishedcase, which is really cool.
Yeah, but when you have apublished case study, they

(45:42):
give you a lot of dataand it's not data that you
see in ads manager, right?
It's attribution data.
It's like, hey, what,what money got made?
Where?
And for that particular,um, at that point in
time, we were runningthree campaigns, a general
chiropractic campaign, right?
like just general aches andpains, whatever, a general
acupuncture campaign,same kind of thing.

(46:04):
And the very specific discherniation, um, spinal
decompression campaign.
And the one that we weremost excited about were the
general ones because the leadvolume and the lead cost.
We're low and thevolume was high.
The cost was low, but whenit came back and what made

(46:25):
the money, it was an 80, 20split, that specific spinal
decompression campaign thatwas focusing on that one
condition made all the money.

Keaton (46:34):
Wow.

Sam (46:35):
Right.
And so Jacob and I, my partner,Jacob, we're like, uh, there's
something to be learned here.
And I think we needto change our entire
approach to marketing.
And so we came up withthis thing we call the
qualified lead formula.
Okay.
And we have metrics for that.
And I'll tell youwhat they were.
They were 2 percent clickthrough rate, all 1 percent link

(46:58):
click through rate and betweena 10 to 20 percent conversion
rate, we did not want abovea 20 percent conversion rate.
It meant that there wasnot enough of a filter on
our audience or our offer.
Okay.
And by focusing on niche,like super niche conditions
like that, just everything,like everything down

(47:20):
your funnel works better.
Your people are more qualified.
You stop getting that, oh, Ididn't opt in for that lead.
Who is this?
You know, they, you know, youknow what I'm talking about?
Yeah.
Like when people say that,when we did that, that stuff
kind of stopped happeningand we went when we led with
the value first approach.
That stuff stoppedhappening now.

(47:41):
It wasn't like hey, you'rewalking down the street and
you see the girl that you metat the bar It's like oh, yeah,
you know, it's like you see thegirl you met at church like hi
Sally or whatever, you know, heyAnd it is, dude, I got to
tell you, it is mindset.
Like we are so controlled byour psychology that if you

(48:01):
don't take a minute to, to thinkabout how your digital presence
interacts with, like directlyconnects with human psychology
and you think everythingcould be surface level, we're
just gonna throw ads out thatwe're just going to do this.
If you think that youcan do that, you're
going to be a long timestruggling in this business.
Until you can make, until youconnect those dots and remember,

(48:23):
these are people with thoughtsand feelings and experiences.
We match our message, ourbrand, our solution with them.
We win.

Keaton (48:32):
Yeah.
And what you're saying,I think you sort of
blended two things here.
Maybe you didn't meanto do it on purpose.
I usually do, but Ithink there's the leads.
There's the leads that arethe, the people at the bar, so
to speak, that are in, in myexperience from 250, 000 worth
of ad spend data, eight outof 10 leads are not going to

(48:53):
convert six out of 10 aren'teven going to answer the texts.
We're going to say.
You know, I didn't optin, so you got right away.
You can take your leads,your 10 leads and make
them four, and then you cantake your four leads and
make it one or two that areactually going to close.
Um, and then you, you have thosequalified leads, but you also,
when you approach a client,you're appearing either as.

(49:16):
The person from the bar or theperson from the reputable place,
you know, the church or whereverthat is for the, it's both.
Yeah.

Sam (49:23):
And then both is the way you approach your client
B2B like getting customers.
And that's where you're right.
I did two things,

Keaton (49:31):
but

Sam (49:31):
it's

Keaton (49:31):
B2C too.
Yeah.
It's your ad library.
And it's, it's the, So asthe agency, I'd love to
hear your take on like, whatare, what are the things
that the reputable agenciesapproaching you aren't going
to say, or are going to say?

Sam (49:48):
So the reputable agencies approaching who?

Keaton (49:52):
Approaching clients, B2B clients.
Like how did they come up?
They're not going to

Sam (49:56):
make them guarantees.

Keaton (49:57):
They're not doing guarantees.
That's number one.

Sam (49:59):
They're not going to do any guarantees.
Okay.
Because the guaranteesthat people make, uh, one
are borderline illegal.
In fact, they probablyare almost all illegal.
Okay.
And when you leadwith a guarantee.
It's the same.
It's like a, like that littleman syndrome, like he's got a
huge truck because compensatingfor something, dude, it is, it

(50:21):
is like a surefire red flag.
Yeah.
And the way

Keaton (50:26):
to attract broke people.

Sam (50:28):
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
And then there's, there'sa, there's a quote I
made in our community.
Um, And I wish I couldgive attribution to
some of the quotes.
Sometimes I'll hear somethingand it'll just go in there.
I'm like, I'm neverforgetting that.
And the quote is this peopledon't want to be educated.

(50:48):
They want to be informed.
Okay.
If you take that approachB to B with your chosen
niche and you lead with thatfirst, And you satisfy their
curiosities, their insecurities,their fill in the blanks.
You satisfy that first, you earnthe value frame that you need

(51:14):
to, to say, Hey, if there wasa way for you to generate your
own leads, eliminate an agencyand get qualified leads only.
Would you be interested,but you can't always lead with
that, you know, and again, wesay, sell the thing that sells
the thing, sell the value.

(51:34):
So you can sell your product.
Yeah.

Keaton (51:36):
So the idea.

Sam (51:38):
Yeah, that's right.
So like, for example, Iremember one of, in my
own agency, I kept gettingquestions from our customers.
Hey, what do our, whatshould we be charging for
spinal decompression cases?
What should we be chargingfor neuropathy cases?
Like what are like, whatare all these things that
we should be charging?
Well, we had over ahundred customers.

(51:59):
So I just started calling them.
Hey, Ted, what did you, whatdo you guys get on average
for a decompression case?
Boom.
And I just startedaggregating data.
I did my own research.
I compiled that together andthen I took what I had on my
lead data, like how much itcosts to get a lead and then
conversion data, what that, whatthat costs for a customer, and I

(52:21):
went by the top three, I didn'tmake it more than three, the
top three conditions that peopleasked about, which were spinal
decompression, neuropathy,and non surgical knee pain.
And I just gave them, I said,Hey, the average case values
are this, the average book,and I just gave it to them.
Right.

(52:41):
And I did the legwork to do all that.
I got emails back of peoplesaying, Oh my gosh, thank
you so much for doing this.
Nobody's ever donesomething like this for,
they, they felt informed.
Finally, a question that theyhad been asking and in their
little groups, whatever,nobody wants to answer.

(53:04):
Right.
I just did it for him.
I just did the researchand I said, there you go.
There it is.
I got customers.
I built my brand andmy credibility up.
And I could take, I took thatexact same thing and I ran
an ad and I said, in 2024,here's what you need to know.
If you're working withspinal decompression,

(53:24):
neuropathy, or kneepatients, get the report now.
And at the very bottom, it waslike, Hey, if you want us to
help you get more qualified,able to pay patients, click
here to set up a demo callvalue frame.

Keaton (53:38):
Yeah.
And it's, it's, uh, Iwas talking last week
in a podcast that make.
Come out before this one.
He's an operations consultantthat goes into agencies and
gets everybody on the samepage and kind of fixes things.
And he's like, step oneis come up with something
that no one can argue on.
Like, what is this pieceof paper that we're going

(54:00):
to all look at and belike, Here is the goal.
Here's what'scurrently happening.
Here's the currentprocess or whatever.
And your thing in thiscase is here's, here's
what no one can argue on.
We have data froma hundred people.
These are the prices.
Here's some other data.
And when, from a salesperspective, it's ironic because
most salespeople are more,you know, maybe wishy washy or

(54:22):
emotional and not as, as harddata, bit of a generalization,
but it's such a weapon.
Like amazing weapon in saleswhen you're like, look, I
have, I have cold, hard data toback up what I'm telling you.
This isn't, I'm not cherrypicking case studies that
are all my best ones.
And three months in,you're going to be
pissed at me because.

(54:43):
You're half of what thesecase studies are doing.
Like, no, here's whatour average client does.
Here's what theaverage client charges.
Here's average numbersacross the board.
I've pulled all of this.
And once you have, you know, 25case studies, 25 clients that
you've worked with, you can pullall those average numbers and
just give them to people andlike, do you want this or not?

(55:04):
Yeah.

Sam (55:05):
Can I give you, can I give the audience
another little hack?
Like this would be, if youlisten to nothing else on this,
this will be something that ifyou do it right, Brandon can get
you customers like really easy.
Um, we talk about this idea ofborrowed credibility, right?
A big, a big problem with agencyowners when they're starting

(55:25):
is they have a lot of the sameproblems, obviously, but getting
their first couple of customers,they feel that imposter
syndrome, they don't knowwhat to offer, you know, they,
whatever it is, and dependingon their personality profile,
they may never get over that.
Right.
That might be the downfall,but a really easy thing to
do is as you're researchingyour niche, the category

(55:48):
or the group of people thatyou've chosen to serve.
Pretty much all of themhave thought leaders.
Okay.
And they have big, huge thoughtleaders, and then they have
micro small thought leaders.
What you want to do is youwant to focus in on those
micro, smaller thoughtleaders, people who are,
so go to YouTube, right?
And find the smaller YouTubechannels that are trying to put

(56:10):
value out there that are them.
So if I were going intothe chiropractic niche,
and let's say I didn'thave all those customers.
Well, what wouldI, what would I do?
Well, I might go on YouTube andstart searching those things
and look for channels wherethere were doctors talking about
this, but they're hard to findbecause man, there's only, they
only have like 300 subscribers.

Keaton (56:31):
Yeah.

Sam (56:32):
You know, then I would approach those guys say,
Hey, great videos, especiallythis one that talked about
average case fees for this.
Right?
Would you come to a groupof, you know, would you
come to a workshop and sharethis with our community?
Of course, dude, you're goingto get tons of people, right?
And then you take their casestudy, their experience, and

(56:54):
you bundle it up with yours.
And all of a sudden, it's kindof like, When the hot chick
comes in with the like averagelooking guy, you're like, he
must have something more to him.
You know,

Keaton (57:04):
he's

Sam (57:04):
got something going on.
Um, and so you have all thatborrowed credibility and all
of a sudden you bypass allof the cold, the trust, the,
all the things that keepyou from doing those first
steps and man, you have.
Uh, you know, some nice, youknow, fertile soil to plant your
seeds in and grow a business.

(57:24):
Yeah So that's a little trick

Keaton (57:26):
love that.
Um, okay.
So going back to the modelitself It's generating qualified
ready to pay leads Via yourlead generation formula or
the qualified lead formula.

Sam (57:44):
That's right.

Keaton (57:44):
And they can launch it themselves with a minimum viable
set of ad templates, whichyou will proactively update
for them and a minimum viableworkflow that I assume includes.
Messaging them within anautomatic message and some AI
or are you not doing any AI?

Sam (58:06):
Um, I, I want it when I, when we rolled out the core
curriculum, we rolled it outwithout a, I do think that AI
has a place, even in an MVP,I think it's to a place now
to where it's like, Hey, youknow, grab clothes bought, you
know, and, and throw that onbecause it's easy to set up.
It's a good, simple thing thatdude, Bryce is a smart guy.

(58:27):
Um, but yeah, um, Yeah,that's effectively the model
that, that we're helpingthem out with for sure.

Keaton (58:37):
And do you have data on.
Like I mentioned, I pulledthat data from the 250, 000
worth of ad spend and we hadtwo, four, four and 10 answered
the phone to one or two outof 10 close, depending on area
offer, reputation, et cetera.
Yeah.
Do you have data on your, yourformula and what, how many out

(58:58):
of 10 leads end up coming in?

Sam (59:03):
Yeah.
Down the funnel is hard, but Iwill say this at an up X right
in up X last year, we did 1.
7 million leads at an averagecost of 12 and 18 cents.
Now that's cool.
But what's really cool is.
We reverse engineered all.
So all of the performancemetrics, we can clearly

(59:24):
see what's doing well.
What's not doing well.
So we aggregated all of thetop performing, um, templates.
And we're like, Hey,our, our qualified lead
formula is 2, 1, 10.
Let's build an AI around that.
Okay.

(59:45):
And see if this AIcan actually do that.
And I got to tellyou, it is crazy.
So we now have, uh, Apex, wehave a template building AI.
That's can predictperformance within a really
tight variation broadly.

(01:00:05):
So at the template level, it'snot like people think sometimes
they, they, they look at yourads and they're like, it's like
a vending machine, like put thatad in and every time it works,
it's not a vending machine.
Like they're like, thereare audience inputs.
Like if you've got asmall town or whatever,
there are audience inputs.
But broadly speaking, youuse that temple, a template.
Across all these audiences,this is the performance

(01:00:28):
is going to get.
And what's really cool is,uh, because of all of the
data that up has collected.
We've been able to build an AIthat makes our ads pretty dang
nailed, like pretty awesome.
So, and we just rollthose into B2B as well.

(01:00:48):
So MVP, we help them withB2B stuff right in their ads.
Um, but yeah, it's crazybecause if you had had, here's
a, we would have had that dataregardless, but without AI.
You couldn't have made headsor tails of it potentially.
Right.
I don't know that you wouldhave been able to, but that

(01:01:09):
AI can identify trends and allthese different markers where
you're like, Oh, when you, I'llgive you an example, you want
to know what the optimal wordcount is for a lead generation
ad workout word count.
How many words shouldbe in your word count?

(01:01:31):
Yeah, it is 70.
100 words.
Okay.
And the interesting thingis, both before that 70 and
after that 100, it takes adive in click through rate.
Wow.
Now isn't that interesting?
Yeah.
Right.

(01:01:51):
And so if you know thatyour click through rate
is an important metric.
Mm-Hmm.
, okay.
Well, best practices meansyou get like, don't say in 10
words what you can say in five.
Okay.
Right.
And so you hone in andjust make sure that hey.
Is there a checklist?
Yeah.
Let's make surethat it hits that.
Right.
I'll give you another one.

(01:02:12):
Urgency and scarcity.
You know how people use alimited time offer and that's
all they'll put in their ad.
That doesn't work, but limitedtime offer only 30 available
or expires on June 30th.
The more specific, themore real you make the
urgency and scarcity.
It does work, but itwill go from limited

(01:02:35):
offer or limited time.
If you only put that, itactually works against you.
It makes your ads work worse.
You're better off nothaving it in there at all.
But if you, this offerexpires on June 30th,
that's an ad with realurgency and scarcity, right?
And that will work.

Keaton (01:02:54):
Yeah.
Quick side note.
I was working with adentist who was running
his own ads and I was like.
Please, please put like, Iwas, I had to beg him to put
urgency and scarcity in he's,he's launching a new practice.
He's like, I need30 patients a month.
I'm like, probably won'thit that right away.
But like, whatever youdo say, this expires at
the end of the month.

(01:03:15):
And there's onlythis many available.
I told him to put like10 because I, 10 would
be a first grade month.
He's like, I'm going to put 30.
I'm like, all right, whatever.
And every single person he sawfrom that ad before the end
of the month said, I reallydon't want to miss out on this.
Can you hold this for meuntil the end of the month?
Exactly.

Sam (01:03:35):
Dude, exactly.
I mean, and for all of youmarried guys out there, if
you've ever seen your wivestake advantage of coupons or
deals, this is real, right?
So yeah, urgency,urgency, and scarcity.
If you are not including that asa element in your ad copy, Yeah.

(01:03:55):
Just do that one thing,you'll probably see like
a half percent increase.

Keaton (01:03:59):
Is Apex writing, is the AI writing ads as well now?
And coming up with creative?

Sam (01:04:07):
And it's going through iterations and I want to
say that right now we haveClaude that's writing.
Yeah.
Those Claude isa really awesome.
I mean, it's really,yeah, it's really good.
Um, Jacob would be theactual go to on that,
but yeah, it's right.
And it's right now andit's right now is that

Keaton (01:04:24):
perform.
Yeah.
Um, so I want to talkacquisition for a minute.
Um, and what I'm interestedin specifically is what's the
minimum viable way for us asagencies to only be seeing
the qualified leads as well.
Uh, and we, we touched on itbriefly, but like, What are

(01:04:46):
the top methods that you'rerecommending, especially for
those that may not have a tonof budget at the beginning?
And, um, obviously thingsare landing harder when
you've got the better offerand you've actually done
the research, et cetera.
But what are the methodsand anything you can speak
to in terms of acquisition,

Sam (01:05:07):
getting clients?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, You know, it's,it's interesting because
in MVP, we had a couple ofcase studies, like as soon
as we had one guy go inand after two weeks, he was
like, Oh my gosh, like he'dbeen in the agency game for
like four years already.
It's like, Oh my gosh.

(01:05:27):
And he started getting20 demo calls a day just
by learning what was inthe first three weeks.
Right.
So he already, he alreadyknew a lot of the stuff.
He didn't need some ofwhat we had in there.
Um, but what was in thatfirst three weeks, he
was like, Oh, and he goesout, starts crushing it.
But normally people.
If you're an agency owner thathasn't caught quite gotten

(01:05:48):
out of the shoots, it's like,well, how do I lead with value?
What is it that Ican actually do?
And one of the really coolthings that you can do and
that we tell our people to doand we teach them how to do.
We've got a funnel in anMVP called the research
funnel, all of the research.

(01:06:10):
If we go back to thestory where, you know, I
compiled all that data.
If you assemble and curatethat in the right way.
You can get customers from it.
Okay.
Um, and so an example wouldbe, um, you know, if you're
a dentist, you, you were justtalking to a dentist, right.
And, um, we actually havea person in dentistry

(01:06:31):
and they want to do, uh,uh, what's it called when
you snort sleep apnea.
Okay.
Right.
I didn't know that was adentist thing, but that's
apparently a dentist thing.
And so she wanted to know howdo I get customers for this?
And it was like, okay, in2024, here's what's working
to get sleep apnea patients.

(01:06:51):
Who are qualified and ableto pay new research reveals.
Right.
And so you're giving themsomething that doesn't
feel like a pitch.

Keaton (01:06:59):
They're being informed.
Not educated.

Sam (01:07:02):
Yeah.
And so they want to beinformed, not educated.
And so you're tapping intowhat it is that they want.
Now, if you want.
To know what kind of researchyou should be doing, join their
groups, like find a Facebookgroup for dentists, join
those groups and just see thequestions that they're asking.
Right.

(01:07:23):
And depending onwhat niche you're in.
So like, for example, realestate, mortgage insurance,
those are salespeople.
Okay.
Those people are like, they'll,they'll pick up the phones.
They'll do the outreach.
Like they know what to do.
And so sometimes,uh, I remember.
In fact, we had a, oneof our first case studies

(01:07:43):
was guiding forest ad set.
And forest at the time wasteaching before he found
out about apex, he wascreating a Facebook ads
course for insurance agents.
And when he saw what we weredoing, he was like, uh, I
don't, this thing can run ads.

(01:08:03):
And you don't have tolearn Facebook ads.
And so his, um, his adsaid launch Facebook ads
in just 45 seconds and doit without ads manager.
Okay.
That was the hook.
Then came the story.
You guys, I was going to puttogether a course and I was

(01:08:24):
going to teach every insuranceagent how to run ads so
they could do it themselves.
And I was going tosell for some money.
But now with this tool,you don't even need
to learn Facebook ads.
You simply click the ad launch,put in your budget and go.
It couldn't be easier toset up a demo, click below.

(01:08:44):
And the, the, the visual hada picture of the platform
and he put his ad in there,but he made the actual
creative blurry, right?
So he demonstrated to themthat it was real for them
to take the next step.
They had to checkit out themselves.
Now that wouldwork in insurance.
That would not work in likedentistry, home services, right?

(01:09:12):
So you do need to know likeyour, Your niche, but you'll,
you'll discover that and theway that you research things.
Um, but yeah, the valueis the legwork that you
have already put in.
You've already doneall of this customer
research on their behalf.
You've done it.
Just give it to them.

(01:09:33):
Right.
And that is almost confidencebuilding for them because they
don't feel like they're sellingthe whole, the secret to, to
selling you guys is the value.
Sell without selling,pull people to you.
Don't push yourself on them.

(01:09:54):
Right.
Just pull them to you.
Offer them something.
Hey, we've got this cool thing.
We did some research.
There's some stuff you don'tknow about your customer base.
That's going to helpyou get more, whatever.
Right.
Boom.
There's your hook and there'syour value and people are
going to thank you for it.

Keaton (01:10:09):
Yeah.

Sam (01:10:11):
And be when they think

Keaton (01:10:12):
you can say, Hey, how about a little business?

Sam (01:10:13):
Yeah.

Keaton (01:10:14):
There's this, this undertone that we haven't
mentioned explicitly, butI think is important to.
I was just reflecting on myown journey starting out.
And I did a lot of thissomewhat, like just, I
guess I just knew to do it.
Um, so I did a lot ofresearch, like, Hey, I
have one question survey.
What's your biggestmarketing headache.

(01:10:36):
I would get it back fromorthodontists and I got,
you know, 30, 50 answers.
I got on calls, research calls,ask them questions for hours.
Like that was myfirst six months.
And I didn't, I neverattribute that's, that's not
the thing I talk about themost, um, although I should.
Um, but what I, I was thinkingabout a friend who he has a,

(01:10:58):
uh, agency in the landscapingspace and he used to have like
for a brief period was involvedwith the landscaping company
and that's starting back up.
He kind of had an issue withthe partner, but now they're
getting back together.
And, um, he.
He was saying, I just wantto be able to, like, I, when
my ads are running, someonebooks a call and I just take

(01:11:21):
the call on the phone andlike, Hey, I'm on a job site.
Do you want this or not?
Because, and like this,this job that I'm at right
now was generated by theleads in the program that
I'm going to run for you.
Uh, so obviously that's notfor everyone, but there's
this, And you mentionedthe dental groups as well.
I'm in them all the time.
And it's, it's a hilarioushow much the conversation

(01:11:42):
isn't about dentistry.
Like these people arejust nor, they, they
straighten teeth all day.
They do teeth all day.
They don't wantto talk about it.
Like, yeah, they're, uh,dentists have the highest,
I should probably blur outwhat I just said on so I
don't get flagged on YouTube,but I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Um, so high, highest rateof, um, dissatisfaction and,

(01:12:08):
You know, there's severedissatisfaction, severe
dissatisfaction ending in thingsthat can't be mentioned here.
Um, And that's, that's no joke.
And so when you go inand they're, they're
looking for this normalcy.
And I think as these youngagency owners or people just

(01:12:30):
getting into the space, likethey forget to just be a human
that can relate to these peopleand just become their friends.
And one of the most informativethings I ever did was go in
person to one of my clients,watch them do a consultation,
see these people that haveworked for them for 20 years.
See, he had a, he had one ofthose like rowing machines
in his office, you know, he'slike trying to stay in shape.

(01:12:52):
Like, These people aremultifaceted and we tend
to be in this agency echochamber and just like sitting
in our room and being like,you want to get on a zoom
meeting to these home servicesbusinesses that are like,
that's just not how I work.
And being able to, to beflexible in either the sales
process or the marketing processor whatever it is, you're going

(01:13:16):
to land on the right stuffby just going into the wild
and talking to these people.

Sam (01:13:22):
That's right, dude.
That's, I mean, the, what is it?
People don't care howmuch, you know, until they
know how much you care,

Keaton (01:13:29):
or even just like, they don't care how much, you know,
if you're like got a stick ofyour butt and you're annoying.
Yeah,

Sam (01:13:37):
no, that's absolutely right.
Um, and by the way, ifyou're a personality profile,
here's another thing, justbe, you guys be a little
honest with yourselves.
I interact now with alot of agency owners
and one of the blind spotswhere I'm like, you know
what, if you just got apartner, you would probably

(01:13:59):
start doing a lot better.
I think that's somethingthat, did you do your agency
by yourself, by the way?
I started out andthen I partnered up

Keaton (01:14:10):
like a year.

Sam (01:14:11):
Yeah, I started out by myself, partnered up.
Um, and I was like, I mean, themoment I partnered up, we went
from probably three or fourgrand a month, my agency to
25 grand of monthly recurringrevenue in 30 days, because
all I had to do was the thingthat, you know, God made me

(01:14:33):
decent at, talk to people like,Hey, you You know, that's all
I had to do instead of like,okay, let me see if I can build
this funnel, you know, no, Ididn't have to do any of that.
So that's a hack for allyou people out there who are
stuck in, you know, beginnerland, and I know it's hard.
By the way, everybody'slike, is there a secret

(01:14:54):
to picking, uh, a partner?
Just make sure thatthey're skilled and that
they are your opposite.
They're your yin to your yang.
You don't want to front people.
That's a bad idea, butyou got a fulfillment.
And an acquisition andthat you're both good and
you're both committed.
And that's all you need.

Keaton (01:15:13):
And date for to figure that out date
and don't get married.
Agreed.
Um, okay.
So last thing I want toclose out with is retention.
You've alluded to a few thingslike the proactive support.
Um, my, my concern, myinitial concern with Alpex

(01:15:34):
when I first saw it was,it's only a matter of time
before the template fails.
What do people need toknow about this model?
First of all, how much arethey like, what's the target
price point for retention?
And then what do they needto know about the model in
order to retain for, you know,Unlimited amount of time because

(01:15:56):
they never want to cancel.

Sam (01:15:58):
Customer acquisition, like real estate, real estate, the
number one rule is location,location, location, right?
Um, you make your money whenyou buy and the agency game
is you make your money whenyou select your customer.
Okay, there's when you can givethe same ads to one customer,

(01:16:21):
you give 100 leads to onecustomer and that customer
gets 30 new customers, right?
And you give the sametools, everything to another
person and they lose money.
What's the number onesolution that you can do
model this person, right?
So I know when you'refirst starting your agency,

(01:16:43):
you'll take anybody.
I understand that.
And I'm not tellingyou not to do that.
I'm just saying as youmature, and as you season
in the agency game, the, ifthere is any silver bullets,
the one that you can do isselect better customers.
That's number one, number two,with lack of communication,

(01:17:06):
people, people make uptheir own information and
it is never to your benefit.
In lead gen, as well as ineverything else, the moment
that something negative happens,I got an ad denied, dude, ads
get denied all of the time.
It's not a problem.

(01:17:27):
I get an ad denied customergets a notification.
Well, I'd go deniedstrike number one, right?
Lead flow stops.
Why does, why doeslead flow stop anyway?
It's because in small audiences,the learning can take some time.
And as soon as it getsout of learning, then
it thinks it's learned.
And then it's like, Oh,we're a small audience.
So it doesn't know howto kick itself back into

(01:17:48):
learning on small audiences.
That's why in Apex, we havea button that says refresh
because you don't have acreative ad fatigue, you
have audience fatigue,click the refresh button,
get that thing going again.
And if you're smart, you'llrecognize that beforehand.

(01:18:08):
And proactively do thatand do the thing I said,
it's like, Hey, Dr.
Smith, we noticed that yourlead flow had slowed down.
We made some adjustments.
You should see that pick upin the next two to three days.

Keaton (01:18:19):
And the adjustment, if you do that, refresh
one time, change theaudience radius by a mile.
And

Sam (01:18:26):
yeah, if you are, if you're targeting by, uh, uh,
by radius or by zip code,it changes, it bumps out a
mile if you're doing it by.
Oh, geez.
I think it's state orwhatever else will change.
Instead of changing the radius,we change the age, bump the
age out by one year, right?

(01:18:46):
It's a, it's amedia buying trick.
And it's like, Hey, it wasjust put it back into learning.
You know, you gota good ad there.
It's not like the ad copyall of a sudden got crappy.
It's like, no, you're, youjust hit some algorithm.

Keaton (01:18:57):
And small audience is 200, 300, 400, 000.
Like that's a smallaudience on Facebook.

Sam (01:19:04):
Yeah.
But I will say, I mean, Ihave had campaigns running.
Not for months, but foryears in small locations
like that, just by doinga couple of those things.
Like we, we, I had acustomer that ran the same.
Uh, in fact, one of mycase studies were in the
same neuropathy campaign.
Uh, he's been running thesame one for four years.
Wow.
So you don't gotto worry about it.

(01:19:25):
Like there's enough people.
Um, where was I?
So proactive support, right?
And then your adslibrary, like when you
go into your ads library.
And so your concern was whetheror not you would be, your,
your campaigns would, um,develop attrition over time,
or they would stop working.
How do you fight against that?

(01:19:45):
So it kind of goes, youknow, It's a process.
So number one, you buildup to that, to that, um,
qualified lead formula.
So two, one 10, right?
You build up to that.
And with Apex, like noother platform, we give you
template metrics, meaningKeaton's got 10 locations.

(01:20:06):
They're all runningthe same template.
We want to know broadlywhat those numbers are,
because they're goingto tell us something.
Yeah.
Okay.
So if we're, if we've spent,you said 250, 000, if we
spent 250, 000 on this onetemplate and it says a 2.
2 percent click through rateand blah, whatever that is,

(01:20:28):
we should feel very confident.
metrics.
Okay.
But we also have ad metrics.
You click into the actualcampaign and you granular,
you narrow down to thevisuals, the creative,
you're like, good, good.
Losing steam.
Okay.

(01:20:48):
You know what team, we'regoing to update this one.
We'll come backand we'll watch it.
Your whole idea is tofranchise your leads.
Or to franchise yourmarketing campaigns.
And what that means is you wantto standardize and get that
thing working and then sellit as many times as you can.
All right.
And maintaining its performance.

(01:21:09):
Is a matter of justconsistently looking at it.
Like look at it once a month.
How's the creative doing?
How's the ad copy doing?
You know what?
I, I see things kind of, itseems like maybe this has
hit the audience too long.
We've been running thesame one for whatever.
Okay.
Click the AI rewriter,rewrite it in Apex and
push that next version out.

(01:21:30):
How's that doing?
So there's some iterationhere, but you guys,
you own a business.
You know, your product needs toadapt and improve over time, but
it doesn't have to be hard andit doesn't have to be complex.
And so if you build anaudience, which by the way,
or I'm sorry, a library.
An ad library doesn't haveto be robust and huge.

(01:21:52):
My best churn rate, by theway, my best churn rate in
my agency was when we had 12ad templates, that was it.
12.

Keaton (01:22:01):
It's like rolling out the funnel and
templates and high level.
And it's like every industryand a billion different things.
Like Why?

Sam (01:22:11):
Well, uh, it's the difference between like when
you go to, um, the paradoxof choice, that's a book, you
guys should read the book.
Um, go to a macro, uh,is it called macaroni?
Uh, cheesecake factory.
I hate going to cheesecakefactory because you go there
and there's a bajillionthings on that menu.

(01:22:33):
It's like, what do I get?
You actually, at a psychologicallevel, you hurt your, you start
the churn process already.
You give them too many choices.
They start to churn toomany choices equals churn.
Okay.
And then the lastthing is just adoption.

(01:22:53):
Okay.
So why do most customers churn?
It's because when you putthe, when you give them
software, they're terrified.
If I push this button,what's going to break?
That's what they think.
Okay.
And so sometimes you have to,and if you're listening, I'm

(01:23:14):
taking one finger and I'm takingmy hand and I'm pushing it
down, that represents sometimesyou have to take your hand
and push their finger down onit and you do that in how you
onboard people, like a reallydialed in onboarding flow,
by the way, don't automateyour own onboarding flow
that doesn't involve people.
Okay.

(01:23:34):
It should be, if there'slike software, like SWAS, it
should be like onboarding witha person, whatever that is.
You want it to be streamlined.
But you also want it to have ahuman element and it's mostly
to help them adopt the tool.
All right.
And you don't want whenthey adopt the tool, it

(01:23:56):
should be an Atari joystick.
You know, this doesthis and this does this.
There's a button and a lever.
Everything else you takecare of simplicity is the
ultimate sophistication.
If you can do those macrocomponents, you will keep
the right customers forever,the right customers.
Now, will you have a trust?

(01:24:16):
Yeah, you're going to have,you know, people who churn out.
That is a part of thisbusiness, but you will
keep people if you've neverhad a customer for years.
You will start seeing peopleand once they get past like
four months, they're goingto be long time customers.
Um, but you won't get thatif they don't use your tool.

Keaton (01:24:34):
So two more questions I have.
First of all, how do youmake sure they're actually
converting the leads?

Sam (01:24:45):
Ghost leads, secret shoppers.

Keaton (01:24:47):
Okay.

Sam (01:24:50):
That's the only way you can do it.
And, and our approach whenI was in the agency space
was secret shopper leads.
And if you guys don't knowwhat a secret shopper leads,
what I mean by that is as soonas they start getting lead
flow, put in a dummy lead.
And it should be to SamCarlson or whatever, like
a team member, like, youknow, Heather, whatever

(01:25:10):
phone number, put it in.
I just see what they do with it.
Because even though we have likeclosed bot and conversational
AI and all that kind of stuff.
That doesn't mean that wedon't call our leads, right?
Best practices is stilllike people buy from people.
Okay.
So you should have aprotocol on there to where
somebody is doing that.
And depending on the way youapproach the agency, which

(01:25:33):
contrary to popular thought, Ithink some people should, um,
offer a PECs as a black label.
Meaning I'm selling youKeaton ad services, charging
you a thousand dollars amonth, but I'm just going to
use a PECs to run the ads.
And I don't tell you about up X.
Yeah, I, I, Ithink that's smart.

(01:25:55):
People, people, up Xusers, we have plenty
of them that do that.
You don't have to sellit as a SAS, right?
Because maybe I want to chargethem nine 97 and I want to
bring in a VA from like levelnine or something and have them
do some followup work becausefor this niche in particular,
they are completely unwillingto do that action, but it's

(01:26:16):
critical, it's important.
So you got to know, likeyou talk, I mean, we led
into this thing with model.
Yeah.
But the way we did itwas secret shopper lead.
If they didn't completethe action, it was, Hey,
we totally understand.
Dr.
Smith, adopting new thingsis hard for everyone.

(01:26:36):
Here's what wehave on Wednesday.
We do a weekly trainingall about lead followup.
Boom.
That's number one or number two.
Honestly, if you don't wantyour team to have to worry about
training or doing any of this.
You can outsourceit to our team.
They're already trained.
You can plug into dialedcallers and I can set you
up a call with Jen today.
What would you like to do?

Keaton (01:26:57):
Love it.
And then what highlevel features are
you including in this?
Like, do they have theopportunities dashboard?
Are you also doing reputationmanagement or at least
having that show up?
Nope.
Nope.
The more things now,

Sam (01:27:14):
what, yeah.

Keaton (01:27:14):
What

Sam (01:27:15):
if, yeah, um, we want can ban workflows.
That's all.

Keaton (01:27:21):
By Kanban, you mean pipelines?

Sam (01:27:24):
Yep.
Pipelines and workflow.
Um, anything else isa, is a distraction.
Anything else is now thatdoesn't mean that, Hey,
you've hit a little, here'sa little trick, right?
You acquire with your offer.
You can retainwith a proposition.
Okay.
So for example, like you cansay, Hey, if you sign a year

(01:27:48):
contract, Well, later in theseother things, it's a, we call
it the leaky bucket, the leakybucket automation, right?
But after, but you do thisafter they've proven your
MVP after they've proven thatthey're already using your
thing and then you plug itin, but you install it for
them and you say, you don'tever have to touch this.

(01:28:09):
It's just going to work for you.
We've got this thingworking on your website.
We've got this thing.
We've got that thing.
We've got them allturned on, but you call
it one, like one thing.
The reason youcall it one thing.
So let's say you have miss call,text back a review, automation,
a chat widget on the website.
Like these are all thingsthat they're not bad things.
I don't have anythingagainst them.
I do if they causecomplexity and churn.

(01:28:33):
So if I productize them,meaning I call them the
leaky bucket installationor something like that.
I give in the mind of mycustomer who now has faith
in me that, Hey, I've justinstalled something in your
business that we did it for you.
You don't got to worry about it.
That's going to work.

Keaton (01:28:53):
Yeah.
Right.

Sam (01:28:54):
And then that way they're like, Hey, we want to know
we don't, we don't providesupport to these things.
You know, because that's notwhy you bought our service.
We just did it toimprove your hygiene.

Keaton (01:29:07):
Yeah.
That, that slow adoption modelis so crucial for everyone,
for the agency and the client.

Sam (01:29:17):
Yeah.
Well, and it's the differencebetween you needing six
employees and you needing to,

Keaton (01:29:23):
um, and how much do you see people typically
charging for this model?

Sam (01:29:30):
Yeah.
Um, niche selection isvery important, right?
The ratio I like is one to 10.
Okay.
Okay.
Um, if, if You know, if somebodycan make 10, 000 bucks with your
thing, then charging a thousandbucks is a healthy relationship.

(01:29:50):
And what I mean by thatis over the course of a
month, not one customer.
I mean, that would be notmany, not many businesses
are going to make that.
Um, you can do that.
Then you're, you'regood doing that.
But if I give you from my ownexperience in my own agency, we
tested a lot of price points.

(01:30:11):
Now, this testing would havebeen different in another
niche, but in the medicalmarketing niche, we came
out with 297, then we did397, then we did 497, then
we did 697, then we did 997,and we settled in at 497.
But I will say, the peoplewho are at 297, They

(01:30:32):
never turned out, never.
And so sometimes I do think,I wonder, and also they
were the easiest to service.
Like they came in when wehad 12 templates, you know,
before, before APEX, it waswhat you guys see today.
Cause APEX is prettybuilt out now.
It was pretty basic and we couldonly do 12 templates, you know?

(01:30:55):
And that was one ofthose, Hey, I wasn't
smart and figured it out.
It was, Hey, I was dumband that's all I could do.
You know, is a limiting factorand that worked really well.
Like, honestly, if I were new,like if I were, if I'm agency
and, you know, zero to threeyears old, I'm charging two 97

(01:31:18):
a month and I'm just going out.
I'm now I am.
So I'm getting onboarding so to,to satisfy, to give me money up
front, but my retention is 297.
Great.

Keaton (01:31:30):
And now I'm boarding is just whatever you feel like
you can charge at the time.
Basically.

Sam (01:31:34):
Oh yeah.

Keaton (01:31:35):
No,

Sam (01:31:37):
roll out free, start free.
We had a guy that was doing,uh, an old eight, like the old
SMMA, uh, social media marketingagency, retainer model.
Before he came into up X,he was doing that and he was
really struggling, like gettingretainers for 15, 2000 bucks.

(01:31:58):
And then keepingthem was even harder.
Right.
He came into Apex and he's like,uh, I'm going to charge nine.
Oh, I'm going to offerthem a free trial.
So the ad offer thema 14 day free trial.
Okay.
Well written ad 14 dayfree trial, but they had
to go to a demo call.
I'm like, okay, cool.
And then he was like, Nobodytook the 14 day trial.

(01:32:21):
The way they just paid nine97 upfront, like, how's
that a 14 day free trial?
He's like, we just told himif they wanted to cancel
it for 14 days, they could.
All right.
That's not what I think ofwhen I think of a 14 day trial.
So he actually just fundedhis whole acquisition
by charging nine 97.
He gave him three months.

(01:32:41):
And then after that, hecharged him for 97 months.

Keaton (01:32:43):
Yeah, charge a few months up front.
That's great.
Um, okay.
So give us thefinal pitch for MVP.
Who is it right for?
How can they sign up?
And what resultsshould they expect?
Um, In the firstfour months or so.

Sam (01:33:00):
Okay.
So agency MVP, when I builtit out, I thought it was for
newer people who are struggling.
If you're newer and you'restruggling and you're
overwhelmed and the conversationtoday has resonated with
you, you're like, I want tobuild based on top of what
I've heard it's for you.
I was really surprised whenwe had a bunch of seven figure

(01:33:20):
agencies come in and completelypivot and go back to, Hey,
dude, this agency model, thisseven figure agency model that
I was enamored with and built.
It's not what I want.
I want to build thething that you built.
So if you want to have anagency that's built around a

(01:33:41):
lifestyle, if you want to likeoptimize for having a hundred
plus customers, But with justa couple of VAs, like if that's
the outcome you want, if youwant to optimize for profits, if
you want a consistent disciplineagainst adding overhead, that's

(01:34:03):
what this program is doing.
Okay.
It's built in sequence,meaning the on demand
program is 10 weeks.
You are not allowedto skip forward.
You can go fast.
You don't have to do it.
You can do it in like six weeks.
If you're experienced, whatever.
But if you don't have thepatience to go through a 10
week program, you probablyneed to reassess why you're

(01:34:24):
even an entrepreneur.
Okay.
Because I mean, it is.
We are teaching you skills.
We're giving you tactics.
All you tactic people.
Don't worry.
There's tactics in therebut if you're not willing to
learn some skills and Like dosome work it ain't for you.
And then The last thing is youget access to me via Marco Polo.

(01:34:48):
You use Marco Polo, by theway, okay, we should Marco Polo
You get access to me for twomonths And that's why when we
do the program, I use, I takepeople through in cohorts.
I take people through in groups.
So the July group,boom, we get them in.
I can handle the peoplethat come in in that group.

(01:35:11):
Um, and it's nota big lift for me.
It's not that bad.
Um, but, uh, in terms oflearning more, so we open it
up via a workshop once a month.
And that usually is likepeople are on a wait list
or they attend the workshop.
We open it up andthen we close it down.
Okay.
So if you want to learnmore about it, go to

(01:35:31):
our website, apex.
com, uphex.
com, and then there's a littletab that says mentorship.
Click on that and read the page.
And then you can sign upto be on the wait list
there and get registered.

Keaton (01:35:48):
Awesome.
Thanks so much, man.
This is great.
And it's, it's a breathof fresh air amongst all.
The, um, the revenuenumbers being thrown
around that aren't profit.
And, um, I, I think all the timeabout the responsibility that
we have as coaches, mentors,whatever you want to say to

(01:36:09):
shortcut problems and how muchof a disservice we're doing
if we're not able to do that.
And, uh, it's obviously you'veput in the work to make.
cut literal years off ofpeople's learning curve.
Um, and yeah, I think it's,

Sam (01:36:25):
I think it's also in that same vein of thought.
It's also critical that we speakthe unvarnished truth, right?
And while we want to sell stuffand we want to make money and
we want to do all this stuff,there's zero good that comes
from a person coming intothis mission, this journey

(01:36:50):
with an Over promised, underdelivered expectation, right?
And I, I, I do mean it.
If you can't sit through a 10week program, then you need
to reassess where you're at.
Um, I know what, andyou know what it took.
You went through this too.
Like, you know what it takesto build an agency, right?

(01:37:11):
And so when you go out andyou see, Some of these claims
they're disingenuous, butthey're the siren song.
Yeah, you know,they're very tempting.
I get it We won'tdo that with MVP.
Honestly, I don'thave to do with MVP.
I really want to focus onup X This was not a money
making endeavor necessarilyBut we did it because you know

(01:37:36):
at some point in time It'slike hey, there is a sense
of duty that we have to thisaudience And we can do it.
So maybe we should.
And, uh, thanks forhaving me, dude.
You're the man.
Appreciate you.
We'll see you next time.

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7 Figure SMMAs Are Switching To This Simple Agency Model for More Profit and Less Work w/ Sam Carlson

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