September 17, 2024 • 67 mins
From college dropout to 7-figure affiliate marketer: Keaton Walker shares his journey of building a successful agency, transitioning to affiliate marketing, and leveraging YouTube to become a top High Level affiliate. Learn how he earns $80K+ monthly and get actionable insights on niche marketing, lifestyle business, and maximizing affiliate income. Perfect for aspiring entrepreneurs and those looking to scale their online business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt (00:00):
What do you think is the better path
towards financial freedom?
Affiliate or building an agency?
So what did you do to build anagency that was able to be sold?
So
Keaton (00:15):
there's a few levers that you can pull.
The obvious one is automation.
How quickly did you startto see success from that?
My very first client thatchurned was because the
contractor I had hiredwas running the ads
for the wrong business.
Matt (00:28):
How much have you made from affiliate
commission for high level?
A thousand.
Bro, you're making morethan Thomas Gannett on GHL.
How many affiliates do you have?
Keaton (00:38):
I don't know if this number is accurate, but the high
level dashboard is like 650.
Matt (00:42):
What are your biggest tips to being a successful
affiliate marketer?
Keaton (00:50):
We had an email list.
Of pretty much everyorthodontist in the space and
even though they hadn't optedin we would just Treat it as if
yes, it was a broadcast email,
Matt (01:00):
dude That is that is a nugget.
That is a nugget.
All right, so I have thisbuddy mislov who's absolutely
crushing it for his clientsHe's getting insane results for
all of them And I want to showyou guys how you might have
heard me talk about this beforeBut it's a software appoint
wise mislov works with roofingclients and he set up a point
wise You to use AI technologyto nurture and qualify
(01:21):
the leads for his clients.
And then once it qualifies them,it actually books them into an
appointment too, for the client.
So, he doesn't need a ton ofISAs, the clients don't need
to call the leads all day long,the AI does all the work, books
the appointment for the client,and then the client just shows
up once the lead's alreadyvetted and ready to meet.
He's been doing thisfor clients to get them
(01:43):
five deals in two weeks.
He got one of his clients 40appointments in just 14 days.
It's genuinely changingthe agency space right now.
If you sign up to AppointWise,that has daily live coaching
calls on how you can builda seven figure AI agency
business, which is whatwe're teaching right now.
So if you want to see how thatworks, tap the link in the
description below, sign up toa free trial of AppointWise.
(02:06):
And that being said, let'sget back to the podcast.
So, Mr.
Walker, you, you have becomeone of the top high level
affiliates in the world.
Keaton (02:19):
It's true.
Matt (02:19):
And you've also built and sold a seven figure agency.
Keaton (02:23):
So,
Matt (02:26):
based on going down these two very different, but
somewhat similar paths, whatdo you think is the better
path towards financial freedom?
Affiliate or building an agency?
Keaton (02:39):
Uh, we both know that the agency is a path to
higher models, whether that'ssoftware, affiliate, um,
Coaching for some people, atleast for me, I do know some
people that like run eightfigure agencies and love it.
And I think they're crazybecause it's just so much
(03:00):
work, so much overhead.
Like, you know, theylove what they do, but
like, that's just not thelifestyle I want to live.
So for me, like smallagency, relatively small
in the grand scheme ofthings to learn the skills.
And then that will open upa world of like every origin
story of click funnels,high level, whatever it
is, like they started.
(03:22):
in the agency space,seeing a problem.
And then, you know, there's nobetter person to talk to than
a bunch of other agency ownersto figure out what problems in
marketing you're going to solve.
Matt (03:31):
Yeah.
Keaton (03:32):
And then just go do that, whether that be
affiliate or something else.
Matt (03:37):
So agencies to start and then affiliate to capitalize on
the skills that you've built.
Keaton (03:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
To build the lifestyle, I'dsay like agencies, bottom line,
it's not a lifestyle business.
You can replace yourself, but.
You're still going to be pulledin in different ways that you
wouldn't in other other models
Matt (03:58):
I would say I got to about as removed from an agency
as you could be and I stillthought about it all the time
Yeah, it sucks So I I feelyou And it's interesting you
bring that up like agenciesreally are the foundation of
all online business If youlook at the Hermosi, Gary
V, Emon They're kind of likethe three biggest names.
I feel like all three of themare agency guys That's true.
(04:20):
They all started from theagency space, so, um, maybe
Matt Shields, Keenan Walker willbe on that list one day soon,
Mount Rushmore of agency gurus.
So okay, so how did you, howdid you get started in this?
You've, you've, you have aYouTube channel, you, you've
had quite the, the journey onYouTube, um, and it all started
with you actually building anagency, but my understanding
(04:42):
is you started in collegeand then you dropped out.
So walk me through, how did you.
Find this path.
How did you go down thisvery untraditional, uh,
route of building yourown online business?
Keaton (04:54):
Yeah.
So I wanted from a very youngage to be an entrepreneur.
I knew that.
I saw my parents beingbusiness owners and like the
flexibility that that afforded.
Like, yeah, we were talkingabout business over the dinner
table, like most nights, butalso they could travel more.
They were available morethan my friend's parents.
I just kind of likenoted that I think.
(05:17):
And like, even my mom, when wedid like lemonade stands as a
kid, like she would be givenus like masterclass on product.
Like, look, it can't be watery.
It can't be warm.
It's got, you know, if abug falls in it, you throw
it out and you do anothercup for that customer.
Like that kind of stuff isjust what I grew up hearing.
And then I, I'd hear mymom's customer service
(05:37):
calls all the time as well.
So I knew it's whatI wanted to do.
I just didn't know what.
And, um, The familybusiness was a swim school.
I teach like babies up to like10 years old, how to swim.
And they were working onopening a new location.
I was like 20 at the timeand they needed someone to
like figure out the wholemarketing side of like,
(05:58):
okay, how are we going tolaunch the new location?
So my brother, who was theCEO at the time sat me down.
He's like, okay.
I talked to the founder ofaqua tots, which is like a
really big Franchise and theysay like three main things
when it comes to marketing,social media, building up
(06:19):
stuff in the community.
And I can't remember whatthe third one was, but I
was like, okay, so communityinvolvement and social media,
like this is what I should do.
So I just started to godown like every single path.
And try to figureout what that was.
So first it was likeKevin David videos on
how to run Facebook ads.
Like, I vividly remember likewatching that on the toilet,
(06:39):
like trying to figure out,and, um, and then, uh, I
would do like events where wewould like contact elementary
schools and like get a boothat the event or, uh, I did
a couple billboards or like.
political, not actual politicalsigns, but like those small
(07:00):
signs that politicians putup, um, they're illegal
technically, but like, they'lljust, you can leave them
up for a few weeks and thenthey'll just take them down.
And like, nobody doesanything about it.
Um, and so I learned kind of,all right, there's all this
stuff and what seems to bethe least amount of work, but
the most trackable is the ads.
(07:21):
And it was what Ienjoyed the most.
I seem to have like a littlebit of a knack for it.
Yeah.
And So just kept going down thatpath, got to the point where I
was like a little bit out of mydepth and I just needed somebody
to like consult with and aska couple of questions too.
And friend of a friendcontacted this kid.
(07:42):
His Instagram was like,like thirst traps, like
him being like reallyintense, all this stuff.
And he ran an agency.
He's like 17, finishedhigh school early.
And he was going to Stanford.
I think he was runningan agency on the side.
Yeah.
And I was like, noway this kid's legit.
Like what's going on.
And we ended up hiring him fora couple of months just so I can
(08:02):
like kind of learn under him.
And I saw him overwhelmthis swim school with leads.
Wow.
Just like at first atlaunch, it wasn't that good.
And then I saw him make a coupleof tweaks and like overnight
20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred leadsin like a couple of weeks.
And we're like, okay,we got to shut this off.
(08:23):
We've got to figure out how totext these people automatically.
And that was a light bulb momentwhere I was like, Oh, like maybe
marketing actually does work.
That was the, the conversationI had with my brother.
I was like, peopledon't like marketing.
Does it work?
Like all these big brandsspend money on marketing,
but like small business, likewhy are you going to market?
Like it's just like put asign up on the road and like
people show up if they want to.
(08:44):
And that was reallyeyeopening for me.
And of course, as you startto research all of this stuff,
your ads start to turn into.
Started an agency, like,different gurus at the time,
and so, I identified a guythat I thought, okay, this
is legit, he seems cool.
(09:05):
Who was it?
Travis Stevenson.
Travis Stevenson.
Matt (09:08):
Okay.
Keaton (09:08):
He's got crazy hair.
Um, shout out to Travis,because he got me to buy
my first course, but, yeah.
The course was terrible.
The software he had, hewas, he had like a many chat
alternative at the time.
Matt (09:20):
Okay.
Keaton (09:21):
And I was like, oh, I'm gonna like go
with the small guy.
Like, I don't wantto support many chat.
Like, they've gottoo many users.
And it, it had like, I kid younot, one one hundredth of the
functionality of many chat.
And I paid like 1, 500bucks for the course, which
wasn't finished, and themany chat alternative,
like a year of that.
And I was like trying tobuild stuff, and I was
like, this doesn't work.
Like, I don't know what to do.
(09:42):
And then I paid 10bucks for many chat,
like four weeks later.
And like in a day, I waslike, Oh my gosh, there's
so much more built out here.
So, uh, but yeah, that wasmy first course I bought
in like January, 2019.
And then, yeah, it was, therewas just one day I was in
school feeling like pulledin a million directions, like
trying to pick a major, tryingto get good grades, trying to.
(10:08):
Enjoy my life just be young andI was trying to start a business
I had a couple like free trialclients just some people in
my warm network and I Was justlike oh man, I think I can
drop this whole school thing.
And as long as I focuson actually Still the
education side of thingsI'm gonna be successful.
(10:29):
Like it's just amatter of the skills.
It's not really amatter of the degree.
Hmm And so I wish I had a burnthe boats moment where I was
like, and then I dropped allmy classes, but I like finished
the semester just to be safe.
Um, and finished my last finaland literally just like walk
straight from my final to mydorm room and like pulled up
the laptop and started working.
(10:49):
And, uh, that'show it all started.
Matt (10:51):
And so you, you took the leap nonetheless.
You may not have burned, hada crazy burn the boats story,
but you did take the leapand how quickly did you start
to see success from that?
Like, did you start gettingclients really, really quick?
You had free trial clients,but did you start, how long
did it take you to hit 10K a month, for example?
Keaton (11:10):
Yeah.
So I knew at the time thatI needed a mentor because
I had tried everything.
Like I had tried buying thatone course, which wasn't great.
And then I was just tryingto do everything on my own.
And so I was like, okay, Ineed to hire someone because
it got to the point where Iwas ready to launch the ads
for the free trial clients.
And I just had so much anxietythat it wasn't going to work.
(11:32):
I was going to wastethese people with money.
Like they were people thatI knew outside of work.
Like they were, thiscould come back like in a
personal relationship sense.
So I really wantedit to work out.
Um, and they were also ecommerce clients, which
I knew nothing about.
So I just, I sort of toldboth of them like, Hey, You
know, I don't think thisis the right fit right now.
(11:54):
And I reached out to TreyCockrum, if you know him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Trey was myvery first mentor.
He was selling, um, likemonthly coaching for like 1300
a month at the time, I think.
And we just, it wasmostly just mindset.
Like that's Trey's strength.
And so we got on thereand he was like, do
(12:15):
research, stop doing sales.
Like, Like why are you goingto try to like hard sell
someone when like, it seemslike you have some digital
marketing knowledge, butlike just go talk to people.
And that one switch of researchinstead of sales got me reaching
out to people in a, in a uniqueway that they weren't hearing.
So it was like, Hey, I'm adigital marketing student.
(12:35):
I want to talk to youabout the things that
I've learned about digitalmarketing for orthodontists.
That was the niche thatI decided to go after.
And, you know, in exchange,I'd love to, just hear a little
bit about your business model.
So it was kind of like thisvalue trade situation where
I would help them with theirbusiness model, where I
would talk, I would ask themabout their business model.
(12:56):
And then, um, I would justgive them a little audit
or like, Hey, there's,these are the suggestions.
And the very first orthodontistI reached out to booked a call.
We got on it and theyclosed like two weeks later.
Matt (13:09):
Wow.
Keaton (13:10):
So it was, yeah, it was like two weeks
after I dropped out.
Matt (13:13):
This is very interesting because it seems so
contrary to what is taughtin the space right now.
First, you're talking abouthow, in the very beginning,
you mentioned how marketingwas really effective for this
school and you were like,Oh, marketing really works.
I feel like now we're ina position in the space
where like a lot of agencyowners, their marketing is
not working and everybody'slike, SMMAs like this.
(13:36):
You don't, you want to, youwant to do it, but you don't
want to go too deep into itbecause you're, you're scared
what you're going to find if youpull back that curtain, right?
And then on the otherend, you're talking about
research instead of sales.
Again, I feel like the contraryis taught right now where
it's like, sell, sell, sell.
Fuck research, dude.
You just got to go sell.
Most of all, always be closing,like, never be researching.
(13:57):
And so, um, I'm, I'm curiousyour opinion on kind of the,
uh, Not to jump all over theplace, but have you seen how the
space has changed in that sense?
It sounds like what you gotstarted in, your kind of
journey was much differentthan the average person getting
started with an agency today.
(14:18):
Um, you, you went avery, it seems like a
different kind of route.
Keaton (14:22):
Yeah.
I think it's just like the ageof the person, to be honest.
Like, somebody gets into SMA at28, and they've got a few, like,
Matt (14:31):
Life experiences.
Lots of life
Keaton (14:33):
experiences.
They're going to be like, yeah,I'm not going to like follow
this script that I got that'slike obviously so cringy and
like I'm asking 28 questionsabout how this is going to
affect their wife and theirkids and everything and I like
barely met this person and Iknow nothing about them and
they know nothing about me.
Um,
Matt (14:52):
like if you're, how's your stepdaughter going to benefit
Keaton (14:55):
from this?
If you're 20, you read thatand I've, I've had students
that I like, I've reviewedsales calls and I'm like, why,
where did you get this script?
And why?
Like, let's just play it back.
Like this guy's, the guyis literally begging on
this sales call, like,tell me about your offer.
(15:16):
I don't know.
What is it?
I, I'm really interested andthe guy just keeps, the student
who was following the script,just keeps saying like, okay,
but how would this affect you?
Like, okay, howmuch should I do it?
Like, and again, if you,if you've grown up a little
bit, you're able to takesome of that intuition.
Um, I think I may have mentionedthis last time when we did the
(15:37):
podcast on my channel, but likePablo Picasso said some of his
first works were his best works.
Hmm.
And.
There's something to besaid for that intuition.
And so I think that whenTrey said that thing about
research and not sales,it just sat right with me.
And for all the hype, like Ithink once you get into the
coaching programs, there'sa lot of people recommending
(16:00):
or they should be, in myopinion, recommending that.
And there's a lot moresuccess stories like mine
and that actually seems tobe because I don't know,
it's survivorship bias.
Like the people with thelike really crazy sales
personalities, um, youknow, they can build
something up super quickly.
That's what gets pushed.
That's the click bait.
They watch a few videos,people watch a few videos of
(16:23):
that and they're like, okay,this is what I have to do.
When in reality, they didn'trealize that that person
built up to 30 K a month,burned down the agency the
next month because everyonechurned and, you know, built
a personal brand off that.
And now it's like, yeah, but
Matt (16:37):
at least they hit 50 K one month.
Keaton (16:38):
Yeah.
So I, I think the,the real like.
The real people, like you go toan event and you meet the people
in real life who are like,yeah, this works obviously.
And like, I'm doing well,I'm providing for my family
and I'm not 22 and justlike basically scamming
(16:59):
people out of their money.
They built a much more slowburn type of agency that
started out with understandingtheir market, Understanding
the problems that theyneeded to solve and actually
getting good at the problembefore they try to solve.
Matt (17:15):
So you took that path of understanding which I
think I'm glad we dove intoit because not enough people
actually hear that these daysAnd follow that so you took
that path And then how longto hit your first 10k month?
Let's say
Keaton (17:27):
it was like six months
Matt (17:28):
six months.
Okay, so pretty decent timeI mean pretty quick if you
really think about it But alsoyou think about the internet
marketing where we have is likebro took you more than 12 days.
Yeah Um, so
Keaton (17:39):
that was six months from going full time,
Matt (17:41):
right?
You were already doing it before
Keaton (17:43):
yeah, and I was learning digital marketing before and
like I was just talking to anold student today and he He
finally hit 10k and we've beenworking working together off
and on for like three years.
And he's like, dude,we can do an interview.
We'll call it.
Oh, let me redo that.
He's like, dude, wecan do an interview.
We'll call it zero to10 K in three years.
Matt (18:03):
Dude, that'll get clicked, bro.
Keaton (18:04):
And I'm like, he's like, Oh, but maybe that's
not in your best interestto serve that narrative.
And I'm like, it'sabsolutely my best interest.
Cause I don't want toattract the zero to
10 K in 12 days crowd.
Um, but like, yeah, I, Ijust said, there it is.
I said six months whenin reality it was.
18 from when I started,or really 12 from when I,
the first time I watched,uh, like here's how to run
(18:27):
Facebook ads video, 14 months.
Matt (18:29):
Wow.
And so this guy, it tookhim three years, which
you think about, you'relike, Oh, that's so long.
But like most people, threeyears after they start online
business, they're not evenin online business anymore.
They quit.
It's like, this guyhas taken three years.
But now he's making six figures.
He's making and hegot paid to learn now.
(18:52):
He's making six figuresMost people go to school for
four years, get 70k, 100k indebt, and then they come out
maybe with a 60k a year job.
So if you just, it's just,it's cool to hear that and
I hope people's perspectiveswill be kind of shifted
from this, uh, Yeah.
This shiny, sexy, biz op worldthat we live in right now.
(19:12):
Yeah.
Um,
Keaton (19:13):
One more thing I wanted to add about him, the
person I was just talkingabout, is that he, he's
like, it took me two years toactually take it seriously.
Mm.
Mm.
And that's okay.
Like, if you want to sidehustle this thing, until
you can prove it to yourselfthat this stuff works, do it.
Like don't, we're all in sucha rush to be millionaires
(19:34):
by 25 that like, you know,you're, you give away your
youth, like slaving away behinda computer and like, yeah,
there's benefits to that.
But it's also okay tojust be like, yeah,
I'm earning some money.
Like I'm traveling, I'mjust enjoying my life.
And then, The time will comewhere you don't have to go out
(19:55):
of your way to buy a 10, 000mastermind at 22 that's going
to like level up your mindsetor whatever, because you're
just there, you're like, mymindset is here, I'm good.
And you're buying thatmastermind not to, out
of lack, not out of want.
But you're just like, I'mready for the next step.
And I know this is goingto work anyway, but this is
going to speed up my process.
Matt (20:17):
I agree in the sense of like people do rush.
And the biggest reason peoplefails because they rush.
So six months of going all in,you get to 10 K, 14 months after
watching your first Facebookad video, and did you kind of
experience the snowball effectwhere like, boom, after the 10 K
it took like three months to getto 30 or like, How did things
(20:39):
start progressing after you gotthat first 10k because everybody
says first 10k is the hardest?
Keaton (20:44):
Yeah, so I think towards the end of that year that would
have been like end of 2019.
I was doing Maybelike 11, 12 there.
That's when churn started tohappen because I wasn't doing
every single part of it myself.
And I started to outsourceand some things fell
through the cracks.
And, uh, my very first clientthat churned was because
(21:05):
the contractor I had hiredwas running dads for the
wrong business on the right.
Yeah, that'll do it.
It's like, whatis this business?
Like you're fired.
I'm like, fair.
Matt (21:18):
Didn't even find it.
Yeah.
Keaton (21:20):
Um, And that I had been dreading, but also kind
of looking forward to the firstday that I turned a client
because I, it hadn't happened,it had been like seven months.
Wow.
I was like, okay,what's gonna happen?
And, and I still to this dayhave my first three clients.
What?
Simply because today?
Yeah.
, like, they, they weren'tincluded in the sale of the
(21:40):
business for Oh, really?
A reason.
I'll explain in just asecond, but it's because
I onboarded them and like,again, the Pablo Picasso
principle, like I just, I knew.
I knew how to treat them right,you know, like I knew that
this income to me was superimportant and also getting
results and just treating themright as my first three clients.
(22:00):
And, you know, four yearslater, I'm still collecting
a check from them every monthand getting them good results.
So it's kind of cool.
Matt (22:08):
That's really cool.
Keep a client for four years.
That's, that's impressive.
Keaton (22:12):
So, but as far as the snowball effect you mentioned.
Um, I ended up partnering withsomebody the very start of
2020, so we were sort of like intalks end of 2019 and we decided
to keep, like, we kept theagencies that we currently had
and then we just started a newone together and we could use
those case studies, but like weowned the revenue and they sort
(22:34):
of slowly, like some clientschurned, but then, you know, the
core of those businesses alwaysstayed and that was always
ours to deal with directly.
Um, And so that new agencywe started from scratch
by the end of 2020 wasdoing like 30, 35k a month.
Matt (22:52):
Wow, by the end of 2020, so it went from 10k
to 30k in how many months?
Keaton (22:59):
Uh, probably about 12, yeah.
Matt (23:01):
12?
Yeah.
And so what, what wasyour peak month that
you got that agency to?
Keaton (23:06):
Uh, like 85.
Matt (23:08):
85, so seven figs.
Okay, so start.
So from start to howlong did it take to go
from zero to 85k long?
Keaton (23:19):
Um, zero to 85k.
Let's see.
That would have beenlike May of 2020.
What are we in 2024?
Yeah, that would havebeen May of 2022.
So like three years.
Matt (23:40):
Three years.
Okay, so gradual process, right?
Um, and then you were ableto sell this agency, which is
incredible because Most peoplenever sell their agencies.
Yeah, I'm most peopleUnfortunately, it's so it's
a very it's a very rare featin this space to be able to
(24:00):
sell a marketing agency Andthat's got to feel so good.
I mean,
Keaton (24:04):
yeah,
Matt (24:05):
did it feel amazing when you sold?
Keaton (24:07):
Yeah It did and I don't want to like I was talking to
somebody else shout out to AveryLynch if anyone knows him But
he was like I really, like, Ihad an ad I was running at one
point that talked about thevaluation of my agency when
we sold, which was half a mil.
So it's not likean insane number.
And even that was a,like, a little bit
inflated, I would say.
(24:27):
And the terms of the deal didn'twork out exactly like that.
But like, no, have no delusions.
Like your million dollar a yearagency is not selling for much.
You're not going toget a 10x multiple.
Because it's about EBITDAmost agency owners actually
don't even have EBITDA becausethey're paying themselves
(24:48):
out of all the excess andthere's no, there's no anything
left over after the owner'ssalary cause they're taking
everything out every month.
Um, but the agency thatpurchased us, we got in
touch with them becauseI was in a, uh, agency
coaching group at the time.
And they were friends withthe owner of that group.
(25:11):
And I reached out, I was kindof feeling like a little bit
of burnout, a little bit oflike, I'm not sure if I want
to be in a partnership anymore.
Like I'm, I think I'mready to go back on my own.
There was some really positivethings about the partnership,
but there's also positivethings about being on your own.
And he was like, Hey, I wasactually talking to these guys.
They were talkingabout buying you.
(25:31):
And I was like, Oh really?
So we started the talkswith them in April.
May, around right when wehit like 85k and then the
sale went through February1st of the next year.
Matt (25:46):
Wow.
So it took a decentamount of time.
Keaton (25:47):
Yeah.
A lot of due diligence.
I changed the deal a couple oftimes and that was part of why
it took a few extra months.
Uh, cause originally Iwas going to stay on with
them for like potentiallyquote unquote permanent.
Um, but decided that wasn'tthe right fit after some of
the more due diligence, likeI had nothing against them.
(26:07):
They're awesome.
I just wasn't, I knew I wouldn'tthrive in that environment.
Um, and it was more of a like,hey, I'm going to skill stack,
like I'm going to stay in,I'm going to learn so much.
And then I'll, you know,I'll have, I'll be able
to do whatever I wantin a couple of years.
And I was like, maybe I'm atthat point now, like maybe
I've actually got the skills.
And just talking to a fewmentors, like gave me the
(26:28):
confidence to be like, no,I'm going to go out on my own.
Hmm.
It's, yeah, it's workedout way better than I
thought it would have, so.
Matt (26:34):
Yeah, and I want to get to what you're doing
now in a second, becauseyou're living the life.
But, before we do, sellingan agency, like we said, is
something most people never do.
And yet, everybody shouldbe trying to work towards
building a sellable agency,even if you never sell it.
Um, Being able to havea business that could
(26:56):
be sold is a sign you'vebuilt it the right way.
So what did you do to build anagency that was able to be sold?
Like, what were the kindof the main things that
you created that made iteven eligible to be sold?
Keaton (27:07):
Yeah, so there's a few levers that you can pull.
The obvious one is automation.
Like, can thisfunction without you?
Yep.
Um, which I wouldn't even sayI had done an amazing job of.
Like, we were getting to thatpoint, but I was still very
much involved in the day to day.
Um, and that obviously limitsyour number of buyers if you're
still involved, but also it'snot, if you're selling to
(27:30):
another agency, which a lotof agencies will, like they
know how to manage a team.
They know how torun the campaigns.
Like they can get by witha three to six, six month
consulting period from you.
You don't have to be ahundred percent removed.
But another friend of mine,Luca Good, um, has sold an
agency and he said, in hisown words, build it like
(27:51):
the laziest person possible.
And I think that, that sortof has to do with removing
yourself, but it more hasto do with simplifying.
And for example, like usinga software like Apex or Play
is another one where a lotof people call it ply, but
apparently it's pronounced play.
Matt (28:12):
What does that do?
Keaton (28:13):
Uh, It allows you to launch ads in like three
clicks instead of having to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Play is, but they haveway more platforms.
Um, so you can, you can takeliterally one creative and
you can launch it acrossSnapchat, Tik TOK, Facebook,
Instagram, like everything.
Um, but taking that, likeinvesting, let's say 500 a
(28:37):
month into a software likeOPEX, that's going to take off.
20 to 30 hours amonth of manual labor.
And investing in those templatesand the SOPs and, um, just not
even like removing yourselfand having other people do it,
but how much of this can bedone by AI today or software.
(29:01):
That's huge.
Cause then you're, you're moreof a hybrid, like, okay, this is
a system that I'm buying versus,uh, I'm buying a business with.
the employees and allthat kind of thing.
And that will get youa higher multiple and
make you more attractive
Matt (29:14):
like that
Keaton (29:15):
because people can plug it in right away.
Um, but then the secondthing is, is differentiators.
So like on the front end ofthe business, like what makes
you attractive to people thatis different than everybody
else in the marketplace?
So for us, our competitor thatended up buying us was losing
(29:36):
deals to us because we had anemployment setting service.
So, we would call the leads,we would get access to the
practice management software, wewould book them directly in the
practice management software.
And, you know, there wasobviously some price differences
in their model versus ours,but they were still losing
the deal even though theyprovided a lot more services.
(29:58):
Because it was like,Oh, I, I just, I don't
want to call the leads.
And so they, they werehearing our name get brought
up as a reason why theirdeals weren't going through,
which is like a flag.
Um, and then also they hadkind of seen us just around
the community in general.
Um, and lastly, like the, theretention from that appointment
(30:24):
setting service and program was.
So good that, you know,obviously that increased
the multiple, how wewere doing, et cetera.
And, and the differentiationof the market and the
brand we had built.
Uh, and that's the last point Iforgot to mention is the brand.
So I would get on sales callsand the orthodontist would
say, I see your face every day.
(30:46):
Or, Hey, I watched like fiveof your customer interviews.
Like I've seen you guys around.
And I'm ready to sign up.
I just had a couple of questionsand that brand equity, if you
will, actually was lent a littlebit to the other company, which
has a ton of brand equity aswell, but acquiring that, like
(31:06):
the things that they talkedabout in the process were,
Hey, there's a brand we wantsome of the IP around the
appointment setting, um, and.
You know, sometimes when we losedeals, it's going to you guys.
So that attracted somebodythat wouldn't have really
given us a second thought.
Matt (31:25):
Otherwise.
So orthodontist was theniche and we're doing
just typical Facebook ads.
Yeah,
Keaton (31:32):
we did, um, a lot of Facebook messenger stuff.
So a lot of many chat,
Matt (31:38):
huh?
Did that get good results?
Keaton (31:40):
Yeah.
So there was one campaignthat like this, the origin
story of this is hilarious,but there's My former business
partner worked with a, anorthodontist out of Arizona.
That's like the top there.
They're like the lower end of,of price in Arizona, but they
(32:01):
have a lot of locations and theylike, he's much more businessman
than an orthodontist.
And he's really focusedon the business side and
enjoy the marketing andall that kind of thing.
And he has tested everycampaign known to man
for an orthodontist.
Uh, you know, you want somethinglike info on how to run
campaigns for orthodontists.
You should be talking to him.
(32:23):
And I just happened to find hisstuff as I was doing research
on the niche, ended up payingfor a call for him and he
previously had built an agencyof a, you know, a hundred
plus orthodontists, ended upshutting it down 'cause it
was just too much work and adistraction from his practice.
Um, but he was like, yeah,if I were to start an agency
again, this is what I would do.
This is what I would charge.
(32:43):
This is a campaignI would run like.
I paid like 300bucks for that call.
What?
He gave me the blueprint, right?
Matt (32:49):
And you just followed it.
Yeah.
And it worked.
Keaton (32:51):
Yeah, so that one, that campaign started to decline
in performance in some areastowards the end of the agency.
Like any word to the wise,any template you have will
run in cycle for, I would say,80 to 90 percent of clients.
Like, there's some randomclients that for whatever
reason, the weirdest, butwhat I was going to say is
(33:13):
the people that it does workfor, that's just like, I
don't, it seems like I can'tdo anything wrong here.
Like whatever I touch inthis market turns to gold.
And there's still some,um, clients that are
running that type of thing.
But as I started to transitioninto like more of a oversight
role in the agency andnot doing as much of the.
(33:36):
Work in the trenches.
We started to see, okay, likethis campaign does perform
really well sometimes, butwhen it doesn't perform,
we're losing the client.
Like, what do we do?
And we started working a loton R and D in terms of like
what we're going to run.
Templates wise and so we wouldstart to launch two campaigns
at the same time see whichone would do better Allocate
(33:59):
more spend to the better onedecrease the other one Maybe
turn them off all togetherand that just helped us get
the quick win for the client alot faster But yeah, Facebook
ads GHL appointment settingwhere we'd call the leads and
book them into the schedule.
So your answer is Yeah.
Matt (34:16):
And how did you get these orthodontists?
Were you cold calling?
Were you running paid ads?
Were you doing cold email?
Keaton (34:21):
I would say this is maybe another part of the
differentiation thing is that Ibarely did outreach after 10k.
Really?
Yeah, because we had a YouTubechannel where it wasn't
that tons of people found usthrough the YouTube channel,
but they would find us maybethrough a blog article or
(34:44):
maybe through ads or maybethrough something else.
And then they would go toour website and then they
would see we had a YouTubechannel and then they'd binge
watch five videos and they'dbe like, Oh, this is cool.
And then they get on the call.
So that like combo play ofhow can I do, how can I be
everywhere really lent itselfto us building a brand.
(35:05):
And I invested heavilyin like, how can we be
perceived the right way?
How can this brand actuallybe something where you like,
you look at an iPhone andyou're like, this looks good.
This feels sleek.
That kind of thing.
And so, I had, I would justfriend orthodontists on
Facebook and eventually Ijust stopped DMing them.
At the beginning I wouldDM them, I hated doing it,
(35:25):
so I was really glad to beable to stop doing that.
I would make YouTube videos,uh, we would run ads, the
niche is so small thatwe only had to spend like
400 bucks a month on ads.
What?
Yeah, and it was just like,awareness after a certain
point, where it was like, okay,they're seeing us every day.
Wow.
And then this is a, I'mabout to draw some sauce.
That's dope . But we had a,an email list of pretty much
(35:50):
every orthodontist in the space.
And even though theyhadn't opted in, we would
just treat it as if Yes,it was a broadcast email.
Matt (36:00):
That's fine.
Did you do that?
No.
Okay.
So, dude, that is,that is a nugget.
That is a nugget.
I'm so, it's actually so coolto hear you say this because
I've always wondered, Hmm.
Why don't people justlike add you to, uh, uh,
ActiveCampaign or a MailChimpsequence even if you haven't
opted in, like, just, it'sjust like cold email but on
(36:22):
steroids and just continueto email them every week.
And so you actually did that.
You're the first personI've met who's actually
done that, but I've alwayswondered, hi, could you,
could you get away with this?
Keaton (36:32):
Yeah, and I think it, um, I don't know.
They're cracking downon more email stuff.
We won't talk about
Matt (36:38):
the legality of
Keaton (36:39):
this method.
I've talked to one studentwho we tried a little bit of
it, and I don't know, I don'tthink we tested it extensively
enough to be able to reporton details here, but the list
was like 10K, and we'd sendan email or two, get a couple
appointments, and it was great.
And funny story, I was coachingmy nephew's soccer team, and
(37:02):
I see the other coach likehas like an orthodontics.
Logo on his shirt, and Iwas like, oh Hey, like,
are you an orthodontist?
He's like, yeah,you look familiar.
And he pulls up his email.
My face is in his emailand we'd never met.
Like, he was like, I don'teven know how you got my email.
I was like, yeah, maybeyou opted into something.
Matt (37:26):
Yeah.
You didn't want to tellhim the truth on that one.
Keaton (37:29):
Anyway.
Yeah.
Actually,
Matt (37:30):
I'm, I illegally found your information.
Blowing you up, actually.
Wow.
Keaton (37:35):
But it's, it's actually a very viable,
like you can scrape.
Nowadays it's nothard to scrape.
You just buy alist from somebody.
Yeah, People that have, they'relike, yeah, worth it on us?
Sure.
Matt (37:46):
Here they
Keaton (37:47):
all are.
Everybody has the same list.
Literally.
Matt (37:49):
I'm going to do this for agents.
Dude, I'm going todo this point wise.
I've been talking, I've beenthinking about it for a while.
Just get a ton of agencyowners, buy a list.
This one guy has alist of 80, 000 people.
I'm like, I'lljust buy the list.
And cold email all these 80,000 agency owners every week.
Send them
Keaton (38:05):
video, send them case studies, talk about results.
Like nobody'sgetting mad off that.
Like, yeah, there'speople unsubscribing.
Like, Hey, I didn'topt into this.
Matt (38:13):
You can do this to blow up a YouTube.
You could do thisfor a lot of things.
Like you could make aYouTube video and then.
Because Joel Kaplan usedto do this, anytime he
made a video, he wouldsend it to his email list.
He would say, hey,check out my video.
That's how he like got viewsand built his audience.
You could do that with likea random YouTube channel.
You just find your niche, say,hey, put whatever the title of
the video is in the thumbnailor in the email subject line.
(38:36):
Then you just link your videoand you can just like start.
It's just another wayto build audience and
it's so interesting.
So interesting.
I'm gonna, I'mgoing to try this.
I'm going to report back to you.
Yeah, report
Keaton (38:47):
back.
I'll let you know how it goes.
I, it's not something I've,I think it's the first time
I've said it in public, so.
Matt (38:52):
Wow, we're getting in that, we're getting
in that secret sauce.
Wow, okay, we've gotten a lotof, a lot of good story and
a lot of good nuggets here.
Tell me, Keaton, whatare you up to these days?
What are you working on now?
You have, uh, you're doingsome cool stuff and I
think it's very, It's veryunique what you've built.
(39:12):
Um, so yeah, what are you, whatare you working on these days?
Keaton (39:15):
Yeah.
So when I was kind of in thepartnered agency, like, I don't
know, I'm an entrepreneur.
Like I just can't, I felta little bit constrained
by having a partner.
And so I always wanted to dosomething that was, uh, outside
of that, that was just my own.
And so I would makeYouTube videos.
(39:35):
And one day I just woke up and Iwas like, Hey, like, maybe I can
make a video about high level.
Like, I know it pretty well.
It seems like it's kindof starting to catch fire.
Like more people are signing upand I might get some affiliate
revenue, like, you know, maybea couple hundred bucks a month.
That'd be cool.
So I just made the video andthat was my top performing
(39:57):
video at the end of the year.
And I was like, huh, maybeI should do that again.
So I did it again.
And it was how, how I usehigh level versus how to use
high level the second time.
And then that was mybest performing video.
And then I was like, well,what if I like took this
more seriously with some goodproduction value and like
started making individualtutorials and I started
doing that every time.
Didn't matter what it was.
(40:17):
High level was in the title.
I seem to rank at the top.
People seem to like the style.
And I was talking to somebodyat our, our local meetup
group and, uh, Brett Linencolewho's, yeah, he's going to be
on, he'll be on my podcast.
I don't know when this iscoming out, but sometime
around this comes out probably.
(40:39):
And he, um, on thatpodcast asked me like,
what's your superpower?
And I was like, Idon't even know.
Like, but then he told me aweek later, he's like, I think
it's taking big ideas andinstilling them down to like
easy to understand concepts.
And I, uh, a mentor of minethat I really love and respect
Spencer Mecham, Buildapreneurif anyone knows him.
(41:01):
Um, his story I interviewed himand he's like, when I didn't
try, that's when I succeeded.
Like the thing that I wasjust like, whatever, like
this probably won't work,but it's easy enough to do.
I'll try it.
Boom.
50, 000 in affiliate commissionin two months or whatever.
Yeah.
So I would say that's kind ofwhat happened to me where I
(41:24):
was, I was making SMMA content.
I was making high level contentand people just happened to like
the way that I explain things.
They said, my voiceis like, yeah.
Like monotone enough thatlike they can listen to it for
like an hour on an explanationvideo like that and I was
just like, I don't know.
It's just this thing where thestars align like apparently
(41:45):
i'm I Have the perfect setof traits to do this And so
that the affiliate incomehas grown to More than I ever
would have dreamed And, um,then on top of that, I have
a few, like many courses,some coaching that I've,
I've currently not coachingright now, just on a bit of a
sabbatical from it to recharge.
(42:07):
Um, but then the otherquestion has been, how can I.
Increase that affiliateincome and not have it so
centered on one software,
Matt (42:16):
right?
Keaton (42:17):
And so i've been making reviews of other
add ons for high leveleven just other competitors
for high level Exactly
Matt (42:27):
Um,
Keaton (42:27):
and just it's so smart though
Matt (42:29):
It's because high level there's now there's so many
things you can be an affiliatefor that are on high level To
where like you get your highlevel base Yeah, and you just
figure out well What otherthings can I affiliate for
that people who use high levelneed and it's like a never
ending Affiliate pyramid.
In a good way.
Yeah, the
Keaton (42:46):
best way.
Matt (42:46):
Dude, so can I ask how much have you made
from affiliate commissionin for high level?
Keaton (42:56):
About 500,
Matt (42:57):
000.
500 grand.
And that's just allprofit basically.
I know what I'm doing.
So.
That's sick.
Keaton (43:10):
Yeah, it's that like.
We'll do like 80k this month.
Matt (43:13):
This month?
Uh
Keaton (43:14):
huh.
Matt (43:14):
80k?
Yeah.
Bro, you're making morethan Thomas Gannett on GHL.
Come on, Thomas.
You gotta step it up.
Dude, that's, that's insane.
Keaton (43:23):
Yeah, it's, I, I can't believe it.
Um, honestly, thosenumbers are small.
Like, yeah, I may betop, I would say I'm top
25, maybe, in monthly.
Maybe.
Probably top 15.
Who's number
Matt (43:38):
one?
Keaton (43:39):
All time, Matt DeSeno, I think.
Matt (43:42):
Really?
Keaton (43:42):
Yeah.
Matt (43:44):
Rob Bailey's got to be up there all time too, right?
Keaton (43:46):
Yeah, all time, probably Rob, but right
now it's a monthly,probably Jason Wardrobe.
Matt (43:50):
I was going to say, dude, he's got to be doing what, 250?
Keaton (43:54):
Uh, I talked
Matt (43:56):
to him in person, but I don't want
Keaton (43:57):
to say.
Matt (43:57):
Oh, I guess you can't say, you can't say.
I thought it might bepublic information.
But I just know I'll get himon here one of these days.
Wow.
Keaton (44:05):
Yeah, I'll connect you, but he's It's so funny
cause he also like he did thegrind of like building a real
software company that basically,basically it was GHL plus Alpex,
but he paid for all the dev costhimself before GHL was the thing
before Alpex was the thing.
Matt (44:20):
Oh wow.
Keaton (44:21):
And he sold it around the time.
This was all, you know, highlevel started to take off
and I would assume that he'smaking more profit from.
Being an affiliate, then runninghis own software company.
Oh, heck yeah, dude.
Yeah.
Matt (44:37):
Yeah.
If he's the number onehigh level affiliate,
he's making some bang.
Um, and software company, dude.
It's so expensive.
He would have had to reallyhave scaled that software.
Because even Uphex nowis probably, I mean,
anyway, I won't speculate.
Um, incredible.
Okay, so you're running aseven figure YouTube channel
(44:59):
is one way to think about it.
Yeah.
Keaton (45:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, like last month, allin was like 100k, so, if we
Matt (45:07):
And that's
Keaton (45:08):
profit?
That's, I mean, theteam, the team is like,
Like, 5 to 10,depending on the month.
Matt (45:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty crazy.
Um, how much do you makein AdSense off YouTube?
Do you make any money off that?
Keaton (45:24):
Not much.
My AdSense sucks.
3k a month?
Uh huh.
Dang.
What about you?
Matt (45:29):
Like my best month, well, I just set
it up like a month ago.
Keaton (45:33):
Oh, that's so It's yeah,
Matt (45:35):
I haven't made any adsense money at all.
Why don't
Keaton (45:37):
you turn it on?
Matt (45:38):
I was just lazy, bro You know what?
I'm realizing I bet
Keaton (45:41):
I bet you would have had 100k so far
Matt (45:44):
Three and a half million views.
Keaton (45:45):
Yeah
Matt (45:47):
Don't say that to me he and dude, you know
when we did our firstpodcast You made a joke.
You're like, yeah, I don'tmind selling out like you
jokingly said that and Iwas like, you know, what?
I've actually lostso much money.
I've made so much lessmoney not selling out.
And I really am questioning,I really have a question,
(46:10):
like, did peoplereally care that much?
Like, would peoplereally, how many people
would have been like, oh,Matt's selling a course?
Like, a few.
Keaton (46:19):
Yeah.
Matt (46:19):
It would have been a sick course.
Like, I could have, like,would that many people really
have stopped watching me if Istarted promoting high level?
Yeah.
Probably not.
Yeah.
I, I think.
I think I got it wrong,and I want to blame it
on somebody, but I can't.
It's
Keaton (46:38):
not too late.
Matt (46:39):
It's not too late, but I mean, I'm making my move now.
It's just like a yearand a half after.
Yeah, that's true.
And you want to do it whileyou're hot and on the rise, and
Keaton (46:48):
Yeah.
Matt (46:50):
Dude, I lost, I lost, so it's been, it's
It's bittersweet for me tohear, um, how you're doing.
It's incredible.
But I'm also justlike, damn, dude.
I messed up.
So, are you still doing coachingor you're done with coaching
and it's just affiliate?
Keaton (47:08):
Um, I just, like, some stuff has happened personally
where I'm like, I've just beenon being an entrepreneur on
my phone, on calls, on like,available 12 hours a day.
six days a week, maybea little less than that.
Like I, I'm not actuallyworking like hours in
(47:30):
front of a computer.
I'm sure you and everyoneelse blow me away, but
like being available,I'm pretty good at that.
And I have been for a longtime, but that comes at the
cost of like family timeand just being present and
all that kind of thing.
And so we've just been tryingto make a big move towards that.
A
Matt (47:49):
big move towards not having to be 24 7?
Keaton (47:52):
Yeah, just to be, like, be able to take real
time off where you're nothaving to answer anything.
Like, the only time I think I'vedone that in the last two years
are, it's like, uh, probablytwo and a half weeks total
of, in the last five years.
Wow.
No phone, not responding toanything, not doing anything.
(48:14):
And one was my honeymoonand one was just like
a week that I took.
So, um, yeah, I just, I,it got to the point where
I was like, okay, I don'tneed this coaching income.
I mean, not, I'm doingokay financially anyway.
Like I could shut it down, butI, it was just, the juice wasn't
worth the squeeze at the point.
And I didn't want to hirea sales team and scale it
(48:35):
and deal with all of that.
And I also.
Um, was a struggle with thedemands on like me personally
because the way I want torun it, like I want to be
the one talking to people.
Um, and so I'm just regroupingand figuring out what's next
because I do really enjoy it.
But, um, you don't
Matt (48:53):
even need it, right?
I mean, like, no, I
Keaton (48:55):
don't, but I, I, it's good for another
Matt (48:58):
20 K a month.
It's kind of like, whytake on the stress,
Keaton (49:01):
dude?
Yeah, it keeps me sharp.
Like I can talk to people, I'mdealing with real problems.
I'm seeing what's going on andI can kind of pattern match
that and help other people.
Um, it exposes me to newideas, which I really enjoy.
Um, but I've, you know,I've been doing it.
I've done coaching almost sinceprobably the second year of
(49:22):
the agency, just cause peoplestarted to reach out and
not full time by any means.
But yeah, it just got to thepoint where this same stuff
that used to bring me, um,Tons of joy was like starting
to feel kind of monotonous andlike I'm like I think I just
need a break from this andthen I'll come back and we'll
figure out what the structureand the model looks like because
(49:43):
I love talking to smart peopleabout what they're doing and
Helping them and there's somuch unlock that can happen
in a single consulting sessionthat that's like I live off
that I really thrive off.
You enjoy it.
Yeah, and I do that with theaffiliates like I just this
morning We did a 90 minutecall and like it's just free if
you're an affiliate you come on.
Smart.
That's once a month.
(50:03):
Um, and then I bringon a guest as well.
But like
Matt (50:08):
How many affiliates do you have?
Keaton (50:10):
Um, I don't know if this number is accurate but the high
level dashboard is like 650.
I
Matt (50:18):
feel like it could be even more.
Keaton (50:19):
Yeah, I think, well there's a sub
affiliates as well.
Right.
And I, I, I don't trust thatnumber on the dashboard.
Matt (50:27):
That's sick dude.
Okay.
So let's talk aboutaffiliate marketing, I
guess a little bit becausethis is something you've.
I mean, you've reached likethe top 1 percent of the
top 1 percent of affiliatemarketers, dude, 80k a month.
It's just, it's incredible.
And I, I have so much moreappreciation for the affiliate
business model after seeing whatyou and like Thomas have done.
(50:47):
I've never took affiliatemarketing seriously.
I always thought pyramidscheme, BS, scam, like
stay away from it.
Until I saw what Thomas did withhis YouTube channel and just
like blew up and then, you know,created this value Offer that
all tied back to the softwareand then went on to like he just
crossed a freaking million uhin affiliate income and then
(51:10):
on like I didn't realize youwere a high level affiliate
king like that until like acouple months ago, actually.
So then I saw, I waslike, oh wait, Keaton's
crushing this too.
Um, Jason Wardrop, who I've beenwatching for like ever, right?
He's been, he's an OGin the agency space.
In the real estate space.
In the real estate space too.
Keaton (51:28):
Yeah.
Matt (51:29):
And so I'm just seeing all these guys crushing.
I'm like, okay, maybe this isa business model that should be
taken very seriously Especiallywith how content is starting
to become Really the the oil ofof the world is attention now.
And so people can either buildtheir own products or they
can make money Affiliating forbeing affiliated with other
(51:49):
products, which is really whatLogan Paul is with like prime
Keaton (51:52):
Yeah,
Matt (51:53):
it's really just a glorified affiliate
who has a percentagein the business, right?
You Um, and so I want peopleto take this seriously and
I want to humble myself andtake this seriously because I
used to not and now, uh, I'vecompletely changed and it's,
it's cool to hear your story on,on how much success you've had.
So, okay, what, what areyour biggest tips to being a
(52:17):
successful affiliate marketer?
Is it just simply figure outcontent or is there more to it?
Like, how do you make moneywith affiliate marketing?
Keaton (52:23):
Yeah, so the first thing I'd say.
Is that from a lifestyleperspective, I don't think
there's a better model.
Like you don't haveto build the product.
You don't have to servicethe product afterwards or
service to people on it.
And like, I love poor Mosey,love his content, but a lot of
his stuff is just like more andmore and more, like how can you
(52:45):
get more people to work for you?
More customers.
So then there'll be moreviews and then you get more
customers and you have moreevents and like, you're
just making more money.
And I'm like, dude, I'm tired.
three sentences into what youjust said, like I, I'm tired
and I didn't even do the work.
And I'm, I'm just kind of likeslow and methodical like that.
And I, I know hopefullyeveryone listening to this
(53:07):
podcast knows how importantrecurring revenue is.
Like from a psychologicalstandpoint, being able to count
on next month being X amountor whatever, And starting
there versus starting at zerowith a lot of like high ticket
coaching stuff, even though youmay be making and potentially
profiting more than me, you'vestill got to start at zero
(53:29):
and like chase people down andlike manage your sales team
and all that kind of thing.
Um, and certainly agencies arelike, there's just more to do
in service and worse margins.
So.
If that's attractive to youand you're more of a lifestyle
type person, then I wouldhighly consider focusing on
(53:53):
being an affiliate marketerbecause it is actually, it's,
it's kind of like going towork in like software sales
except you don't have to havea boss breathing down your
neck and you can sell at scale.
Um, at its core, affiliatemarketing is just, Hey,
I had a story that helpedme get onto this product.
(54:19):
And this product can also helpyou in the way that it helped
me and all of these other peopleuse my link and maybe nothing or
use my link and I'll help you.
Um, I think People don'tunderstand how much the software
space has changed affiliatemarketing because it used to
be just one off commission,
Matt (54:39):
right?
Now highlight high levelschange the game, dude.
Yeah
Keaton (54:42):
Yeah But even like like click funnels did it
before they made a couple inmy opinion bad moves about how
they handled the switch fromClick funnels classic to 2.
0 like resetting that wholeaffiliate thing like people that
had been really really loyalto them Got a sour taste in
their mouth because they Theywere like, okay, free for all.
(55:03):
Like you can stealeverybody else's affiliates
when they go to 2.
0.
And I think a lot of othersoftware companies will
be like, if you haven'treferred someone in the last
two years, then we're goingto cut your commissions.
Uh, convert kit, forexample, is commissions
for only two years, whichobviously is fair, but like.
(55:24):
There are companies likeHigh Level, uh, System.
io is another one, that aregiving lifetime, it's like
baked into their contracts,it's baked into their sale
contracts, like it is, it is assure as affiliate revenue can
get, like I understand that,you know, it's not as, um, good
(55:44):
as owning your own revenue,but like, let's be honest,
if you're an influencer, Theplatform could shut you down at
any time like I don't even seewhat I do as entrepreneurship.
Like I just see it as likethis weird money glitch on
the internet I can do money.
You've discovered the infinitemoney glitch, bro What the heck?
(56:05):
But it's it's true, right?
Like it's it's just don'ttake yourself too seriously.
Like all you're doingis referring people.
So Like, yeah, you have abusiness yard, you're an
entrepreneur, but like,you're not really like
don't reinvent the wheel.
Just talk about what you'regood at talking about and then
say, Hey, here's the value.
Matt (56:22):
So you still kind of need to get that experience
in entrepreneurship first tohave something to talk about.
Like, don't you need to havesome sort of credibility
for someone to watch whatyou're, what do you think?
Cause there's also peopleon high level who just like
started off making Tik Toksand now make seven figures a
year and they've never builta business in their life.
Keaton (56:40):
Yeah.
Matt (56:41):
Except for the one they have, which is literally better
than 99 percent of businesses,which is just affiliate.
Keaton (56:46):
Yeah.
Fortunately or unfortunately,no, you don't have to.
And some people like,like I, one of my mentors
posted this the otherday, I really liked it.
He's like the fact thatthe coach makes more money
coaching agency owners than theagency makes being an agency.
Matt (57:06):
It's the point.
Keaton (57:08):
I don't make the rules, but this is,
this is how it works.
And it used to bother me.
I used to be like,it's not right.
It's this like MLM slash thisincestuous community where
everybody's just buying fromeach other and all of this.
And then I zoomed out andI was like, that's all the
corporate world is like, there'sfive more zeros after it.
(57:29):
And yeah, I don't like, it'sjust, this money is going to to
get thrown around anyway, youmay as well take a piece of it.
And if respect matters moreto you than just like a
monthly paycheck, then sure.
Like really go down theentrepreneurship route because
(57:49):
there are people that won'trespect you as much because
you haven't built a realbusiness and they'll talk
about you behind your back.
And
Matt (57:56):
does that happen to you?
Keaton (57:57):
I'm not saying to me, but you've
Matt (57:59):
actually built a real business.
Keaton (58:01):
Yeah.
But like even in the grandscheme of things, like my
business was quote real,but it wasn't that big.
You know, the salewasn't insanely.
You've
Matt (58:09):
already made more from affiliate.
Keaton (58:10):
Yeah, exactly.
Like profit wise, I don't know.
Profit.
Yeah.
Profit wise, probablyjust barely crossed that.
But, um, like,I don't know, like there's,
there's a lot to be said forjust like giving the middle
finger to everybody and likedoing what feels right for you.
Um, even if.
(58:32):
You know, it's not technicallyillegal, but it's it feels
a little bit unethical.
It feels a little bit sleazylike I'm not condoning that.
I'm just saying
Matt (58:42):
what affiliate marketing can feel sleazy.
Keaton (58:44):
I'm I'm saying if someone's never built an agency
Matt (58:47):
Oh, yeah, they're like, oh do I deserve to push this?
Keaton (58:49):
Yeah.
I mean it's better than acoaching program probably.
Matt (58:52):
Yeah Yeah, I mean my thought is
Affiliate marketing, in the waythat you're doing it, I don't
see how it could be unethical.
Like, people can cancel anytime.
Keaton (59:05):
Yeah, I don't feel it's unethical for me.
I'm just saying,you're saying like Even
Matt (59:08):
if you don't have a business, even if you never
built a business, Affiliatemarketing in general, if you
get somebody to sign up fora software that they enjoy,
you're just, you're Essentiallyan outsourced marketing
representative of the company.
Keaton (59:20):
Yeah,
Matt (59:21):
like you you are just that's your form of
payment You're marketingCongratulations, you've
figured out what a lot ofpeople get paid a hundred
two hundred thousand dollarsa year to go do it corporate
Keaton (59:31):
Yeah
Matt (59:31):
companies is oh, let's figure out.
How can we get people tosign up for our service
or product online?
You've just figured thatout and your payment
is performance based.
Keaton (59:40):
Yeah,
Matt (59:40):
that's really what it is You're a performance based
marketing representativefor a high level or for
you know Point wise or forwhatever software or company.
No, it's it's yeah, Idon't Yeah, I don't think
it's unethical at all.
I don't even think coachingprograms are unethical.
I think there's just bad Peoplein all areas and they ruin the
(01:00:00):
taste in everybody's mouth.
Keaton (01:00:02):
This is what it is.
I heard it today It'snot the coaching.
It's the promises.
It's not the affiliatemarketing It's the promises
and high levels crackingdown on this big time.
Like they're they're like,hey You can't claim this
like don't or don't directlycompare us just like they
do on those ads like Cloroxwipes versus the competitor
(01:00:24):
like they don't put the logosof the competitor, right?
And You Um, but like whatbothers me, I don't, I don't
have a problem with somebodynot building an agency
and pushing high level.
I do have a problem withmake 500 a day overnight
with this one softwarethat's beginner friendly.
Like it's just, and,and, and high level is
(01:00:46):
cracking down on it.
That's good.
Yeah,
Matt (01:00:48):
that's good that they are.
Yeah.
Um, I've noticed you takethe anti approach to that
too, which is like, You saidsomething in one of your videos
about like, Hey, I hope youraffiliate didn't tell you
this was going to be easy.
And I was like, I like that.
That's like, that's likewhat I do with the gurus.
I'm like, I hope you, yourcourse seller didn't tell
you an agency was going tomake you rich in 30 days.
(01:01:08):
So it's kind of the same thing.
Now it's fun.
It's like the affiliatemarketing world is now, I
guess, well, it's always beenkind of like the biz op world
in general, people makingcrazy claims and promises.
Keaton (01:01:20):
But there's, there's so many, I mean, if you,
if you happen to chooseaffiliate marketing as your
very first venture, there's,there's plenty of people that
do that and build up likeinsane businesses doing that.
Like they're just livingin the shadows of like
these people that areselling, you know, a hundred
million dollar companies.
Like for every one of those,there's this other guy that
(01:01:43):
like, Spends eight hoursa day on his hobbies and
two hours a day working.
And it's pretty incredible.
Yeah.
He's, he's made, he's beenmaking a full time income for 10
years and like, he just sort offell into it and like, there's,
there's all these niches, likewhatever you want to push dog
food, whatever it is, likethere's a way to promote an
affiliate product doing it.
(01:02:04):
And, um, I think it's,it's becoming a really
good way to get started.
And.
It's also, because a lot ofthem are microtransactions, it
teaches you a lot more aboutgenerating a customer via the
internet versus having to gothrough sales calls, which a
lot of agency stuff happens togo through, and you're like,
(01:02:25):
oh, it's not worth it to dosomething that's low ticket
like that, but like, I'd ratherlearn how to generate a hundred
low ticket sales without everhaving to talk to someone
than doing one high ticket.
Sale and always havingto be chained to the
desk in terms of sales.
Matt (01:02:40):
It is a really good point.
That's what's so attractive tome about software in general.
Um, as much as I want to bethe guy who like builds the a
hundred million dollar company,I, I a hundred percent get
the appeal of, Hey, let's, youknow, let's sell the shovel
instead of digging for the gold.
(01:03:01):
Right.
And it makes a lot of sense.
And uh, it's reallycool to hear more about.
Um, Anything, any final wordsof wisdom that you'd like
to leave people with or,um, any final areas you
would want to take this?
Keaton (01:03:20):
I would say give yourself permission to do
what's right for you andstop deferring to your guru.
Matt (01:03:29):
Wow.
Dude, I think that's likethe perfect summary of
this podcast, honestly.
Keaton (01:03:35):
Yeah, yeah, because it's
Matt (01:03:38):
Wow.
Keaton (01:03:38):
Like, for me, as I look into the future, I don't
I'm finding more and more Idon't care about building the
multi million dollar company.
I don't care about the big sale.
Like, I'm interested in havingconversations like this,
building real connections.
I'm planning on moving backto my home state, and I want
to start a podcast that's likeInterviews with entrepreneurs
(01:04:02):
from my home state.
So it's just all aroundthat community aspect, like
community, um, people thatyou can be yourself around
and like a steady high incomepaycheck that doesn't require
you to be slaving behinda desk every single day.
Like those three things,you'd be pretty happy.
(01:04:24):
You'll be able to figure outmost things in your life.
But I know a lotof people who are.
Rich and have no community.
And that's like, if you want toavoid that day where you wake
up and you have all the moneyin the world, but you're not
happy, it has a lot to do withwho you surround yourself with.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm moreinterested in building
(01:04:45):
in the next 10, 20 yearsof my life than a multi
bajillion dollar company.
Matt (01:04:52):
I respect it, dude.
I respect it.
I respect the way you'rebuilding your business and the
way you're building your life.
To be honest, it'svery, very cool.
Yeah.
And I hope people will haveenlightened perspectives.
Uh, and Layton's a strongword, but you know what I
mean enhanced perspectivesfrom this conversation.
Thanks, man.
And uh, Yeah, guys keaton'syoutube will be linked below
(01:05:14):
Instagram got instagraminstagram will be linked below
um ghl affiliate link And youknow i'll put your ghl affiliate
link in here if we also put inyour point wise affiliate link.
All right, sounds
Keaton (01:05:28):
good
Matt (01:05:30):
Oh, no, we guys check the links below to check
out keaton's, uh, youtubechannel and Hope you guys
got some value out of this.
We're out.
Much love.
Peace.
Don't follow your guru,follow your dreams.
Well, that was cool.
It's such a, it's somuch different than any.
You know how my buddy Elijahmade one of his agency clients
(01:05:52):
a hundred thousand dollars intheir first 30 days with him?
All he did was he ranyour normal Facebook
and Instagram ads.
He used to go high level Butthen he implemented the software
called appoint wise to nurtureall of the leads for the
client So appoint wise uses AItechnology and what Elijah set
it up to do Is engage qualifyand book the leads for the
(01:06:13):
client on their behalf and itworks so well The client made
a hundred grand in the first30 days So if you guys want to
see how it works check it outThe link is in the description
below if you're not using thisfor your clients right now
You're missing out and yourclients are missing out, too
What do you think is the better path
towards financial freedom?
Affiliate or building an agency?
So what did you do to build anagency that was able to be sold?
So
Keaton (00:15):
there's a few levers that you can pull.
The obvious one is automation.
How quickly did you startto see success from that?
My very first client thatchurned was because the
contractor I had hiredwas running the ads
for the wrong business.
Matt (00:28):
How much have you made from affiliate
commission for high level?
A thousand.
Bro, you're making morethan Thomas Gannett on GHL.
How many affiliates do you have?
Keaton (00:38):
I don't know if this number is accurate, but the high
level dashboard is like 650.
Matt (00:42):
What are your biggest tips to being a successful
affiliate marketer?
Keaton (00:50):
We had an email list.
Of pretty much everyorthodontist in the space and
even though they hadn't optedin we would just Treat it as if
yes, it was a broadcast email,
Matt (01:00):
dude That is that is a nugget.
That is a nugget.
All right, so I have thisbuddy mislov who's absolutely
crushing it for his clientsHe's getting insane results for
all of them And I want to showyou guys how you might have
heard me talk about this beforeBut it's a software appoint
wise mislov works with roofingclients and he set up a point
wise You to use AI technologyto nurture and qualify
(01:21):
the leads for his clients.
And then once it qualifies them,it actually books them into an
appointment too, for the client.
So, he doesn't need a ton ofISAs, the clients don't need
to call the leads all day long,the AI does all the work, books
the appointment for the client,and then the client just shows
up once the lead's alreadyvetted and ready to meet.
He's been doing thisfor clients to get them
(01:43):
five deals in two weeks.
He got one of his clients 40appointments in just 14 days.
It's genuinely changingthe agency space right now.
If you sign up to AppointWise,that has daily live coaching
calls on how you can builda seven figure AI agency
business, which is whatwe're teaching right now.
So if you want to see how thatworks, tap the link in the
description below, sign up toa free trial of AppointWise.
(02:06):
And that being said, let'sget back to the podcast.
So, Mr.
Walker, you, you have becomeone of the top high level
affiliates in the world.
Keaton (02:19):
It's true.
Matt (02:19):
And you've also built and sold a seven figure agency.
Keaton (02:23):
So,
Matt (02:26):
based on going down these two very different, but
somewhat similar paths, whatdo you think is the better
path towards financial freedom?
Affiliate or building an agency?
Keaton (02:39):
Uh, we both know that the agency is a path to
higher models, whether that'ssoftware, affiliate, um,
Coaching for some people, atleast for me, I do know some
people that like run eightfigure agencies and love it.
And I think they're crazybecause it's just so much
(03:00):
work, so much overhead.
Like, you know, theylove what they do, but
like, that's just not thelifestyle I want to live.
So for me, like smallagency, relatively small
in the grand scheme ofthings to learn the skills.
And then that will open upa world of like every origin
story of click funnels,high level, whatever it
is, like they started.
(03:22):
in the agency space,seeing a problem.
And then, you know, there's nobetter person to talk to than
a bunch of other agency ownersto figure out what problems in
marketing you're going to solve.
Matt (03:31):
Yeah.
Keaton (03:32):
And then just go do that, whether that be
affiliate or something else.
Matt (03:37):
So agencies to start and then affiliate to capitalize on
the skills that you've built.
Keaton (03:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
To build the lifestyle, I'dsay like agencies, bottom line,
it's not a lifestyle business.
You can replace yourself, but.
You're still going to be pulledin in different ways that you
wouldn't in other other models
Matt (03:58):
I would say I got to about as removed from an agency
as you could be and I stillthought about it all the time
Yeah, it sucks So I I feelyou And it's interesting you
bring that up like agenciesreally are the foundation of
all online business If youlook at the Hermosi, Gary
V, Emon They're kind of likethe three biggest names.
I feel like all three of themare agency guys That's true.
(04:20):
They all started from theagency space, so, um, maybe
Matt Shields, Keenan Walker willbe on that list one day soon,
Mount Rushmore of agency gurus.
So okay, so how did you, howdid you get started in this?
You've, you've, you have aYouTube channel, you, you've
had quite the, the journey onYouTube, um, and it all started
with you actually building anagency, but my understanding
(04:42):
is you started in collegeand then you dropped out.
So walk me through, how did you.
Find this path.
How did you go down thisvery untraditional, uh,
route of building yourown online business?
Keaton (04:54):
Yeah.
So I wanted from a very youngage to be an entrepreneur.
I knew that.
I saw my parents beingbusiness owners and like the
flexibility that that afforded.
Like, yeah, we were talkingabout business over the dinner
table, like most nights, butalso they could travel more.
They were available morethan my friend's parents.
I just kind of likenoted that I think.
(05:17):
And like, even my mom, when wedid like lemonade stands as a
kid, like she would be givenus like masterclass on product.
Like, look, it can't be watery.
It can't be warm.
It's got, you know, if abug falls in it, you throw
it out and you do anothercup for that customer.
Like that kind of stuff isjust what I grew up hearing.
And then I, I'd hear mymom's customer service
(05:37):
calls all the time as well.
So I knew it's whatI wanted to do.
I just didn't know what.
And, um, The familybusiness was a swim school.
I teach like babies up to like10 years old, how to swim.
And they were working onopening a new location.
I was like 20 at the timeand they needed someone to
like figure out the wholemarketing side of like,
(05:58):
okay, how are we going tolaunch the new location?
So my brother, who was theCEO at the time sat me down.
He's like, okay.
I talked to the founder ofaqua tots, which is like a
really big Franchise and theysay like three main things
when it comes to marketing,social media, building up
(06:19):
stuff in the community.
And I can't remember whatthe third one was, but I
was like, okay, so communityinvolvement and social media,
like this is what I should do.
So I just started to godown like every single path.
And try to figureout what that was.
So first it was likeKevin David videos on
how to run Facebook ads.
Like, I vividly remember likewatching that on the toilet,
(06:39):
like trying to figure out,and, um, and then, uh, I
would do like events where wewould like contact elementary
schools and like get a boothat the event or, uh, I did
a couple billboards or like.
political, not actual politicalsigns, but like those small
(07:00):
signs that politicians putup, um, they're illegal
technically, but like, they'lljust, you can leave them
up for a few weeks and thenthey'll just take them down.
And like, nobody doesanything about it.
Um, and so I learned kind of,all right, there's all this
stuff and what seems to bethe least amount of work, but
the most trackable is the ads.
(07:21):
And it was what Ienjoyed the most.
I seem to have like a littlebit of a knack for it.
Yeah.
And So just kept going down thatpath, got to the point where I
was like a little bit out of mydepth and I just needed somebody
to like consult with and aska couple of questions too.
And friend of a friendcontacted this kid.
(07:42):
His Instagram was like,like thirst traps, like
him being like reallyintense, all this stuff.
And he ran an agency.
He's like 17, finishedhigh school early.
And he was going to Stanford.
I think he was runningan agency on the side.
Yeah.
And I was like, noway this kid's legit.
Like what's going on.
And we ended up hiring him fora couple of months just so I can
(08:02):
like kind of learn under him.
And I saw him overwhelmthis swim school with leads.
Wow.
Just like at first atlaunch, it wasn't that good.
And then I saw him make a coupleof tweaks and like overnight
20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred leadsin like a couple of weeks.
And we're like, okay,we got to shut this off.
(08:23):
We've got to figure out how totext these people automatically.
And that was a light bulb momentwhere I was like, Oh, like maybe
marketing actually does work.
That was the, the conversationI had with my brother.
I was like, peopledon't like marketing.
Does it work?
Like all these big brandsspend money on marketing,
but like small business, likewhy are you going to market?
Like it's just like put asign up on the road and like
people show up if they want to.
(08:44):
And that was reallyeyeopening for me.
And of course, as you startto research all of this stuff,
your ads start to turn into.
Started an agency, like,different gurus at the time,
and so, I identified a guythat I thought, okay, this
is legit, he seems cool.
(09:05):
Who was it?
Travis Stevenson.
Travis Stevenson.
Matt (09:08):
Okay.
Keaton (09:08):
He's got crazy hair.
Um, shout out to Travis,because he got me to buy
my first course, but, yeah.
The course was terrible.
The software he had, hewas, he had like a many chat
alternative at the time.
Matt (09:20):
Okay.
Keaton (09:21):
And I was like, oh, I'm gonna like go
with the small guy.
Like, I don't wantto support many chat.
Like, they've gottoo many users.
And it, it had like, I kid younot, one one hundredth of the
functionality of many chat.
And I paid like 1, 500bucks for the course, which
wasn't finished, and themany chat alternative,
like a year of that.
And I was like trying tobuild stuff, and I was
like, this doesn't work.
Like, I don't know what to do.
(09:42):
And then I paid 10bucks for many chat,
like four weeks later.
And like in a day, I waslike, Oh my gosh, there's
so much more built out here.
So, uh, but yeah, that wasmy first course I bought
in like January, 2019.
And then, yeah, it was, therewas just one day I was in
school feeling like pulledin a million directions, like
trying to pick a major, tryingto get good grades, trying to.
(10:08):
Enjoy my life just be young andI was trying to start a business
I had a couple like free trialclients just some people in
my warm network and I Was justlike oh man, I think I can
drop this whole school thing.
And as long as I focuson actually Still the
education side of thingsI'm gonna be successful.
(10:29):
Like it's just amatter of the skills.
It's not really amatter of the degree.
Hmm And so I wish I had a burnthe boats moment where I was
like, and then I dropped allmy classes, but I like finished
the semester just to be safe.
Um, and finished my last finaland literally just like walk
straight from my final to mydorm room and like pulled up
the laptop and started working.
(10:49):
And, uh, that'show it all started.
Matt (10:51):
And so you, you took the leap nonetheless.
You may not have burned, hada crazy burn the boats story,
but you did take the leapand how quickly did you start
to see success from that?
Like, did you start gettingclients really, really quick?
You had free trial clients,but did you start, how long
did it take you to hit 10K a month, for example?
Keaton (11:10):
Yeah.
So I knew at the time thatI needed a mentor because
I had tried everything.
Like I had tried buying thatone course, which wasn't great.
And then I was just tryingto do everything on my own.
And so I was like, okay, Ineed to hire someone because
it got to the point where Iwas ready to launch the ads
for the free trial clients.
And I just had so much anxietythat it wasn't going to work.
(11:32):
I was going to wastethese people with money.
Like they were people thatI knew outside of work.
Like they were, thiscould come back like in a
personal relationship sense.
So I really wantedit to work out.
Um, and they were also ecommerce clients, which
I knew nothing about.
So I just, I sort of toldboth of them like, Hey, You
know, I don't think thisis the right fit right now.
(11:54):
And I reached out to TreyCockrum, if you know him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Trey was myvery first mentor.
He was selling, um, likemonthly coaching for like 1300
a month at the time, I think.
And we just, it wasmostly just mindset.
Like that's Trey's strength.
And so we got on thereand he was like, do
(12:15):
research, stop doing sales.
Like, Like why are you goingto try to like hard sell
someone when like, it seemslike you have some digital
marketing knowledge, butlike just go talk to people.
And that one switch of researchinstead of sales got me reaching
out to people in a, in a uniqueway that they weren't hearing.
So it was like, Hey, I'm adigital marketing student.
(12:35):
I want to talk to youabout the things that
I've learned about digitalmarketing for orthodontists.
That was the niche thatI decided to go after.
And, you know, in exchange,I'd love to, just hear a little
bit about your business model.
So it was kind of like thisvalue trade situation where
I would help them with theirbusiness model, where I
would talk, I would ask themabout their business model.
(12:56):
And then, um, I would justgive them a little audit
or like, Hey, there's,these are the suggestions.
And the very first orthodontistI reached out to booked a call.
We got on it and theyclosed like two weeks later.
Matt (13:09):
Wow.
Keaton (13:10):
So it was, yeah, it was like two weeks
after I dropped out.
Matt (13:13):
This is very interesting because it seems so
contrary to what is taughtin the space right now.
First, you're talking abouthow, in the very beginning,
you mentioned how marketingwas really effective for this
school and you were like,Oh, marketing really works.
I feel like now we're ina position in the space
where like a lot of agencyowners, their marketing is
not working and everybody'slike, SMMAs like this.
(13:36):
You don't, you want to, youwant to do it, but you don't
want to go too deep into itbecause you're, you're scared
what you're going to find if youpull back that curtain, right?
And then on the otherend, you're talking about
research instead of sales.
Again, I feel like the contraryis taught right now where
it's like, sell, sell, sell.
Fuck research, dude.
You just got to go sell.
Most of all, always be closing,like, never be researching.
(13:57):
And so, um, I'm, I'm curiousyour opinion on kind of the,
uh, Not to jump all over theplace, but have you seen how the
space has changed in that sense?
It sounds like what you gotstarted in, your kind of
journey was much differentthan the average person getting
started with an agency today.
(14:18):
Um, you, you went avery, it seems like a
different kind of route.
Keaton (14:22):
Yeah.
I think it's just like the ageof the person, to be honest.
Like, somebody gets into SMA at28, and they've got a few, like,
Matt (14:31):
Life experiences.
Lots of life
Keaton (14:33):
experiences.
They're going to be like, yeah,I'm not going to like follow
this script that I got that'slike obviously so cringy and
like I'm asking 28 questionsabout how this is going to
affect their wife and theirkids and everything and I like
barely met this person and Iknow nothing about them and
they know nothing about me.
Um,
Matt (14:52):
like if you're, how's your stepdaughter going to benefit
Keaton (14:55):
from this?
If you're 20, you read thatand I've, I've had students
that I like, I've reviewedsales calls and I'm like, why,
where did you get this script?
And why?
Like, let's just play it back.
Like this guy's, the guyis literally begging on
this sales call, like,tell me about your offer.
(15:16):
I don't know.
What is it?
I, I'm really interested andthe guy just keeps, the student
who was following the script,just keeps saying like, okay,
but how would this affect you?
Like, okay, howmuch should I do it?
Like, and again, if you,if you've grown up a little
bit, you're able to takesome of that intuition.
Um, I think I may have mentionedthis last time when we did the
(15:37):
podcast on my channel, but likePablo Picasso said some of his
first works were his best works.
Hmm.
And.
There's something to besaid for that intuition.
And so I think that whenTrey said that thing about
research and not sales,it just sat right with me.
And for all the hype, like Ithink once you get into the
coaching programs, there'sa lot of people recommending
(16:00):
or they should be, in myopinion, recommending that.
And there's a lot moresuccess stories like mine
and that actually seems tobe because I don't know,
it's survivorship bias.
Like the people with thelike really crazy sales
personalities, um, youknow, they can build
something up super quickly.
That's what gets pushed.
That's the click bait.
They watch a few videos,people watch a few videos of
(16:23):
that and they're like, okay,this is what I have to do.
When in reality, they didn'trealize that that person
built up to 30 K a month,burned down the agency the
next month because everyonechurned and, you know, built
a personal brand off that.
And now it's like, yeah, but
Matt (16:37):
at least they hit 50 K one month.
Keaton (16:38):
Yeah.
So I, I think the,the real like.
The real people, like you go toan event and you meet the people
in real life who are like,yeah, this works obviously.
And like, I'm doing well,I'm providing for my family
and I'm not 22 and justlike basically scamming
(16:59):
people out of their money.
They built a much more slowburn type of agency that
started out with understandingtheir market, Understanding
the problems that theyneeded to solve and actually
getting good at the problembefore they try to solve.
Matt (17:15):
So you took that path of understanding which I
think I'm glad we dove intoit because not enough people
actually hear that these daysAnd follow that so you took
that path And then how longto hit your first 10k month?
Let's say
Keaton (17:27):
it was like six months
Matt (17:28):
six months.
Okay, so pretty decent timeI mean pretty quick if you
really think about it But alsoyou think about the internet
marketing where we have is likebro took you more than 12 days.
Yeah Um, so
Keaton (17:39):
that was six months from going full time,
Matt (17:41):
right?
You were already doing it before
Keaton (17:43):
yeah, and I was learning digital marketing before and
like I was just talking to anold student today and he He
finally hit 10k and we've beenworking working together off
and on for like three years.
And he's like, dude,we can do an interview.
We'll call it.
Oh, let me redo that.
He's like, dude, wecan do an interview.
We'll call it zero to10 K in three years.
Matt (18:03):
Dude, that'll get clicked, bro.
Keaton (18:04):
And I'm like, he's like, Oh, but maybe that's
not in your best interestto serve that narrative.
And I'm like, it'sabsolutely my best interest.
Cause I don't want toattract the zero to
10 K in 12 days crowd.
Um, but like, yeah, I, Ijust said, there it is.
I said six months whenin reality it was.
18 from when I started,or really 12 from when I,
the first time I watched,uh, like here's how to run
(18:27):
Facebook ads video, 14 months.
Matt (18:29):
Wow.
And so this guy, it tookhim three years, which
you think about, you'relike, Oh, that's so long.
But like most people, threeyears after they start online
business, they're not evenin online business anymore.
They quit.
It's like, this guyhas taken three years.
But now he's making six figures.
He's making and hegot paid to learn now.
(18:52):
He's making six figuresMost people go to school for
four years, get 70k, 100k indebt, and then they come out
maybe with a 60k a year job.
So if you just, it's just,it's cool to hear that and
I hope people's perspectiveswill be kind of shifted
from this, uh, Yeah.
This shiny, sexy, biz op worldthat we live in right now.
(19:12):
Yeah.
Um,
Keaton (19:13):
One more thing I wanted to add about him, the
person I was just talkingabout, is that he, he's
like, it took me two years toactually take it seriously.
Mm.
Mm.
And that's okay.
Like, if you want to sidehustle this thing, until
you can prove it to yourselfthat this stuff works, do it.
Like don't, we're all in sucha rush to be millionaires
(19:34):
by 25 that like, you know,you're, you give away your
youth, like slaving away behinda computer and like, yeah,
there's benefits to that.
But it's also okay tojust be like, yeah,
I'm earning some money.
Like I'm traveling, I'mjust enjoying my life.
And then, The time will comewhere you don't have to go out
(19:55):
of your way to buy a 10, 000mastermind at 22 that's going
to like level up your mindsetor whatever, because you're
just there, you're like, mymindset is here, I'm good.
And you're buying thatmastermind not to, out
of lack, not out of want.
But you're just like, I'mready for the next step.
And I know this is goingto work anyway, but this is
going to speed up my process.
Matt (20:17):
I agree in the sense of like people do rush.
And the biggest reason peoplefails because they rush.
So six months of going all in,you get to 10 K, 14 months after
watching your first Facebookad video, and did you kind of
experience the snowball effectwhere like, boom, after the 10 K
it took like three months to getto 30 or like, How did things
(20:39):
start progressing after you gotthat first 10k because everybody
says first 10k is the hardest?
Keaton (20:44):
Yeah, so I think towards the end of that year that would
have been like end of 2019.
I was doing Maybelike 11, 12 there.
That's when churn started tohappen because I wasn't doing
every single part of it myself.
And I started to outsourceand some things fell
through the cracks.
And, uh, my very first clientthat churned was because
(21:05):
the contractor I had hiredwas running dads for the
wrong business on the right.
Yeah, that'll do it.
It's like, whatis this business?
Like you're fired.
I'm like, fair.
Matt (21:18):
Didn't even find it.
Yeah.
Keaton (21:20):
Um, And that I had been dreading, but also kind
of looking forward to the firstday that I turned a client
because I, it hadn't happened,it had been like seven months.
Wow.
I was like, okay,what's gonna happen?
And, and I still to this dayhave my first three clients.
What?
Simply because today?
Yeah.
, like, they, they weren'tincluded in the sale of the
(21:40):
business for Oh, really?
A reason.
I'll explain in just asecond, but it's because
I onboarded them and like,again, the Pablo Picasso
principle, like I just, I knew.
I knew how to treat them right,you know, like I knew that
this income to me was superimportant and also getting
results and just treating themright as my first three clients.
(22:00):
And, you know, four yearslater, I'm still collecting
a check from them every monthand getting them good results.
So it's kind of cool.
Matt (22:08):
That's really cool.
Keep a client for four years.
That's, that's impressive.
Keaton (22:12):
So, but as far as the snowball effect you mentioned.
Um, I ended up partnering withsomebody the very start of
2020, so we were sort of like intalks end of 2019 and we decided
to keep, like, we kept theagencies that we currently had
and then we just started a newone together and we could use
those case studies, but like weowned the revenue and they sort
(22:34):
of slowly, like some clientschurned, but then, you know, the
core of those businesses alwaysstayed and that was always
ours to deal with directly.
Um, And so that new agencywe started from scratch
by the end of 2020 wasdoing like 30, 35k a month.
Matt (22:52):
Wow, by the end of 2020, so it went from 10k
to 30k in how many months?
Keaton (22:59):
Uh, probably about 12, yeah.
Matt (23:01):
12?
Yeah.
And so what, what wasyour peak month that
you got that agency to?
Keaton (23:06):
Uh, like 85.
Matt (23:08):
85, so seven figs.
Okay, so start.
So from start to howlong did it take to go
from zero to 85k long?
Keaton (23:19):
Um, zero to 85k.
Let's see.
That would have beenlike May of 2020.
What are we in 2024?
Yeah, that would havebeen May of 2022.
So like three years.
Matt (23:40):
Three years.
Okay, so gradual process, right?
Um, and then you were ableto sell this agency, which is
incredible because Most peoplenever sell their agencies.
Yeah, I'm most peopleUnfortunately, it's so it's
a very it's a very rare featin this space to be able to
(24:00):
sell a marketing agency Andthat's got to feel so good.
I mean,
Keaton (24:04):
yeah,
Matt (24:05):
did it feel amazing when you sold?
Keaton (24:07):
Yeah It did and I don't want to like I was talking to
somebody else shout out to AveryLynch if anyone knows him But
he was like I really, like, Ihad an ad I was running at one
point that talked about thevaluation of my agency when
we sold, which was half a mil.
So it's not likean insane number.
And even that was a,like, a little bit
inflated, I would say.
(24:27):
And the terms of the deal didn'twork out exactly like that.
But like, no, have no delusions.
Like your million dollar a yearagency is not selling for much.
You're not going toget a 10x multiple.
Because it's about EBITDAmost agency owners actually
don't even have EBITDA becausethey're paying themselves
(24:48):
out of all the excess andthere's no, there's no anything
left over after the owner'ssalary cause they're taking
everything out every month.
Um, but the agency thatpurchased us, we got in
touch with them becauseI was in a, uh, agency
coaching group at the time.
And they were friends withthe owner of that group.
(25:11):
And I reached out, I was kindof feeling like a little bit
of burnout, a little bit oflike, I'm not sure if I want
to be in a partnership anymore.
Like I'm, I think I'mready to go back on my own.
There was some really positivethings about the partnership,
but there's also positivethings about being on your own.
And he was like, Hey, I wasactually talking to these guys.
They were talkingabout buying you.
(25:31):
And I was like, Oh really?
So we started the talkswith them in April.
May, around right when wehit like 85k and then the
sale went through February1st of the next year.
Matt (25:46):
Wow.
So it took a decentamount of time.
Keaton (25:47):
Yeah.
A lot of due diligence.
I changed the deal a couple oftimes and that was part of why
it took a few extra months.
Uh, cause originally Iwas going to stay on with
them for like potentiallyquote unquote permanent.
Um, but decided that wasn'tthe right fit after some of
the more due diligence, likeI had nothing against them.
(26:07):
They're awesome.
I just wasn't, I knew I wouldn'tthrive in that environment.
Um, and it was more of a like,hey, I'm going to skill stack,
like I'm going to stay in,I'm going to learn so much.
And then I'll, you know,I'll have, I'll be able
to do whatever I wantin a couple of years.
And I was like, maybe I'm atthat point now, like maybe
I've actually got the skills.
And just talking to a fewmentors, like gave me the
(26:28):
confidence to be like, no,I'm going to go out on my own.
Hmm.
It's, yeah, it's workedout way better than I
thought it would have, so.
Matt (26:34):
Yeah, and I want to get to what you're doing
now in a second, becauseyou're living the life.
But, before we do, sellingan agency, like we said, is
something most people never do.
And yet, everybody shouldbe trying to work towards
building a sellable agency,even if you never sell it.
Um, Being able to havea business that could
(26:56):
be sold is a sign you'vebuilt it the right way.
So what did you do to build anagency that was able to be sold?
Like, what were the kindof the main things that
you created that made iteven eligible to be sold?
Keaton (27:07):
Yeah, so there's a few levers that you can pull.
The obvious one is automation.
Like, can thisfunction without you?
Yep.
Um, which I wouldn't even sayI had done an amazing job of.
Like, we were getting to thatpoint, but I was still very
much involved in the day to day.
Um, and that obviously limitsyour number of buyers if you're
still involved, but also it'snot, if you're selling to
(27:30):
another agency, which a lotof agencies will, like they
know how to manage a team.
They know how torun the campaigns.
Like they can get by witha three to six, six month
consulting period from you.
You don't have to be ahundred percent removed.
But another friend of mine,Luca Good, um, has sold an
agency and he said, in hisown words, build it like
(27:51):
the laziest person possible.
And I think that, that sortof has to do with removing
yourself, but it more hasto do with simplifying.
And for example, like usinga software like Apex or Play
is another one where a lotof people call it ply, but
apparently it's pronounced play.
Matt (28:12):
What does that do?
Keaton (28:13):
Uh, It allows you to launch ads in like three
clicks instead of having to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Play is, but they haveway more platforms.
Um, so you can, you can takeliterally one creative and
you can launch it acrossSnapchat, Tik TOK, Facebook,
Instagram, like everything.
Um, but taking that, likeinvesting, let's say 500 a
(28:37):
month into a software likeOPEX, that's going to take off.
20 to 30 hours amonth of manual labor.
And investing in those templatesand the SOPs and, um, just not
even like removing yourselfand having other people do it,
but how much of this can bedone by AI today or software.
(29:01):
That's huge.
Cause then you're, you're moreof a hybrid, like, okay, this is
a system that I'm buying versus,uh, I'm buying a business with.
the employees and allthat kind of thing.
And that will get youa higher multiple and
make you more attractive
Matt (29:14):
like that
Keaton (29:15):
because people can plug it in right away.
Um, but then the secondthing is, is differentiators.
So like on the front end ofthe business, like what makes
you attractive to people thatis different than everybody
else in the marketplace?
So for us, our competitor thatended up buying us was losing
(29:36):
deals to us because we had anemployment setting service.
So, we would call the leads,we would get access to the
practice management software, wewould book them directly in the
practice management software.
And, you know, there wasobviously some price differences
in their model versus ours,but they were still losing
the deal even though theyprovided a lot more services.
(29:58):
Because it was like,Oh, I, I just, I don't
want to call the leads.
And so they, they werehearing our name get brought
up as a reason why theirdeals weren't going through,
which is like a flag.
Um, and then also they hadkind of seen us just around
the community in general.
Um, and lastly, like the, theretention from that appointment
(30:24):
setting service and program was.
So good that, you know,obviously that increased
the multiple, how wewere doing, et cetera.
And, and the differentiationof the market and the
brand we had built.
Uh, and that's the last point Iforgot to mention is the brand.
So I would get on sales callsand the orthodontist would
say, I see your face every day.
(30:46):
Or, Hey, I watched like fiveof your customer interviews.
Like I've seen you guys around.
And I'm ready to sign up.
I just had a couple of questionsand that brand equity, if you
will, actually was lent a littlebit to the other company, which
has a ton of brand equity aswell, but acquiring that, like
(31:06):
the things that they talkedabout in the process were,
Hey, there's a brand we wantsome of the IP around the
appointment setting, um, and.
You know, sometimes when we losedeals, it's going to you guys.
So that attracted somebodythat wouldn't have really
given us a second thought.
Matt (31:25):
Otherwise.
So orthodontist was theniche and we're doing
just typical Facebook ads.
Yeah,
Keaton (31:32):
we did, um, a lot of Facebook messenger stuff.
So a lot of many chat,
Matt (31:38):
huh?
Did that get good results?
Keaton (31:40):
Yeah.
So there was one campaignthat like this, the origin
story of this is hilarious,but there's My former business
partner worked with a, anorthodontist out of Arizona.
That's like the top there.
They're like the lower end of,of price in Arizona, but they
(32:01):
have a lot of locations and theylike, he's much more businessman
than an orthodontist.
And he's really focusedon the business side and
enjoy the marketing andall that kind of thing.
And he has tested everycampaign known to man
for an orthodontist.
Uh, you know, you want somethinglike info on how to run
campaigns for orthodontists.
You should be talking to him.
(32:23):
And I just happened to find hisstuff as I was doing research
on the niche, ended up payingfor a call for him and he
previously had built an agencyof a, you know, a hundred
plus orthodontists, ended upshutting it down 'cause it
was just too much work and adistraction from his practice.
Um, but he was like, yeah,if I were to start an agency
again, this is what I would do.
This is what I would charge.
(32:43):
This is a campaignI would run like.
I paid like 300bucks for that call.
What?
He gave me the blueprint, right?
Matt (32:49):
And you just followed it.
Yeah.
And it worked.
Keaton (32:51):
Yeah, so that one, that campaign started to decline
in performance in some areastowards the end of the agency.
Like any word to the wise,any template you have will
run in cycle for, I would say,80 to 90 percent of clients.
Like, there's some randomclients that for whatever
reason, the weirdest, butwhat I was going to say is
(33:13):
the people that it does workfor, that's just like, I
don't, it seems like I can'tdo anything wrong here.
Like whatever I touch inthis market turns to gold.
And there's still some,um, clients that are
running that type of thing.
But as I started to transitioninto like more of a oversight
role in the agency andnot doing as much of the.
(33:36):
Work in the trenches.
We started to see, okay, likethis campaign does perform
really well sometimes, butwhen it doesn't perform,
we're losing the client.
Like, what do we do?
And we started working a loton R and D in terms of like
what we're going to run.
Templates wise and so we wouldstart to launch two campaigns
at the same time see whichone would do better Allocate
(33:59):
more spend to the better onedecrease the other one Maybe
turn them off all togetherand that just helped us get
the quick win for the client alot faster But yeah, Facebook
ads GHL appointment settingwhere we'd call the leads and
book them into the schedule.
So your answer is Yeah.
Matt (34:16):
And how did you get these orthodontists?
Were you cold calling?
Were you running paid ads?
Were you doing cold email?
Keaton (34:21):
I would say this is maybe another part of the
differentiation thing is that Ibarely did outreach after 10k.
Really?
Yeah, because we had a YouTubechannel where it wasn't
that tons of people found usthrough the YouTube channel,
but they would find us maybethrough a blog article or
(34:44):
maybe through ads or maybethrough something else.
And then they would go toour website and then they
would see we had a YouTubechannel and then they'd binge
watch five videos and they'dbe like, Oh, this is cool.
And then they get on the call.
So that like combo play ofhow can I do, how can I be
everywhere really lent itselfto us building a brand.
(35:05):
And I invested heavilyin like, how can we be
perceived the right way?
How can this brand actuallybe something where you like,
you look at an iPhone andyou're like, this looks good.
This feels sleek.
That kind of thing.
And so, I had, I would justfriend orthodontists on
Facebook and eventually Ijust stopped DMing them.
At the beginning I wouldDM them, I hated doing it,
(35:25):
so I was really glad to beable to stop doing that.
I would make YouTube videos,uh, we would run ads, the
niche is so small thatwe only had to spend like
400 bucks a month on ads.
What?
Yeah, and it was just like,awareness after a certain
point, where it was like, okay,they're seeing us every day.
Wow.
And then this is a, I'mabout to draw some sauce.
That's dope . But we had a,an email list of pretty much
(35:50):
every orthodontist in the space.
And even though theyhadn't opted in, we would
just treat it as if Yes,it was a broadcast email.
Matt (36:00):
That's fine.
Did you do that?
No.
Okay.
So, dude, that is,that is a nugget.
That is a nugget.
I'm so, it's actually so coolto hear you say this because
I've always wondered, Hmm.
Why don't people justlike add you to, uh, uh,
ActiveCampaign or a MailChimpsequence even if you haven't
opted in, like, just, it'sjust like cold email but on
(36:22):
steroids and just continueto email them every week.
And so you actually did that.
You're the first personI've met who's actually
done that, but I've alwayswondered, hi, could you,
could you get away with this?
Keaton (36:32):
Yeah, and I think it, um, I don't know.
They're cracking downon more email stuff.
We won't talk about
Matt (36:38):
the legality of
Keaton (36:39):
this method.
I've talked to one studentwho we tried a little bit of
it, and I don't know, I don'tthink we tested it extensively
enough to be able to reporton details here, but the list
was like 10K, and we'd sendan email or two, get a couple
appointments, and it was great.
And funny story, I was coachingmy nephew's soccer team, and
(37:02):
I see the other coach likehas like an orthodontics.
Logo on his shirt, and Iwas like, oh Hey, like,
are you an orthodontist?
He's like, yeah,you look familiar.
And he pulls up his email.
My face is in his emailand we'd never met.
Like, he was like, I don'teven know how you got my email.
I was like, yeah, maybeyou opted into something.
Matt (37:26):
Yeah.
You didn't want to tellhim the truth on that one.
Keaton (37:29):
Anyway.
Yeah.
Actually,
Matt (37:30):
I'm, I illegally found your information.
Blowing you up, actually.
Wow.
Keaton (37:35):
But it's, it's actually a very viable,
like you can scrape.
Nowadays it's nothard to scrape.
You just buy alist from somebody.
Yeah, People that have, they'relike, yeah, worth it on us?
Sure.
Matt (37:46):
Here they
Keaton (37:47):
all are.
Everybody has the same list.
Literally.
Matt (37:49):
I'm going to do this for agents.
Dude, I'm going todo this point wise.
I've been talking, I've beenthinking about it for a while.
Just get a ton of agencyowners, buy a list.
This one guy has alist of 80, 000 people.
I'm like, I'lljust buy the list.
And cold email all these 80,000 agency owners every week.
Send them
Keaton (38:05):
video, send them case studies, talk about results.
Like nobody'sgetting mad off that.
Like, yeah, there'speople unsubscribing.
Like, Hey, I didn'topt into this.
Matt (38:13):
You can do this to blow up a YouTube.
You could do thisfor a lot of things.
Like you could make aYouTube video and then.
Because Joel Kaplan usedto do this, anytime he
made a video, he wouldsend it to his email list.
He would say, hey,check out my video.
That's how he like got viewsand built his audience.
You could do that with likea random YouTube channel.
You just find your niche, say,hey, put whatever the title of
the video is in the thumbnailor in the email subject line.
(38:36):
Then you just link your videoand you can just like start.
It's just another wayto build audience and
it's so interesting.
So interesting.
I'm gonna, I'mgoing to try this.
I'm going to report back to you.
Yeah, report
Keaton (38:47):
back.
I'll let you know how it goes.
I, it's not something I've,I think it's the first time
I've said it in public, so.
Matt (38:52):
Wow, we're getting in that, we're getting
in that secret sauce.
Wow, okay, we've gotten a lotof, a lot of good story and
a lot of good nuggets here.
Tell me, Keaton, whatare you up to these days?
What are you working on now?
You have, uh, you're doingsome cool stuff and I
think it's very, It's veryunique what you've built.
(39:12):
Um, so yeah, what are you, whatare you working on these days?
Keaton (39:15):
Yeah.
So when I was kind of in thepartnered agency, like, I don't
know, I'm an entrepreneur.
Like I just can't, I felta little bit constrained
by having a partner.
And so I always wanted to dosomething that was, uh, outside
of that, that was just my own.
And so I would makeYouTube videos.
(39:35):
And one day I just woke up and Iwas like, Hey, like, maybe I can
make a video about high level.
Like, I know it pretty well.
It seems like it's kindof starting to catch fire.
Like more people are signing upand I might get some affiliate
revenue, like, you know, maybea couple hundred bucks a month.
That'd be cool.
So I just made the video andthat was my top performing
(39:57):
video at the end of the year.
And I was like, huh, maybeI should do that again.
So I did it again.
And it was how, how I usehigh level versus how to use
high level the second time.
And then that was mybest performing video.
And then I was like, well,what if I like took this
more seriously with some goodproduction value and like
started making individualtutorials and I started
doing that every time.
Didn't matter what it was.
(40:17):
High level was in the title.
I seem to rank at the top.
People seem to like the style.
And I was talking to somebodyat our, our local meetup
group and, uh, Brett Linencolewho's, yeah, he's going to be
on, he'll be on my podcast.
I don't know when this iscoming out, but sometime
around this comes out probably.
(40:39):
And he, um, on thatpodcast asked me like,
what's your superpower?
And I was like, Idon't even know.
Like, but then he told me aweek later, he's like, I think
it's taking big ideas andinstilling them down to like
easy to understand concepts.
And I, uh, a mentor of minethat I really love and respect
Spencer Mecham, Buildapreneurif anyone knows him.
(41:01):
Um, his story I interviewed himand he's like, when I didn't
try, that's when I succeeded.
Like the thing that I wasjust like, whatever, like
this probably won't work,but it's easy enough to do.
I'll try it.
Boom.
50, 000 in affiliate commissionin two months or whatever.
Yeah.
So I would say that's kind ofwhat happened to me where I
(41:24):
was, I was making SMMA content.
I was making high level contentand people just happened to like
the way that I explain things.
They said, my voiceis like, yeah.
Like monotone enough thatlike they can listen to it for
like an hour on an explanationvideo like that and I was
just like, I don't know.
It's just this thing where thestars align like apparently
(41:45):
i'm I Have the perfect setof traits to do this And so
that the affiliate incomehas grown to More than I ever
would have dreamed And, um,then on top of that, I have
a few, like many courses,some coaching that I've,
I've currently not coachingright now, just on a bit of a
sabbatical from it to recharge.
(42:07):
Um, but then the otherquestion has been, how can I.
Increase that affiliateincome and not have it so
centered on one software,
Matt (42:16):
right?
Keaton (42:17):
And so i've been making reviews of other
add ons for high leveleven just other competitors
for high level Exactly
Matt (42:27):
Um,
Keaton (42:27):
and just it's so smart though
Matt (42:29):
It's because high level there's now there's so many
things you can be an affiliatefor that are on high level To
where like you get your highlevel base Yeah, and you just
figure out well What otherthings can I affiliate for
that people who use high levelneed and it's like a never
ending Affiliate pyramid.
In a good way.
Yeah, the
Keaton (42:46):
best way.
Matt (42:46):
Dude, so can I ask how much have you made
from affiliate commissionin for high level?
Keaton (42:56):
About 500,
Matt (42:57):
000.
500 grand.
And that's just allprofit basically.
I know what I'm doing.
So.
That's sick.
Keaton (43:10):
Yeah, it's that like.
We'll do like 80k this month.
Matt (43:13):
This month?
Uh
Keaton (43:14):
huh.
Matt (43:14):
80k?
Yeah.
Bro, you're making morethan Thomas Gannett on GHL.
Come on, Thomas.
You gotta step it up.
Dude, that's, that's insane.
Keaton (43:23):
Yeah, it's, I, I can't believe it.
Um, honestly, thosenumbers are small.
Like, yeah, I may betop, I would say I'm top
25, maybe, in monthly.
Maybe.
Probably top 15.
Who's number
Matt (43:38):
one?
Keaton (43:39):
All time, Matt DeSeno, I think.
Matt (43:42):
Really?
Keaton (43:42):
Yeah.
Matt (43:44):
Rob Bailey's got to be up there all time too, right?
Keaton (43:46):
Yeah, all time, probably Rob, but right
now it's a monthly,probably Jason Wardrobe.
Matt (43:50):
I was going to say, dude, he's got to be doing what, 250?
Keaton (43:54):
Uh, I talked
Matt (43:56):
to him in person, but I don't want
Keaton (43:57):
to say.
Matt (43:57):
Oh, I guess you can't say, you can't say.
I thought it might bepublic information.
But I just know I'll get himon here one of these days.
Wow.
Keaton (44:05):
Yeah, I'll connect you, but he's It's so funny
cause he also like he did thegrind of like building a real
software company that basically,basically it was GHL plus Alpex,
but he paid for all the dev costhimself before GHL was the thing
before Alpex was the thing.
Matt (44:20):
Oh wow.
Keaton (44:21):
And he sold it around the time.
This was all, you know, highlevel started to take off
and I would assume that he'smaking more profit from.
Being an affiliate, then runninghis own software company.
Oh, heck yeah, dude.
Yeah.
Matt (44:37):
Yeah.
If he's the number onehigh level affiliate,
he's making some bang.
Um, and software company, dude.
It's so expensive.
He would have had to reallyhave scaled that software.
Because even Uphex nowis probably, I mean,
anyway, I won't speculate.
Um, incredible.
Okay, so you're running aseven figure YouTube channel
(44:59):
is one way to think about it.
Yeah.
Keaton (45:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, like last month, allin was like 100k, so, if we
Matt (45:07):
And that's
Keaton (45:08):
profit?
That's, I mean, theteam, the team is like,
Like, 5 to 10,depending on the month.
Matt (45:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty crazy.
Um, how much do you makein AdSense off YouTube?
Do you make any money off that?
Keaton (45:24):
Not much.
My AdSense sucks.
3k a month?
Uh huh.
Dang.
What about you?
Matt (45:29):
Like my best month, well, I just set
it up like a month ago.
Keaton (45:33):
Oh, that's so It's yeah,
Matt (45:35):
I haven't made any adsense money at all.
Why don't
Keaton (45:37):
you turn it on?
Matt (45:38):
I was just lazy, bro You know what?
I'm realizing I bet
Keaton (45:41):
I bet you would have had 100k so far
Matt (45:44):
Three and a half million views.
Keaton (45:45):
Yeah
Matt (45:47):
Don't say that to me he and dude, you know
when we did our firstpodcast You made a joke.
You're like, yeah, I don'tmind selling out like you
jokingly said that and Iwas like, you know, what?
I've actually lostso much money.
I've made so much lessmoney not selling out.
And I really am questioning,I really have a question,
(46:10):
like, did peoplereally care that much?
Like, would peoplereally, how many people
would have been like, oh,Matt's selling a course?
Like, a few.
Keaton (46:19):
Yeah.
Matt (46:19):
It would have been a sick course.
Like, I could have, like,would that many people really
have stopped watching me if Istarted promoting high level?
Yeah.
Probably not.
Yeah.
I, I think.
I think I got it wrong,and I want to blame it
on somebody, but I can't.
It's
Keaton (46:38):
not too late.
Matt (46:39):
It's not too late, but I mean, I'm making my move now.
It's just like a yearand a half after.
Yeah, that's true.
And you want to do it whileyou're hot and on the rise, and
Keaton (46:48):
Yeah.
Matt (46:50):
Dude, I lost, I lost, so it's been, it's
It's bittersweet for me tohear, um, how you're doing.
It's incredible.
But I'm also justlike, damn, dude.
I messed up.
So, are you still doing coachingor you're done with coaching
and it's just affiliate?
Keaton (47:08):
Um, I just, like, some stuff has happened personally
where I'm like, I've just beenon being an entrepreneur on
my phone, on calls, on like,available 12 hours a day.
six days a week, maybea little less than that.
Like I, I'm not actuallyworking like hours in
(47:30):
front of a computer.
I'm sure you and everyoneelse blow me away, but
like being available,I'm pretty good at that.
And I have been for a longtime, but that comes at the
cost of like family timeand just being present and
all that kind of thing.
And so we've just been tryingto make a big move towards that.
A
Matt (47:49):
big move towards not having to be 24 7?
Keaton (47:52):
Yeah, just to be, like, be able to take real
time off where you're nothaving to answer anything.
Like, the only time I think I'vedone that in the last two years
are, it's like, uh, probablytwo and a half weeks total
of, in the last five years.
Wow.
No phone, not responding toanything, not doing anything.
(48:14):
And one was my honeymoonand one was just like
a week that I took.
So, um, yeah, I just, I,it got to the point where
I was like, okay, I don'tneed this coaching income.
I mean, not, I'm doingokay financially anyway.
Like I could shut it down, butI, it was just, the juice wasn't
worth the squeeze at the point.
And I didn't want to hirea sales team and scale it
(48:35):
and deal with all of that.
And I also.
Um, was a struggle with thedemands on like me personally
because the way I want torun it, like I want to be
the one talking to people.
Um, and so I'm just regroupingand figuring out what's next
because I do really enjoy it.
But, um, you don't
Matt (48:53):
even need it, right?
I mean, like, no, I
Keaton (48:55):
don't, but I, I, it's good for another
Matt (48:58):
20 K a month.
It's kind of like, whytake on the stress,
Keaton (49:01):
dude?
Yeah, it keeps me sharp.
Like I can talk to people, I'mdealing with real problems.
I'm seeing what's going on andI can kind of pattern match
that and help other people.
Um, it exposes me to newideas, which I really enjoy.
Um, but I've, you know,I've been doing it.
I've done coaching almost sinceprobably the second year of
(49:22):
the agency, just cause peoplestarted to reach out and
not full time by any means.
But yeah, it just got to thepoint where this same stuff
that used to bring me, um,Tons of joy was like starting
to feel kind of monotonous andlike I'm like I think I just
need a break from this andthen I'll come back and we'll
figure out what the structureand the model looks like because
(49:43):
I love talking to smart peopleabout what they're doing and
Helping them and there's somuch unlock that can happen
in a single consulting sessionthat that's like I live off
that I really thrive off.
You enjoy it.
Yeah, and I do that with theaffiliates like I just this
morning We did a 90 minutecall and like it's just free if
you're an affiliate you come on.
Smart.
That's once a month.
(50:03):
Um, and then I bringon a guest as well.
But like
Matt (50:08):
How many affiliates do you have?
Keaton (50:10):
Um, I don't know if this number is accurate but the high
level dashboard is like 650.
I
Matt (50:18):
feel like it could be even more.
Keaton (50:19):
Yeah, I think, well there's a sub
affiliates as well.
Right.
And I, I, I don't trust thatnumber on the dashboard.
Matt (50:27):
That's sick dude.
Okay.
So let's talk aboutaffiliate marketing, I
guess a little bit becausethis is something you've.
I mean, you've reached likethe top 1 percent of the
top 1 percent of affiliatemarketers, dude, 80k a month.
It's just, it's incredible.
And I, I have so much moreappreciation for the affiliate
business model after seeing whatyou and like Thomas have done.
(50:47):
I've never took affiliatemarketing seriously.
I always thought pyramidscheme, BS, scam, like
stay away from it.
Until I saw what Thomas did withhis YouTube channel and just
like blew up and then, you know,created this value Offer that
all tied back to the softwareand then went on to like he just
crossed a freaking million uhin affiliate income and then
(51:10):
on like I didn't realize youwere a high level affiliate
king like that until like acouple months ago, actually.
So then I saw, I waslike, oh wait, Keaton's
crushing this too.
Um, Jason Wardrop, who I've beenwatching for like ever, right?
He's been, he's an OGin the agency space.
In the real estate space.
In the real estate space too.
Keaton (51:28):
Yeah.
Matt (51:29):
And so I'm just seeing all these guys crushing.
I'm like, okay, maybe this isa business model that should be
taken very seriously Especiallywith how content is starting
to become Really the the oil ofof the world is attention now.
And so people can either buildtheir own products or they
can make money Affiliating forbeing affiliated with other
(51:49):
products, which is really whatLogan Paul is with like prime
Keaton (51:52):
Yeah,
Matt (51:53):
it's really just a glorified affiliate
who has a percentagein the business, right?
You Um, and so I want peopleto take this seriously and
I want to humble myself andtake this seriously because I
used to not and now, uh, I'vecompletely changed and it's,
it's cool to hear your story on,on how much success you've had.
So, okay, what, what areyour biggest tips to being a
(52:17):
successful affiliate marketer?
Is it just simply figure outcontent or is there more to it?
Like, how do you make moneywith affiliate marketing?
Keaton (52:23):
Yeah, so the first thing I'd say.
Is that from a lifestyleperspective, I don't think
there's a better model.
Like you don't haveto build the product.
You don't have to servicethe product afterwards or
service to people on it.
And like, I love poor Mosey,love his content, but a lot of
his stuff is just like more andmore and more, like how can you
(52:45):
get more people to work for you?
More customers.
So then there'll be moreviews and then you get more
customers and you have moreevents and like, you're
just making more money.
And I'm like, dude, I'm tired.
three sentences into what youjust said, like I, I'm tired
and I didn't even do the work.
And I'm, I'm just kind of likeslow and methodical like that.
And I, I know hopefullyeveryone listening to this
(53:07):
podcast knows how importantrecurring revenue is.
Like from a psychologicalstandpoint, being able to count
on next month being X amountor whatever, And starting
there versus starting at zerowith a lot of like high ticket
coaching stuff, even though youmay be making and potentially
profiting more than me, you'vestill got to start at zero
(53:29):
and like chase people down andlike manage your sales team
and all that kind of thing.
Um, and certainly agencies arelike, there's just more to do
in service and worse margins.
So.
If that's attractive to youand you're more of a lifestyle
type person, then I wouldhighly consider focusing on
(53:53):
being an affiliate marketerbecause it is actually, it's,
it's kind of like going towork in like software sales
except you don't have to havea boss breathing down your
neck and you can sell at scale.
Um, at its core, affiliatemarketing is just, Hey,
I had a story that helpedme get onto this product.
(54:19):
And this product can also helpyou in the way that it helped
me and all of these other peopleuse my link and maybe nothing or
use my link and I'll help you.
Um, I think People don'tunderstand how much the software
space has changed affiliatemarketing because it used to
be just one off commission,
Matt (54:39):
right?
Now highlight high levelschange the game, dude.
Yeah
Keaton (54:42):
Yeah But even like like click funnels did it
before they made a couple inmy opinion bad moves about how
they handled the switch fromClick funnels classic to 2.
0 like resetting that wholeaffiliate thing like people that
had been really really loyalto them Got a sour taste in
their mouth because they Theywere like, okay, free for all.
(55:03):
Like you can stealeverybody else's affiliates
when they go to 2.
0.
And I think a lot of othersoftware companies will
be like, if you haven'treferred someone in the last
two years, then we're goingto cut your commissions.
Uh, convert kit, forexample, is commissions
for only two years, whichobviously is fair, but like.
(55:24):
There are companies likeHigh Level, uh, System.
io is another one, that aregiving lifetime, it's like
baked into their contracts,it's baked into their sale
contracts, like it is, it is assure as affiliate revenue can
get, like I understand that,you know, it's not as, um, good
(55:44):
as owning your own revenue,but like, let's be honest,
if you're an influencer, Theplatform could shut you down at
any time like I don't even seewhat I do as entrepreneurship.
Like I just see it as likethis weird money glitch on
the internet I can do money.
You've discovered the infinitemoney glitch, bro What the heck?
(56:05):
But it's it's true, right?
Like it's it's just don'ttake yourself too seriously.
Like all you're doingis referring people.
So Like, yeah, you have abusiness yard, you're an
entrepreneur, but like,you're not really like
don't reinvent the wheel.
Just talk about what you'regood at talking about and then
say, Hey, here's the value.
Matt (56:22):
So you still kind of need to get that experience
in entrepreneurship first tohave something to talk about.
Like, don't you need to havesome sort of credibility
for someone to watch whatyou're, what do you think?
Cause there's also peopleon high level who just like
started off making Tik Toksand now make seven figures a
year and they've never builta business in their life.
Keaton (56:40):
Yeah.
Matt (56:41):
Except for the one they have, which is literally better
than 99 percent of businesses,which is just affiliate.
Keaton (56:46):
Yeah.
Fortunately or unfortunately,no, you don't have to.
And some people like,like I, one of my mentors
posted this the otherday, I really liked it.
He's like the fact thatthe coach makes more money
coaching agency owners than theagency makes being an agency.
Matt (57:06):
It's the point.
Keaton (57:08):
I don't make the rules, but this is,
this is how it works.
And it used to bother me.
I used to be like,it's not right.
It's this like MLM slash thisincestuous community where
everybody's just buying fromeach other and all of this.
And then I zoomed out andI was like, that's all the
corporate world is like, there'sfive more zeros after it.
(57:29):
And yeah, I don't like, it'sjust, this money is going to to
get thrown around anyway, youmay as well take a piece of it.
And if respect matters moreto you than just like a
monthly paycheck, then sure.
Like really go down theentrepreneurship route because
(57:49):
there are people that won'trespect you as much because
you haven't built a realbusiness and they'll talk
about you behind your back.
And
Matt (57:56):
does that happen to you?
Keaton (57:57):
I'm not saying to me, but you've
Matt (57:59):
actually built a real business.
Keaton (58:01):
Yeah.
But like even in the grandscheme of things, like my
business was quote real,but it wasn't that big.
You know, the salewasn't insanely.
You've
Matt (58:09):
already made more from affiliate.
Keaton (58:10):
Yeah, exactly.
Like profit wise, I don't know.
Profit.
Yeah.
Profit wise, probablyjust barely crossed that.
But, um, like,I don't know, like there's,
there's a lot to be said forjust like giving the middle
finger to everybody and likedoing what feels right for you.
Um, even if.
(58:32):
You know, it's not technicallyillegal, but it's it feels
a little bit unethical.
It feels a little bit sleazylike I'm not condoning that.
I'm just saying
Matt (58:42):
what affiliate marketing can feel sleazy.
Keaton (58:44):
I'm I'm saying if someone's never built an agency
Matt (58:47):
Oh, yeah, they're like, oh do I deserve to push this?
Keaton (58:49):
Yeah.
I mean it's better than acoaching program probably.
Matt (58:52):
Yeah Yeah, I mean my thought is
Affiliate marketing, in the waythat you're doing it, I don't
see how it could be unethical.
Like, people can cancel anytime.
Keaton (59:05):
Yeah, I don't feel it's unethical for me.
I'm just saying,you're saying like Even
Matt (59:08):
if you don't have a business, even if you never
built a business, Affiliatemarketing in general, if you
get somebody to sign up fora software that they enjoy,
you're just, you're Essentiallyan outsourced marketing
representative of the company.
Keaton (59:20):
Yeah,
Matt (59:21):
like you you are just that's your form of
payment You're marketingCongratulations, you've
figured out what a lot ofpeople get paid a hundred
two hundred thousand dollarsa year to go do it corporate
Keaton (59:31):
Yeah
Matt (59:31):
companies is oh, let's figure out.
How can we get people tosign up for our service
or product online?
You've just figured thatout and your payment
is performance based.
Keaton (59:40):
Yeah,
Matt (59:40):
that's really what it is You're a performance based
marketing representativefor a high level or for
you know Point wise or forwhatever software or company.
No, it's it's yeah, Idon't Yeah, I don't think
it's unethical at all.
I don't even think coachingprograms are unethical.
I think there's just bad Peoplein all areas and they ruin the
(01:00:00):
taste in everybody's mouth.
Keaton (01:00:02):
This is what it is.
I heard it today It'snot the coaching.
It's the promises.
It's not the affiliatemarketing It's the promises
and high levels crackingdown on this big time.
Like they're they're like,hey You can't claim this
like don't or don't directlycompare us just like they
do on those ads like Cloroxwipes versus the competitor
(01:00:24):
like they don't put the logosof the competitor, right?
And You Um, but like whatbothers me, I don't, I don't
have a problem with somebodynot building an agency
and pushing high level.
I do have a problem withmake 500 a day overnight
with this one softwarethat's beginner friendly.
Like it's just, and,and, and high level is
(01:00:46):
cracking down on it.
That's good.
Yeah,
Matt (01:00:48):
that's good that they are.
Yeah.
Um, I've noticed you takethe anti approach to that
too, which is like, You saidsomething in one of your videos
about like, Hey, I hope youraffiliate didn't tell you
this was going to be easy.
And I was like, I like that.
That's like, that's likewhat I do with the gurus.
I'm like, I hope you, yourcourse seller didn't tell
you an agency was going tomake you rich in 30 days.
(01:01:08):
So it's kind of the same thing.
Now it's fun.
It's like the affiliatemarketing world is now, I
guess, well, it's always beenkind of like the biz op world
in general, people makingcrazy claims and promises.
Keaton (01:01:20):
But there's, there's so many, I mean, if you,
if you happen to chooseaffiliate marketing as your
very first venture, there's,there's plenty of people that
do that and build up likeinsane businesses doing that.
Like they're just livingin the shadows of like
these people that areselling, you know, a hundred
million dollar companies.
Like for every one of those,there's this other guy that
(01:01:43):
like, Spends eight hoursa day on his hobbies and
two hours a day working.
And it's pretty incredible.
Yeah.
He's, he's made, he's beenmaking a full time income for 10
years and like, he just sort offell into it and like, there's,
there's all these niches, likewhatever you want to push dog
food, whatever it is, likethere's a way to promote an
affiliate product doing it.
(01:02:04):
And, um, I think it's,it's becoming a really
good way to get started.
And.
It's also, because a lot ofthem are microtransactions, it
teaches you a lot more aboutgenerating a customer via the
internet versus having to gothrough sales calls, which a
lot of agency stuff happens togo through, and you're like,
(01:02:25):
oh, it's not worth it to dosomething that's low ticket
like that, but like, I'd ratherlearn how to generate a hundred
low ticket sales without everhaving to talk to someone
than doing one high ticket.
Sale and always havingto be chained to the
desk in terms of sales.
Matt (01:02:40):
It is a really good point.
That's what's so attractive tome about software in general.
Um, as much as I want to bethe guy who like builds the a
hundred million dollar company,I, I a hundred percent get
the appeal of, Hey, let's, youknow, let's sell the shovel
instead of digging for the gold.
(01:03:01):
Right.
And it makes a lot of sense.
And uh, it's reallycool to hear more about.
Um, Anything, any final wordsof wisdom that you'd like
to leave people with or,um, any final areas you
would want to take this?
Keaton (01:03:20):
I would say give yourself permission to do
what's right for you andstop deferring to your guru.
Matt (01:03:29):
Wow.
Dude, I think that's likethe perfect summary of
this podcast, honestly.
Keaton (01:03:35):
Yeah, yeah, because it's
Matt (01:03:38):
Wow.
Keaton (01:03:38):
Like, for me, as I look into the future, I don't
I'm finding more and more Idon't care about building the
multi million dollar company.
I don't care about the big sale.
Like, I'm interested in havingconversations like this,
building real connections.
I'm planning on moving backto my home state, and I want
to start a podcast that's likeInterviews with entrepreneurs
(01:04:02):
from my home state.
So it's just all aroundthat community aspect, like
community, um, people thatyou can be yourself around
and like a steady high incomepaycheck that doesn't require
you to be slaving behinda desk every single day.
Like those three things,you'd be pretty happy.
(01:04:24):
You'll be able to figure outmost things in your life.
But I know a lotof people who are.
Rich and have no community.
And that's like, if you want toavoid that day where you wake
up and you have all the moneyin the world, but you're not
happy, it has a lot to do withwho you surround yourself with.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm moreinterested in building
(01:04:45):
in the next 10, 20 yearsof my life than a multi
bajillion dollar company.
Matt (01:04:52):
I respect it, dude.
I respect it.
I respect the way you'rebuilding your business and the
way you're building your life.
To be honest, it'svery, very cool.
Yeah.
And I hope people will haveenlightened perspectives.
Uh, and Layton's a strongword, but you know what I
mean enhanced perspectivesfrom this conversation.
Thanks, man.
And uh, Yeah, guys keaton'syoutube will be linked below
(01:05:14):
Instagram got instagraminstagram will be linked below
um ghl affiliate link And youknow i'll put your ghl affiliate
link in here if we also put inyour point wise affiliate link.
All right, sounds
Keaton (01:05:28):
good
Matt (01:05:30):
Oh, no, we guys check the links below to check
out keaton's, uh, youtubechannel and Hope you guys
got some value out of this.
We're out.
Much love.
Peace.
Don't follow your guru,follow your dreams.
Well, that was cool.
It's such a, it's somuch different than any.
You know how my buddy Elijahmade one of his agency clients
(01:05:52):
a hundred thousand dollars intheir first 30 days with him?
All he did was he ranyour normal Facebook
and Instagram ads.
He used to go high level Butthen he implemented the software
called appoint wise to nurtureall of the leads for the
client So appoint wise uses AItechnology and what Elijah set
it up to do Is engage qualifyand book the leads for the
(01:06:13):
client on their behalf and itworks so well The client made
a hundred grand in the first30 days So if you guys want to
see how it works check it outThe link is in the description
below if you're not using thisfor your clients right now
You're missing out and yourclients are missing out, too
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