Franchise businesses often come with a built-in brand, but success isn’t automatic. In this episode, we dive into the world of franchise marketing with Marcus Slater, founder and CEO of AdCloud, a digital marketing powerhouse helping franchise owners achieve real, measurable growth.
Marcus shares why most franchise owners struggle with marketing, how to think like a true growth hacker, and how his team is leveraging AI for lead conversion. If you’re looking to scale your business, this episode is packed with takeaways on marketing, mindset, and AI-driven customer engagement.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to think like a growth hacker—why testing everything leads to scalable success
📉 Why most franchise owners fail at marketing (and how to avoid their mistakes)
🤖 AI-powered lead engagement—how Marcus is automating customer conversions with AI
📊 The difference between marketing tactics vs. a real marketing strategy
⚡ Why cutting marketing is the worst thing a struggling business can do
📈 The mindset shift that separates successful franchisees from struggling ones
📝 About Marcus Slater
Marcus Slater is a growth marketing and technology leader with over 13 years of experience driving customer acquisition and revenue growth for some of the largest franchise brands and emerging startups in the U.S. As the founder and CEO of AdCloud, Marcus specializes in tailored digital marketing solutions for franchise businesses, helping brands like Deka Lash, beem light sauna, Frenchies, F45 Training and more achieve significant growth.
His work has been recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, and The New York Times, and he was named Marketing Icon of the Year by OnCon20.
Marcus is passionate about bringing clarity to marketing strategies, leveraging technology to drive results, and scaling businesses through innovative approaches.
🎯 Marcus’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
👉 “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Marcus believes that resilience and adaptability are the ultimate keys to entrepreneurial success. Too many business owners give up too soon or hesitate to pivot when things aren’t working. Instead of fearing failure, test everything, adapt quickly, and remove ego from decision-making.
📢 Memorable Quotes
💬 “The smartest entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who think they have all the answers. They’re the ones who test everything.” – Marcus Slater
💬 “Cutting marketing when your business is struggling is like trying to save money by turning off your oxygen.” – Marcus Slater
💬 “If you can’t measure it, you shouldn’t be running it.” – Marcus Slater
💡 Actionable Takeaways
✅ Stop guessing in your marketing—use data to make decisions
✅ Test multiple strategies at once to find what really works
✅ Leverage AI to automate and improve customer engagement
✅ Prioritize long-term brand growth over short-term wins
🔗 Links & Resources
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what is up?
Welcome to this episode of theWantrepreneur to Entrepreneur
podcast.
As always, I'm your host, brianLofermento, and I am so very
excited for today's episode andparticularly today's guest,
because this is someone who notonly is a brilliant entrepreneur
and marketer, but he's sogenerous about uplifting others
and helping other people growtheir businesses, and what I
(00:22):
really love is that he does itin some very innovative and
different ways, because heoperates in a very difficult
world, which is the franchiseworld, among others, where you
have to really stand out fromthe millions of other options
that consumers have.
So let me introduce you totoday's guest.
His name is Marcus Slater.
Marcus is a growth marketingand technology leader with over
(00:43):
13 years of experience drivingcustomer acquisition and revenue
growth for some of the largestfranchise brands and emerging
startups in the US.
As the founder and CEO ofAdCloud, marcus specializes in
tailored digital marketingsolutions for franchise
businesses, helping brands likeBeamlight, sauna, frenchies, f45
Training and so many moreachieve significant growth.
(01:04):
And, trust me, as someone who'sresearched his business and his
work, his clients love him.
We're going to get a little bitof his secret sauce here in
today's episode.
His work has been recognized byEntrepreneur Magazine, forbes
and the New York Times, and hewas named Marketing Icon of the
Year by OnCon20.
That is, I've looked deep intothe history of that award and
they recognize so manyincredible entrepreneurs
(01:26):
throughout the years, so Marcusis someone who he's also going
to shed a few insights.
This is what I'm really excitedabout.
I'm going to tease it at thetop of this episode about how
he's using AI in very differentways when it comes to engaging
with leads.
This is an episode that's goingto help all of our businesses.
I'm excited about it, so I'mnot going to say anything else.
Let's dive straight into myinterview with Marcus Slater.
(01:48):
All right, marcus, I am so veryexcited that you're here with
us today.
First things first.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thanks, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Heck.
Yes, you've got a lot to liveup to from the intro that I've
primed our audience with aboutyou.
So, first things first, take usbeyond the bio.
Who's Marcus?
How'd you start doing all thesecool things?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
man, you know, for me , I just really, you know, I
came from a world of justfiguring it out.
I, you know, came up just indifferent industry, found
mentors and things in thatnature, and I've always just had
a knack for just, you know,kind of get it done, figure it
out, how do we get to the nextstep, how do we become better?
How do we growth?
(02:33):
Hack different things Reallyacross it.
There wasn't anything you couldput in front of me, whether
that was as a child, growing upinto my adult years, of like
that.
I wouldn't try to just figureit out and just say there's got
to be a way.
You can't tell me no, right,figure it out and just say
there's got to be a way.
You can't tell me no.
And so naturally that juststarted to lead into I've always
been an entrepreneur at heart.
(02:53):
I always wanted to grow things,build things, and I got into
doing that personally my owncompanies, things in that nature
.
But then that expanded intofranchising and figuring out
okay, how do we help otherpeople grow, how do we make
other people's dreams come true,right, especially in the world
of franchising?
When we look at you know, youhave all of these people that
are, you know, emptying outtheir 401ks to invest in this
business because they're lookingforward for retirement and all
(03:15):
of these types of things, andthey get into it and they're
like man, marketing is reallyhard Like I thought it was
buying into something that wasjust going to work and now
they've risked their 401k andthey're like I've got to figure
this out.
And we really wanted to build acompany that was true to itself
, true to its clients and wassolely focused on making sure
(03:37):
that every franchisee businessowner has the opportunity to
experience that dream of havingthat ongoing revenue, that
safety net, so that they canmove into retirement and do
those things and exit corporateAmerica.
And that's really what's at theheart and soul of AdCloud and
what we do and what we try tolive up to daily.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I love that overview, marcus, especially
because right there, right here,off the bat, you've already
exposed the fact that you are abuilder.
You have that entrepreneurialDNA all the way down to your
bones.
You used a term there that Idon't think I've heard in about
10 years, marcus.
It was all the rage 10 yearsago, and that is growth hacking.
People used to always bragabout being growth hackers, but
I feel like, because peoplerealize it's not as easy as they
(04:19):
once thought, it has thensplintered into so many other
ways.
People have become obsessedwith marketing funnels and
traffic generation and paidadvertising all of these things
that go into growth hacking.
But you are someone who trulyis obsessed with growth.
So what the heck does growthhacking mean to you?
Because you're clearly a growthhacker by nature.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean, I think naturally right.
I'll say for me personally, Ithink, as our kind of motto in
the night cloud is just nevergiving up, we're always looking
for the edge, always looking forthe next thing.
Everyone in the office willtell you.
I always say there's no silverbullet in marketing.
You can build a funnel and fail, and I've done it.
I've built thousands of funnelsand they failed, but I had one
(05:00):
that worked.
All of those things, and sowhen I look really into the core
of what growth hacking is, it'snot one in particular, like I
am the, I think, for everyone.
Right?
I'll give you the secret To bethe best growth hacker ever in
the world, whatever you want tocall it.
All you have to do is keeptesting and trying and
understand data.
If you can understand data, itwill guide you and give you this
(05:24):
kind of visual pathway of whatyou should be doing, how you
should pivot, what your nexttest should be.
And you should always betesting.
You shouldn't say, hey, I'vegot test one here and test two.
You should have test onethrough 100.
And you know down the line howyou're going to test those
things.
Rather than being reactive, wetry to be extremely proactive
and plan out 6, 8, 12 months inadvance of what we're going to
(05:46):
do, what we're going to try, thegood ideas and the bad ideas
and, most importantly, beingopen and being okay to fail,
because if you fail, you've nowlearned what not to do and now
you can fix that.
And I think so many marketersin the field feel like they have
to deliver the perfect resultupfront, and I don't think
marketers in the field feel likethey have to deliver the
perfect result up front, and Idon't think that's the case.
We're very transparent with ourclients.
(06:09):
We may come in and maybe notdeliver the perfect result in 7
days, but what we are going todo is help you figure out how to
find it where it is.
And then how do we amplify that?
Through testing, becausethey're in the same boat.
They're just as confused.
They're sitting there andthey're like I have no idea what
to do, I don't know where toget clients from or, more often
(06:30):
than not, where are they comingfrom, and so we really try to
dive into the basics of it.
Sometimes it's going back tothe basics of marketing, because
everyone sees all theflashiness of marketing and all
the people that are out theredoing videos and all of those
types of things, and sometimesyou just have to reset and go
back to the basics and say, okay, it's one to one, this platform
(06:52):
drives X, this platform drivesthis, and then how do we figure
out how to amplify that?
And so, for growth hacking,it's really just that assurance
of like, hey, every day that weclock in, we are going to try
something new, try somethingdifferent, test it.
We're going to look at the dataand we're going to figure out
does this work, does this not?
(07:12):
And what is our next step?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, gosh, marcus, I love that attitude towards
marketing.
There's two things I reallywant to call out for listeners,
the first of which is you mademe think of that old chess adage
of you either win or you learn.
You don't view failure as oneof those things.
And the second thing is Ireally love and admire your
acknowledgement for the factthat you don't have the answers.
You're just willing to putenough things out there that you
(07:35):
will find the answers, and tome, the more entrepreneurs that
I talk to and the longer thatI've been in business myself,
that's what I realize is thesmartest, the most successful
entrepreneurs are the ones thatdon't believe that they have the
answers.
So huge kudos to you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, one, yeah, 1000%.
One thing I always say, likeI've been blessed to sit at the
table with many great minds andgreat people and people at the
top of their game and all ofthose things.
But I always say, like,especially up and comers is like
, listen, everyone at that sametable, right, like, as great as
you think they are, there aresome really smart people there.
(08:12):
And then there are some peoplewho just got lucky, and then
there's some people who justtried and tried and tried and
they made it work.
And so I always say it's all amatter of perspective.
It's all a matter ofperspective and where you are
continuing to try that and notalways feeling like, oh, you've
got to figure that out.
And that goes for the businessowner side too.
As a business owner, right, likeyou feel like you've got to
come in and know all of thesethings and that, hey, you've got
(08:32):
to be, you've got to be all ofthese things and and just to be
at that level.
And it's not always true andthe grass is not always greener
on the other side.
But you know, the same appliesto marketing and just really
fine-tuning and figuring outwhere you are the best in what
you can do.
And also I think it's okay toadmit to yourself hey, we're not
(08:53):
great at everything, maybe wedon't do it.
It's a big reason why we focusin franchising, because I had a
career in franchising and soit's an industry that I know
really, really well the insidesand outs and especially
membership revenue, and so it'swhy we don't venture outside of
that, because I may not be thebest at marketing, uh, you know,
uh, an e-commerce brand, at-shirt brand, something in that
(09:16):
nature.
So just finding that industrythat really drives you to
continue growth and I think mostpeople find success in that and
growing their businesses.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, really well said, and I do want to go there
with you because I love the factthat you gave that illustration
of what we view typicalfranchise owners as someone who
dumps their life savings, their401ks.
Maybe they've had a greatcareer and they think well, I'm
smart, I've been competent in myjob, I'm just going to start a
franchise and collect my moneyevery single month.
You talk about that silverbullet that people expect in
business, in marketing, and, Iwould imagine, a lot in
(09:48):
franchising.
It seems to me, marcus, themore that I looked into the work
that you do, that you actuallydo help people recognize that
successful view of what theyhope franchising will be.
I read one of your clienttestimonials.
It was a guy who owns an F45gym and he raves about the fact
that you achieve real growth forthem.
What's so hard about thatfranchise model?
Why is it not the silver bulletthat people expect when they
(10:10):
get into it?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean F45, you know it's fitness, right, and
that is fitness.
The fitness industry is justtough in the sense of every
corner that you go to, right,there's a gym and there's a gym
of different tiers.
Right, you have the PlanetFitness of the world.
You have the F45, a higher tier.
You have what we call likemixed hit, right, so you have
(10:33):
boxing and hit workouts.
There's all of these differentoptions.
And it's funny I was just havingthis conversation the other day
with a brand and just saying,like, in fitness, you have to
think like everyone who'sinterested, think about yourself
, I'll put myself on the linehere, right, and be vulnerable a
little bit.
Right, when you're like, hey,I'm going to, it's Sunday,
monday's my day, right, I'mstarting the diet, I'm doing all
(10:56):
these things.
It's such an instantaneous likeI am starting this, I want to
work out now, and so when you'relooking for that gym, right,
and you're looking for thesethings, you have to be as the
brand and as your the businessowner and f45, whatever that is,
you have to be at the forefrontof them, being able to find,
you, understand what you do,what you offer, what it costs
(11:17):
and how to join really quickly,because how many times have we
all said I'm starting tomorrow,right, I'm starting my diet,
fitness journey, all of thesethings?
Tomorrow something bad happensand we can't at all.
So you know, within like threeminutes, you have to be able to
attract that and that's what wetalk about, like brand awareness
and making sure that the firstthing that someone thinks about
(11:37):
when they think fitness, we wantthem to think F45, gallatin or
F45 wherever you are, and it'sthat simple thing.
I mean, fitness is is just oneof those those things where it's
it's just constant turn andyou're trying to figure out.
Um, you know, and obviously youcan find a little bit better
baselines across otherindustries we, you know, we
focus primarily in the kind ofbeauty, health, wellness,
(11:58):
fitness industries, but in inbeauty, it averages out a little
better.
But in fitness, yeah, it's atough one and it's constant
changing and testing Everythingfrom.
You'll see every gym do 7-dayintro offers or things like that
.
We test everything from 3-day,7-day, 13-day, 15-day, all of
those things, because it's amental game with the consumer
(12:20):
and really figuring out at thispoint in time, what is it that's
connecting with them, what isthat unique filler that's going
to get them to come in and try aclass, all of those things.
And then you have to get overhurdles, like, hey, the first
week you're going to be reallysore, you're probably not going
to like us that much, but thesecond week you're going to
start to see results and you'regoing to feel a little better.
So you have to make it intothat what we call, like, the
(12:43):
addictive week, and that's whenthat workout starts to become a
little bit more addictive andyou've made some friends in the
studio.
Um, so there is a long playgame when it was especially in
the fitness world.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, marcus, hearing you talk about that, we've all
been there where we convinceourselves.
This Monday we're going tostart doing X, y, z.
I want to know about thatcatalyst and that spark for
these business owners andfranchise owners that you help.
What's that catalyst?
Because I would imagine I'm nota franchise owner myself, but I
would imagine a lot of them,when they open their franchise
location, they think, oh, thefranchise is going to back me
(13:14):
with all the marketinginitiatives that I need and I'm
not going to need any of thatexternal help.
Obviously you have plugged thatgap for so many franchise
businesses across thoseindustries.
Where's that gap?
What?
What is the point at which theyrealize, hold on, we need a
marcus in ad cloud to step inand really help us achieve that
growth.
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Unfortunately, a lot of times it's um, it's, it's a
little too, too late, not in abad way, but it's at the end.
It's like they've tried all ofthese things.
They've tried to diy it.
Maybe corporates tried to helpand fill in the gap.
I think what's important tounderstand about corporate
franchise entities is they'remanaging 100, 200 locations and
(13:54):
they're not on the groundlocally.
They may not understand thelocal market.
Their marketing teams are 3 to10 people.
That's hard, naturally right tobalance that out and say hey,
we're going to have the bestresults across the board when we
have this limited manpower andteam and all of those types of
things.
And so a lot of times whenclients come to us, they're like
(14:16):
hey.
Or they're referred to us likehey, we've been struggling for
six months, we're at the end ofour rope, our cash flow is
burning really quickly, we needsomeone to save us or we've got
to close up shop, and I've heardthat story too many times.
And again, it's one of thosethings that we really try to
(14:38):
educate, because we want tochange that, we want to
transition that mindset.
Franchising is fun, it can befun, it can change your life.
I have many friends who havegone into franchising and it has
completely changed their lifefor the better.
They end up owning 50, 60different units, things in that
nature, but I would say that'sabout 10% of them.
(14:59):
For the rest of them, there isthis natural struggle because
they think that, hey, if I go inand I buy this brand that
exists, it should almost runitself.
It should.
People I always say the oldnotion build it and they will
come.
That is long gone.
It doesn't exist anymore.
With social media and yourexposure rate, that stuff just
(15:22):
doesn't exist anymore.
So they get into it and they'relike gosh, this is a lot harder
than I thought.
So they get into it and they'relike gosh, this is a lot harder
than I thought.
And so they start to reach outonce the wick is burned and
they're like okay, someone's gotto either save us or we've got
to close up shop.
And that's usually when we stepin.
No, not all the time.
There's a lot of referrals thatcome in.
(15:42):
The people that join iCloud fromthe very beginning Like, hey,
we're launching, we want tolaunch strong.
They understand the importanceof having strong marketing but,
to be honest, there's a mindsetthat I haven't quite landed and
understood.
Yet I always say, like inbusinesses, the first thing when
things go south, the firstthing they always cut is
marketing.
Right Now, the first.
(16:03):
Why would you cut the firstthing, the first thing, the only
thing that's probably drivingin growth, that should be
driving in growth, that iscreating that exposure.
But I think it's just thatthere's a mentality in the
business world of like, oh,we're not growing, we should cut
the one thing that is actuallymaybe bringing in a few, maybe
it's not bringing in enough, andyou can pivot.
But I've seen so many peoplesay, oh, we're not going to
spend this month because we needto see some type of ROI and not
(16:27):
have ad spend going out.
And so again, I think there'sjust an educational gap in
business ownership.
And, like I said, you have tothink about who franchises.
It's normally people who havebeen 9 to 5 in corporate America
, which is fantastic, butthey've never been in the nitty
(16:52):
gritty of being an entrepreneurand having to fight day in and
day out with every fire andeverything you have to put out,
and it's exhausting.
Not everyone is built for thatlife.
And then at the end of the daywhen you think everything's done
but what's the one thing youhave to think about how do I
grow more tomorrow?
And so that becomes really,really difficult and you have to
have some endurance to be ableto get through that.
And I would say a fair amountdon't.
(17:14):
But the ones who are learningare shipping it out to AdCloud
and other agencies and things inthat nature and they're finding
that success and that thatinvestment is far worth it.
And I think at AdCloud weobviously do things a little
differently and we have AIintegrated and we have leveraged
technology to maximize what wecan do for the clients, and so
(17:35):
there's a huge benefit there andwe're just getting started.
We're just getting started, butour goal is just to really
educate every franchise unitthat hey, there is a way to do
this and to do it right and tonot be playing catch up every
month of the year.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, marcus, you call out something there that I
think is so important for everysingle business owner to
understand, which is that pointyou made about the fact that a
lot of people cut marketing, andwhat I have found is that
people really struggle tounderstand the difference
between marketing tactics andhaving an overarching marketing
strategy, and so what a lot ofthem do is they jump straight to
tactics and they say, okay,I've heard that Facebook ads
(18:12):
works, I'm going to throw moneyat Facebook ads and they don't
get instant results and ofcourse, they they throw in the
towel.
And so I want to ask you aboutthat delicate balance, because
to me, looking at your businessand the type of marketing mind
that you have, that's somethingthat I think really separates
the way that you think and theway that you operate, and that
is that blend of strategy andtactics.
Talk to us about the importantdifference there and how you
(18:34):
start to install a strategy thatwill help the tactics actually
work for your clients.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, I mean, I think market research is, you know,
at the very top right, there'sso many people that it'll go and
, just like you said, they'lldump cash into Facebook ads or
the worst thing I've ever heardboosting posts Right and like
the there, there's no strategybehind it, there's no like.
It's just like, hey, let's justpublish this and let's hope
that something happens, right.
(19:01):
And so many times I hear, well,we, we spent $500 a month
boosting posts, but and you know, and we had some people come in
, but we're not sure if that'swhere they came from or where
they came from.
And I always say, if you can'tmeasure it, you shouldn't be
running it, because then youhave no way to amplify.
Maybe it did work, but you haveno way to amplify that and make
it successful over the next 12months.
(19:21):
And so for us, it's alwaysmarket research.
What are the competitors doing?
Where are they?
Where are they advertising?
And you've probably heard thisright, you don't have to
reinvent the wheel 90% of thetime.
If you have a competitor that'smuch larger than you in your
space, go and research wherethey are, what they're doing,
what platforms they're spendingon.
(19:42):
With recent changes on socialmedia, you can go and see what
any brand at any moment isrunning for ads.
Now, this is not to say, hey,go and copy what they're doing.
This is just to give you anidea of like hey, this is what
they're running, this is thetype of offer they're running
All of these types of things andit can help guide your strategy
(20:03):
for your brand and where youmarket.
So we do a lot of marketresearch to understand placement
and where budgets should be.
And if we see someone spendinghigher on Google, then we
naturally float that way becausethat tells us that more than
likely, that's where we're goingto get a better return from.
Again, we're testers at heart.
(20:24):
We will test everything, thegood ideas and the bad ideas,
because I've had many bad ideasactually end up working.
So we try to keep our opinionsout of it.
Like you know, like in thesense of like I have a lot of
things where I'm like I thinkthis will work and this is
probably what will work, justfor my historical.
But I never skip over thebasics of strategy.
(20:45):
To jump straight to my opinionof well, this is how it should
be done.
I always keep it open.
I say let's test everything.
It's fine if we lose a fewdollars, because then we at
least have solid answers.
I see too many times wherepeople will be stuck on this one
idea and they're like this isthe only way it works.
And they get 6 months down theroad and they're like, oh, I
(21:06):
wish we would have tested that.
And what I say is the one thingyou can never get back is time
right In the business world andin your personal life, but you
can't make up for a lost sixmonths.
It's really, really difficult,and unless you have a really
good cash flow archive, you'regoing to run into trouble.
And so we try to testeverything up front so we can
(21:28):
learn fast, act faster and buildmore and really create scalable
growth, hyper growth.
All of these things are great,but we want scalable, long-term
branding, marketing growth sothat'll last that brand for 5,
10, 15 years down the road,until they can get acquired or
sell, whatever that thing may be.
That their end goal in life,versus the quick pickup of this
(21:52):
month was great, but next monthis really terrible.
So, again, I think it's justmore so diving in and
understanding the market,understanding the needs and
removing your own personalpreference as the business owner
too, your own personalpreference as the business owner
too, to say, like you know,here's a perfect example you
have a house that you grew up inand you remodeled it and you
(22:14):
did all those things and youthink this house is worth $2
million.
Your agent says this house isworth.
Or the market says this houseis worth $500,000, right, that
is a.
And we see that in businessowners.
They come in and they're sopassionate about this and the
product and the service and allthese things and they think that
everyone should pay $200, youknow for this specific service
(22:37):
and that just isn't always thecase.
You have to look at where themarket is and build from there,
and so that sometimes can betheir Achilles heel of not
recognizing and saying, okay,this is where the market
actually is and so.
But market research answers alot of those questions for us
and for the owner.
And again, we spend a lot oftime just educating and really
(22:59):
making sure that they understandeverything we're doing as an
agency every step of the way,how we can help them, what we
can do to continue to grow that.
But we want them rightalongside us.
I don't want them in the dark.
We never want them in the darkof like.
Well, I don't know why it'sworking, I don't know what
they're doing.
I think they're doing something.
We want to make sure thatthey're growing with us and
(23:19):
understanding this is what we'redoing, why we're doing it, how
we're doing it and this is whyit works.
And this is when we shouldamplify that specific thing,
because we just we want them tobecome smarter in the marketing
world and not to be tactical andnot to go do it on their own,
but so that they can wake up inthe morning and in 60 seconds
say we're winning or we'relosing, and if we're losing, we
(23:41):
have to do X.
And that is our number one goalwith every client.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yes, test everything.
Mark is kind of that invisibleforce that I'm seeing.
That is another thing thatmakes you a little bit different
is that ability to put the egoto the side.
Probably a lot of people areconvinced, coming back all the
way to what we started thisconversation out, as they're
convincing themselves that theyhave the answers.
You're just super willing tosay I don't know.
Let's test everything,literally everything from square
one, so I love that approach.
(24:07):
All right, we need to go here,because I know that listeners
are going to be super excited tohear your thoughts on this.
I tease it at the very top, andthat is, of course, ai powered
lead engagement.
Marcus, let us in on yoursecrets.
It sounds to me like you'redoing some really cool things
there.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
So what is AI powered lead engagement?
Yeah, it's.
It was this kind of justthought up around.
You know, we have a fantasticpartner in the AI world in true
marketing and we just we wantedto.
We spent so much time andespecially like my career on the
franchising side, of sayinglike, hey, like lead gen,
everyone's a little bit right.
Lead generation you see a form,facebook lead form, online.
(24:48):
You fill out a form name, email, phone number and what
traditionally happens, right,people are calling, people are.
You're getting a call or textfrom the business 30 minutes
later, a day later we've seensome as bad as six days later,
right In that follow-up.
And rule of thumb is if youdon't follow up within six
minutes, that lead is dormant,dead and they've moved on,
especially in fitness world, inthe beauty world, in the
(25:11):
wellness space, people, becausethey're actively, they're like,
hey, I want this now, I want tofix this now.
Right, I want this haircut, Iwant these lash extensions, I
want to go to the gym now, Iwant the sauna therapy, I want
it right now and I want theprovider now.
And I want to know.
And what we were trying to solveis that gap of we consistently
kept hearing not on the AdCloudside, but on the franchisee side
(25:34):
like people just aren'tanswering the phone and aren't
replying to texts, and there wassuch a delay in that.
And so people started to buildup into what I call semi-auto,
which is like hey, well, you canautomate a text.
You can automate a text to goout a minute later that says hey
, marcus, here's your introoffer, you can go to adcloudcom
(25:56):
to book your appointment.
Now, is that better than manualfollow up?
Absolutely, is it the best?
No, because now what are youdoing?
You're saying hey, here's yourtext with what I just told you
when you filled out the form.
And now you have to click here,you have to go to the site, you
have to fill out, you know, andthen you have to book your
appointment.
So now you've got seven moresteps before you can be done.
So you know, what we started tolook at is like how do we
(26:18):
really optimize this and make itefficient so that someone can
book an appointment in as littleas like 40 to 60 seconds?
Sms, right, it's the highestused thing that we have on our
phones, right?
And then that's what we do.
And so we wanted to integrate AIcapability to where a lead
submits and says, hey, I'minterested in this intro offer
(26:41):
for a new client offer, theyreceive a text message within a
couple seconds that says, hey,marcus, here's your intro offer.
We have time available tomorrowat 10am with Sarah.
Would you like to go ahead andbook this or would you like
another time?
If I say yes, I want that time,my appointment is confirmed and
booked in a matter of seconds,or I can say you know what?
(27:03):
Do you have anything next weekon Monday?
Sure, tuesday, we've got 1130.
Great, let's get that bookedfor you.
They never have to leave theirdevice, which they're already on
right, because we know, becausethey're on social media, so
they can carry on conversationswith friends.
They can still stroll Instagram, all of those types of things,
but also get their appointmentbooked with little to no
(27:25):
friction from start to finish.
It is completely human-like,generative AI.
So they can ask questions aboutthe brands which we integrated
in right, how do we?
You know what's the differencebetween infrared light therapy
and red light therapy, or thislash extension versus this lash
extension, whatever those thingsare.
So it's very human-like.
What's interesting is we did abenchmark last year and majority
(27:48):
of people who came through thesystem had no idea that they
were actually conversing with AI, which is the goal, right, that
is the number one goal to makeit as human-like as possible.
But because they can askquestions and they can do
different things, it has made itjust extremely efficient and
effective and the conversionrates are phenomenal.
(28:08):
I mean, we see lead conversionsas high as 73% to 78%, and so
for us, it's a place where wereally wanted to invest in.
We don't see many agencies doit because it is a costly
venture, but the return forbusiness owners was more
important to us than saying,well, let's just skimp, buy and
(28:29):
try to do it the old way to savesome dollars and save some
margin and all of these types ofthings.
We truly want to invest inthese business owners because we
believe that it'll pay off longterm.
We have long term partnershipswith many of our franchise
owners and things in that nature, and most of them are now like
family and you know they feellike family and friends, and I
(28:50):
think that's because they knowthat we're willing to invest our
time, our money, icloud's,funding, all of those things
into the future, the longevityof their business, because
that's really what's best forour business is that their
business can stay around for 5,10, 15 years as market increases
and all of those types ofthings.
(29:11):
But I think we've really brokenthe ground and again, one of
our partners that are integratedTrulark AI.
I mean it's been justphenomenal to see the growth
across the board and we can'twait to see it take over more of
the market for people to reallyjump on board.
Ai obviously has been pushed tothe forefront over the last
couple of years.
(29:31):
And what?
Three years ago no one agopeople were like, oh, that's
weird, no one is talking aboutit.
And now a lot of people atleast understand what AI is.
I don't think everyoneunderstands how powerful it is,
but I think we're starting toshow all the ways that it can be
applied, and especially inmarketing.
It's really endless on thatside.
(29:53):
But we're all about maximizingthe ad budget, maximizing the
owner's spent dollars, and wewant to make sure that no penny
is spent without making surethat every stone has been turned
over and that we've looked inevery area to get them to
convert.
And again, with AI, it's justbecome extremely effective for
(30:14):
us to have that integrated, tobuild that into our system and,
you know, be directly importedinto the point of sale systems
that most of our clients use,and it just makes it just really
, really effective.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, marcus, it's so cool hearing those insights,
and I will say that it alsoshows how invested you are in
your clients, because here youare not only talking about
marketing and business with ustoday, but also talking about
the process of getting lashextensions.
You understand all of thesethings.
I love it, marcus.
Well, now I'm excited to tapinto your entrepreneurial mind
(30:48):
with that entrepreneurial hat on, because you called it out
earlier I say it all the time atthis point in the episodes
which is you're not only asubject matter expert, you are
one of us, you are a fellowentrepreneur.
So the question that I ask atthe end of every episode is with
that entrepreneurial hat on,what's your best piece of advice
for listeners, knowing thatwe're being listened to by both
entrepreneurs and entrepreneursentrepreneurs at all different
(31:08):
stages of their ownentrepreneurial growth journeys
what's that one thing that youwant to leave them with today?
Speaker 2 (31:15):
This is going to sound really cliche, but I tell
my staff this all the time getcomfortable with being
uncomfortable.
I think that is, you know, atthe core of everything that I am
.
You'll never see me waver, nomatter what the situation is,
and and I think that's that's ineverything.
As an entrepreneur, like I saidyou know I said earlier in the
segment of like, it is one ofthe most grueling things.
(31:39):
I think that anyone on theoutside it looks great, right,
you're like entrepreneur.
You've got all the hours in theworld, you can do whatever you
want, you can vacation, uh, andat the end of the day, you work
twice as much as you would haveif you would have stayed in
corporate America, and it's alot harder.
And then when you start to havestaff and all these things, you
now provide for other people'sfamily and there's the stress of
that.
But I think you have to reallyget comfortable with being
(32:01):
uncomfortable and acknowledgingthat.
Hey look, I may not be the besttoday, but I'm going to
continue trying and I'm going tofind ways.
Again, back to the growth hack.
I think growth hack thatterminology can be applied to
every part of your life businessand personal but I'm going to
(32:22):
find a way to make it work.
I'm going to find a way to grow, and even sometimes that means
not being the smartest one inthe room.
Sometimes it means steppingaside, putting your ego aside
and saying I need help and I dothat.
I do that often and it's aconstant learning right?
Say, hey, I'm not the bestperson for this job, but I can
find the person that is the bestat that.
And so for me, I think it'sjust a natural state of just
(32:45):
saying, like I'm in this, I'mgoing to make it work, no matter
what, what, and actively makingmoves every day to do it and
write it down.
I know I'm not a paper and penguy, but you need but put it
somewhere.
Make sure that you're settingthese daily goals for your
business and saying, like thisis what I need to reach, this is
(33:05):
what I want to reach, this iswhat I have to reach, whether
that's on the weekly basis, amonthly basis, a six-month, a
yearly, quarterly, five years,whatever that is.
And do check-ins, block offtime on your calendar and say
every Monday and Friday, I'mgoing to check in and say, hey,
did I reach that?
No, why?
What do I do next week to makeit better.
(33:25):
What do I do tomorrow to makeit better?
Don't wait six months to lookback and be like, oh, we kind of
missed the vote.
What do we do now?
You need a constant daily checkof I'm winning, I'm losing, how
do I fix it and how do I getback on the right path, and if
I'm winning, how do I amplifythat and make it work.
But again, all this goes backto just you've got to be
(33:47):
comfortable, being uncomfortableand being able to pivot without
your ego.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, important advice and, marcus, I will publicly
say that what I reallyappreciate about that advice
that you're giving our listenersis that it's advice that you
practice what you preach.
That has been on display fullyin our conversation here today,
so I'm so grateful for that.
At this point, I know thatlisteners are going to be keen
to check out your business.
I've obviously had the greatpleasure of scrolling through
your website, seeing all thegreat clients that you work with
(34:14):
the industries.
When you talk about the ai leadgeneration services that you've
embedded into the way that youoperate, I love that headline
say goodbye to cold leads.
So for listeners who want to gocheck out all this great stuff
that you're up to, drop thoselinks on us.
Where should listeners go fromhere?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
listen, yeah, go to agcloudagencycom.
Obviously, check us out oninstagram as well and listen.
If you area entrepreneur, reachout to us, reach out to our
team.
We want to help, you know.
Just for advice, if you'regetting started, we are here,
we're all in it together.
We're all figuring it out everyday, from the bottom to the top
, and just reach out and sayhello, ask your questions and
(34:53):
we're here to help.
And if you're a business ownerthat's looking for ag cloud
services, we would love to talkand explore what's going on in
your current state and how wecan help get you to the next
level.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yes, and listeners, you already know the drill.
We're making it as easy aspossible for you to find those
links down below in the shownotes.
The one other thing I will addis that Marcus means it when he
invites you to reach out.
You see how much he loves thisstuff and I will transparently
share here on the air that.
The one thing that I reallylove that his team said to us
behind the scenes before Marcusand I got together is Marcus
(35:25):
doesn't just love the work thathe's doing with ad cloud, he
doesn't just love marketing, heloves helping entrepreneurs and
business owners grow.
So you've seen it from Marcushere today.
Definitely check out thoselinks in the show notes.
Otherwise, marcus, on behalf ofmyself and all the listeners
worldwide, thanks so much forcoming on the show today.
Absolutely Thank you so much.
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanksfor tuning in to yet another
(35:48):
episode of the Wantrepreneur toEntrepreneur podcast.
If you haven't checked us outonline, there's so much good
stuff there.
Check out the show's websiteand all the show notes that we
talked about in today's episodeat the wantrepreneurshowcom, and
I just want to give a shout outto our amazing guests.
There's a reason why we are adfree and have produced so many
incredible episodes five days aweek for you, and it's because
(36:11):
our guests step up to the plate.
These are not sponsoredepisodes.
These are not infomercials.
Our guests help us cover thecosts of our productions.
They so deeply believe in thepower of getting their message
out in front of you, awesomeentrepreneurs and entrepreneurs,
that they contribute to help usmake these productions possible
.
So thank you to not onlytoday's guests, but all of our
(36:33):
guests in general, and I justwant to invite you check out our
website because you can send usa voicemail there.
We also have live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to
thewantrepreneurshowcom.
Initiate a live chat.
It's for real me, and I'mexcited because I'll see you, as
always every Monday, wednesday,friday, saturday and
Hey, what is up?
Welcome to this episode of theWantrepreneur to Entrepreneur
podcast.
As always, I'm your host, brianLofermento, and I am so very
excited for today's episode andparticularly today's guest,
because this is someone who notonly is a brilliant entrepreneur
and marketer, but he's sogenerous about uplifting others
and helping other people growtheir businesses, and what I
(00:22):
really love is that he does itin some very innovative and
different ways, because heoperates in a very difficult
world, which is the franchiseworld, among others, where you
have to really stand out fromthe millions of other options
that consumers have.
So let me introduce you totoday's guest.
His name is Marcus Slater.
Marcus is a growth marketingand technology leader with over
(00:43):
13 years of experience drivingcustomer acquisition and revenue
growth for some of the largestfranchise brands and emerging
startups in the US.
As the founder and CEO ofAdCloud, marcus specializes in
tailored digital marketingsolutions for franchise
businesses, helping brands likeBeamlight, sauna, frenchies, f45
Training and so many moreachieve significant growth.
(01:04):
And, trust me, as someone who'sresearched his business and his
work, his clients love him.
We're going to get a little bitof his secret sauce here in
today's episode.
His work has been recognized byEntrepreneur Magazine, forbes
and the New York Times, and hewas named Marketing Icon of the
Year by OnCon20.
That is, I've looked deep intothe history of that award and
they recognize so manyincredible entrepreneurs
(01:26):
throughout the years, so Marcusis someone who he's also going
to shed a few insights.
This is what I'm really excitedabout.
I'm going to tease it at thetop of this episode about how
he's using AI in very differentways when it comes to engaging
with leads.
This is an episode that's goingto help all of our businesses.
I'm excited about it, so I'mnot going to say anything else.
Let's dive straight into myinterview with Marcus Slater.
(01:48):
All right, marcus, I am so veryexcited that you're here with
us today.
First things first.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thanks, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Heck.
Yes, you've got a lot to liveup to from the intro that I've
primed our audience with aboutyou.
So, first things first, take usbeyond the bio.
Who's Marcus?
How'd you start doing all thesecool things?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
man, you know, for me , I just really, you know, I
came from a world of justfiguring it out.
I, you know, came up just indifferent industry, found
mentors and things in thatnature, and I've always just had
a knack for just, you know,kind of get it done, figure it
out, how do we get to the nextstep, how do we become better?
How do we growth?
(02:33):
Hack different things Reallyacross it.
There wasn't anything you couldput in front of me, whether
that was as a child, growing upinto my adult years, of like
that.
I wouldn't try to just figureit out and just say there's got
to be a way.
You can't tell me no, right,figure it out and just say
there's got to be a way.
You can't tell me no.
And so naturally that juststarted to lead into I've always
been an entrepreneur at heart.
(02:53):
I always wanted to grow things,build things, and I got into
doing that personally my owncompanies, things in that nature
.
But then that expanded intofranchising and figuring out
okay, how do we help otherpeople grow, how do we make
other people's dreams come true,right, especially in the world
of franchising?
When we look at you know, youhave all of these people that
are, you know, emptying outtheir 401ks to invest in this
business because they're lookingforward for retirement and all
(03:15):
of these types of things, andthey get into it and they're
like man, marketing is reallyhard Like I thought it was
buying into something that wasjust going to work and now
they've risked their 401k andthey're like I've got to figure
this out.
And we really wanted to build acompany that was true to itself
, true to its clients and wassolely focused on making sure
(03:37):
that every franchisee businessowner has the opportunity to
experience that dream of havingthat ongoing revenue, that
safety net, so that they canmove into retirement and do
those things and exit corporateAmerica.
And that's really what's at theheart and soul of AdCloud and
what we do and what we try tolive up to daily.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I love that overview, marcus, especially
because right there, right here,off the bat, you've already
exposed the fact that you are abuilder.
You have that entrepreneurialDNA all the way down to your
bones.
You used a term there that Idon't think I've heard in about
10 years, marcus.
It was all the rage 10 yearsago, and that is growth hacking.
People used to always bragabout being growth hackers, but
I feel like, because peoplerealize it's not as easy as they
(04:19):
once thought, it has thensplintered into so many other
ways.
People have become obsessedwith marketing funnels and
traffic generation and paidadvertising all of these things
that go into growth hacking.
But you are someone who trulyis obsessed with growth.
So what the heck does growthhacking mean to you?
Because you're clearly a growthhacker by nature.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I mean, I think naturally right.
I'll say for me personally, Ithink, as our kind of motto in
the night cloud is just nevergiving up, we're always looking
for the edge, always looking forthe next thing.
Everyone in the office willtell you.
I always say there's no silverbullet in marketing.
You can build a funnel and fail, and I've done it.
I've built thousands of funnelsand they failed, but I had one
(05:00):
that worked.
All of those things, and sowhen I look really into the core
of what growth hacking is, it'snot one in particular, like I
am the, I think, for everyone.
Right?
I'll give you the secret To bethe best growth hacker ever in
the world, whatever you want tocall it.
All you have to do is keeptesting and trying and
understand data.
If you can understand data, itwill guide you and give you this
(05:24):
kind of visual pathway of whatyou should be doing, how you
should pivot, what your nexttest should be.
And you should always betesting.
You shouldn't say, hey, I'vegot test one here and test two.
You should have test onethrough 100.
And you know down the line howyou're going to test those
things.
Rather than being reactive, wetry to be extremely proactive
and plan out 6, 8, 12 months inadvance of what we're going to
(05:46):
do, what we're going to try, thegood ideas and the bad ideas
and, most importantly, beingopen and being okay to fail,
because if you fail, you've nowlearned what not to do and now
you can fix that.
And I think so many marketersin the field feel like they have
to deliver the perfect resultupfront, and I don't think
marketers in the field feel likethey have to deliver the
perfect result up front, and Idon't think that's the case.
We're very transparent with ourclients.
(06:09):
We may come in and maybe notdeliver the perfect result in 7
days, but what we are going todo is help you figure out how to
find it where it is.
And then how do we amplify that?
Through testing, becausethey're in the same boat.
They're just as confused.
They're sitting there andthey're like I have no idea what
to do, I don't know where toget clients from or, more often
(06:30):
than not, where are they comingfrom, and so we really try to
dive into the basics of it.
Sometimes it's going back tothe basics of marketing, because
everyone sees all theflashiness of marketing and all
the people that are out theredoing videos and all of those
types of things, and sometimesyou just have to reset and go
back to the basics and say, okay, it's one to one, this platform
(06:52):
drives X, this platform drivesthis, and then how do we figure
out how to amplify that?
And so, for growth hacking,it's really just that assurance
of like, hey, every day that weclock in, we are going to try
something new, try somethingdifferent, test it.
We're going to look at the dataand we're going to figure out
does this work, does this not?
(07:12):
And what is our next step?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, gosh, marcus, I love that attitude towards
marketing.
There's two things I reallywant to call out for listeners,
the first of which is you mademe think of that old chess adage
of you either win or you learn.
You don't view failure as oneof those things.
And the second thing is Ireally love and admire your
acknowledgement for the factthat you don't have the answers.
You're just willing to putenough things out there that you
(07:35):
will find the answers, and tome, the more entrepreneurs that
I talk to and the longer thatI've been in business myself,
that's what I realize is thesmartest, the most successful
entrepreneurs are the ones thatdon't believe that they have the
answers.
So huge kudos to you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, one, yeah, 1000%.
One thing I always say, likeI've been blessed to sit at the
table with many great minds andgreat people and people at the
top of their game and all ofthose things.
But I always say, like,especially up and comers is like
, listen, everyone at that sametable, right, like, as great as
you think they are, there aresome really smart people there.
(08:12):
And then there are some peoplewho just got lucky, and then
there's some people who justtried and tried and tried and
they made it work.
And so I always say it's all amatter of perspective.
It's all a matter ofperspective and where you are
continuing to try that and notalways feeling like, oh, you've
got to figure that out.
And that goes for the businessowner side too.
As a business owner, right, likeyou feel like you've got to
come in and know all of thesethings and that, hey, you've got
(08:32):
to be, you've got to be all ofthese things and and just to be
at that level.
And it's not always true andthe grass is not always greener
on the other side.
But you know, the same appliesto marketing and just really
fine-tuning and figuring outwhere you are the best in what
you can do.
And also I think it's okay toadmit to yourself hey, we're not
(08:53):
great at everything, maybe wedon't do it.
It's a big reason why we focusin franchising, because I had a
career in franchising and soit's an industry that I know
really, really well the insidesand outs and especially
membership revenue, and so it'swhy we don't venture outside of
that, because I may not be thebest at marketing, uh, you know,
uh, an e-commerce brand, at-shirt brand, something in that
(09:16):
nature.
So just finding that industrythat really drives you to
continue growth and I think mostpeople find success in that and
growing their businesses.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, really well said, and I do want to go there
with you because I love the factthat you gave that illustration
of what we view typicalfranchise owners as someone who
dumps their life savings, their401ks.
Maybe they've had a greatcareer and they think well, I'm
smart, I've been competent in myjob, I'm just going to start a
franchise and collect my moneyevery single month.
You talk about that silverbullet that people expect in
business, in marketing, and, Iwould imagine, a lot in
(09:48):
franchising.
It seems to me, marcus, themore that I looked into the work
that you do, that you actuallydo help people recognize that
successful view of what theyhope franchising will be.
I read one of your clienttestimonials.
It was a guy who owns an F45gym and he raves about the fact
that you achieve real growth forthem.
What's so hard about thatfranchise model?
Why is it not the silver bulletthat people expect when they
(10:10):
get into it?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean F45, you know it's fitness, right, and
that is fitness.
The fitness industry is justtough in the sense of every
corner that you go to, right,there's a gym and there's a gym
of different tiers.
Right, you have the PlanetFitness of the world.
You have the F45, a higher tier.
You have what we call likemixed hit, right, so you have
(10:33):
boxing and hit workouts.
There's all of these differentoptions.
And it's funny I was just havingthis conversation the other day
with a brand and just saying,like, in fitness, you have to
think like everyone who'sinterested, think about yourself
, I'll put myself on the linehere, right, and be vulnerable a
little bit.
Right, when you're like, hey,I'm going to, it's Sunday,
monday's my day, right, I'mstarting the diet, I'm doing all
(10:56):
these things.
It's such an instantaneous likeI am starting this, I want to
work out now, and so when you'relooking for that gym, right,
and you're looking for thesethings, you have to be as the
brand and as your the businessowner and f45, whatever that is,
you have to be at the forefrontof them, being able to find,
you, understand what you do,what you offer, what it costs
(11:17):
and how to join really quickly,because how many times have we
all said I'm starting tomorrow,right, I'm starting my diet,
fitness journey, all of thesethings?
Tomorrow something bad happensand we can't at all.
So you know, within like threeminutes, you have to be able to
attract that and that's what wetalk about, like brand awareness
and making sure that the firstthing that someone thinks about
(11:37):
when they think fitness, we wantthem to think F45, gallatin or
F45 wherever you are, and it'sthat simple thing.
I mean, fitness is is just oneof those those things where it's
it's just constant turn andyou're trying to figure out.
Um, you know, and obviously youcan find a little bit better
baselines across otherindustries we, you know, we
focus primarily in the kind ofbeauty, health, wellness,
(11:58):
fitness industries, but in inbeauty, it averages out a little
better.
But in fitness, yeah, it's atough one and it's constant
changing and testing Everythingfrom.
You'll see every gym do 7-dayintro offers or things like that
.
We test everything from 3-day,7-day, 13-day, 15-day, all of
those things, because it's amental game with the consumer
(12:20):
and really figuring out at thispoint in time, what is it that's
connecting with them, what isthat unique filler that's going
to get them to come in and try aclass, all of those things.
And then you have to get overhurdles, like, hey, the first
week you're going to be reallysore, you're probably not going
to like us that much, but thesecond week you're going to
start to see results and you'regoing to feel a little better.
So you have to make it intothat what we call, like, the
(12:43):
addictive week, and that's whenthat workout starts to become a
little bit more addictive andyou've made some friends in the
studio.
Um, so there is a long playgame when it was especially in
the fitness world.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, marcus, hearing you talk about that, we've all
been there where we convinceourselves.
This Monday we're going tostart doing X, y, z.
I want to know about thatcatalyst and that spark for
these business owners andfranchise owners that you help.
What's that catalyst?
Because I would imagine I'm nota franchise owner myself, but I
would imagine a lot of them,when they open their franchise
location, they think, oh, thefranchise is going to back me
(13:14):
with all the marketinginitiatives that I need and I'm
not going to need any of thatexternal help.
Obviously you have plugged thatgap for so many franchise
businesses across thoseindustries.
Where's that gap?
What?
What is the point at which theyrealize, hold on, we need a
marcus in ad cloud to step inand really help us achieve that
growth.
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Unfortunately, a lot of times it's um, it's, it's a
little too, too late, not in abad way, but it's at the end.
It's like they've tried all ofthese things.
They've tried to diy it.
Maybe corporates tried to helpand fill in the gap.
I think what's important tounderstand about corporate
franchise entities is they'remanaging 100, 200 locations and
(13:54):
they're not on the groundlocally.
They may not understand thelocal market.
Their marketing teams are 3 to10 people.
That's hard, naturally right tobalance that out and say hey,
we're going to have the bestresults across the board when we
have this limited manpower andteam and all of those types of
things.
And so a lot of times whenclients come to us, they're like
(14:16):
hey.
Or they're referred to us likehey, we've been struggling for
six months, we're at the end ofour rope, our cash flow is
burning really quickly, we needsomeone to save us or we've got
to close up shop, and I've heardthat story too many times.
And again, it's one of thosethings that we really try to
(14:38):
educate, because we want tochange that, we want to
transition that mindset.
Franchising is fun, it can befun, it can change your life.
I have many friends who havegone into franchising and it has
completely changed their lifefor the better.
They end up owning 50, 60different units, things in that
nature, but I would say that'sabout 10% of them.
(14:59):
For the rest of them, there isthis natural struggle because
they think that, hey, if I go inand I buy this brand that
exists, it should almost runitself.
It should.
People I always say the oldnotion build it and they will
come.
That is long gone.
It doesn't exist anymore.
With social media and yourexposure rate, that stuff just
(15:22):
doesn't exist anymore.
So they get into it and they'relike gosh, this is a lot harder
than I thought.
So they get into it and they'relike gosh, this is a lot harder
than I thought.
And so they start to reach outonce the wick is burned and
they're like okay, someone's gotto either save us or we've got
to close up shop.
And that's usually when we stepin.
No, not all the time.
There's a lot of referrals thatcome in.
(15:42):
The people that join iCloud fromthe very beginning Like, hey,
we're launching, we want tolaunch strong.
They understand the importanceof having strong marketing but,
to be honest, there's a mindsetthat I haven't quite landed and
understood.
Yet I always say, like inbusinesses, the first thing when
things go south, the firstthing they always cut is
marketing.
Right Now, the first.
(16:03):
Why would you cut the firstthing, the first thing, the only
thing that's probably drivingin growth, that should be
driving in growth, that iscreating that exposure.
But I think it's just thatthere's a mentality in the
business world of like, oh,we're not growing, we should cut
the one thing that is actuallymaybe bringing in a few, maybe
it's not bringing in enough, andyou can pivot.
But I've seen so many peoplesay, oh, we're not going to
spend this month because we needto see some type of ROI and not
(16:27):
have ad spend going out.
And so again, I think there'sjust an educational gap in
business ownership.
And, like I said, you have tothink about who franchises.
It's normally people who havebeen 9 to 5 in corporate America
, which is fantastic, butthey've never been in the nitty
(16:52):
gritty of being an entrepreneurand having to fight day in and
day out with every fire andeverything you have to put out,
and it's exhausting.
Not everyone is built for thatlife.
And then at the end of the daywhen you think everything's done
but what's the one thing youhave to think about how do I
grow more tomorrow?
And so that becomes really,really difficult and you have to
have some endurance to be ableto get through that.
And I would say a fair amountdon't.
(17:14):
But the ones who are learningare shipping it out to AdCloud
and other agencies and things inthat nature and they're finding
that success and that thatinvestment is far worth it.
And I think at AdCloud weobviously do things a little
differently and we have AIintegrated and we have leveraged
technology to maximize what wecan do for the clients, and so
(17:35):
there's a huge benefit there andwe're just getting started.
We're just getting started, butour goal is just to really
educate every franchise unitthat hey, there is a way to do
this and to do it right and tonot be playing catch up every
month of the year.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, marcus, you call out something there that I
think is so important for everysingle business owner to
understand, which is that pointyou made about the fact that a
lot of people cut marketing, andwhat I have found is that
people really struggle tounderstand the difference
between marketing tactics andhaving an overarching marketing
strategy, and so what a lot ofthem do is they jump straight to
tactics and they say, okay,I've heard that Facebook ads
(18:12):
works, I'm going to throw moneyat Facebook ads and they don't
get instant results and ofcourse, they they throw in the
towel.
And so I want to ask you aboutthat delicate balance, because
to me, looking at your businessand the type of marketing mind
that you have, that's somethingthat I think really separates
the way that you think and theway that you operate, and that
is that blend of strategy andtactics.
Talk to us about the importantdifference there and how you
(18:34):
start to install a strategy thatwill help the tactics actually
work for your clients.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, I mean, I think market research is, you know,
at the very top right, there'sso many people that it'll go and
, just like you said, they'lldump cash into Facebook ads or
the worst thing I've ever heardboosting posts Right and like
the there, there's no strategybehind it, there's no like.
It's just like, hey, let's justpublish this and let's hope
that something happens, right.
(19:01):
And so many times I hear, well,we, we spent $500 a month
boosting posts, but and you know, and we had some people come in
, but we're not sure if that'swhere they came from or where
they came from.
And I always say, if you can'tmeasure it, you shouldn't be
running it, because then youhave no way to amplify.
Maybe it did work, but you haveno way to amplify that and make
it successful over the next 12months.
(19:21):
And so for us, it's alwaysmarket research.
What are the competitors doing?
Where are they?
Where are they advertising?
And you've probably heard thisright, you don't have to
reinvent the wheel 90% of thetime.
If you have a competitor that'smuch larger than you in your
space, go and research wherethey are, what they're doing,
what platforms they're spendingon.
(19:42):
With recent changes on socialmedia, you can go and see what
any brand at any moment isrunning for ads.
Now, this is not to say, hey,go and copy what they're doing.
This is just to give you anidea of like hey, this is what
they're running, this is thetype of offer they're running
All of these types of things andit can help guide your strategy
(20:03):
for your brand and where youmarket.
So we do a lot of marketresearch to understand placement
and where budgets should be.
And if we see someone spendinghigher on Google, then we
naturally float that way becausethat tells us that more than
likely, that's where we're goingto get a better return from.
Again, we're testers at heart.
(20:24):
We will test everything, thegood ideas and the bad ideas,
because I've had many bad ideasactually end up working.
So we try to keep our opinionsout of it.
Like you know, like in thesense of like I have a lot of
things where I'm like I thinkthis will work and this is
probably what will work, justfor my historical.
But I never skip over thebasics of strategy.
(20:45):
To jump straight to my opinionof well, this is how it should
be done.
I always keep it open.
I say let's test everything.
It's fine if we lose a fewdollars, because then we at
least have solid answers.
I see too many times wherepeople will be stuck on this one
idea and they're like this isthe only way it works.
And they get 6 months down theroad and they're like, oh, I
(21:06):
wish we would have tested that.
And what I say is the one thingyou can never get back is time
right In the business world andin your personal life, but you
can't make up for a lost sixmonths.
It's really, really difficult,and unless you have a really
good cash flow archive, you'regoing to run into trouble.
And so we try to testeverything up front so we can
(21:28):
learn fast, act faster and buildmore and really create scalable
growth, hyper growth.
All of these things are great,but we want scalable, long-term
branding, marketing growth sothat'll last that brand for 5,
10, 15 years down the road,until they can get acquired or
sell, whatever that thing may be.
That their end goal in life,versus the quick pickup of this
(21:52):
month was great, but next monthis really terrible.
So, again, I think it's justmore so diving in and
understanding the market,understanding the needs and
removing your own personalpreference as the business owner
too, your own personalpreference as the business owner
too, to say, like you know,here's a perfect example you
have a house that you grew up inand you remodeled it and you
(22:14):
did all those things and youthink this house is worth $2
million.
Your agent says this house isworth.
Or the market says this houseis worth $500,000, right, that
is a.
And we see that in businessowners.
They come in and they're sopassionate about this and the
product and the service and allthese things and they think that
everyone should pay $200, youknow for this specific service
(22:37):
and that just isn't always thecase.
You have to look at where themarket is and build from there,
and so that sometimes can betheir Achilles heel of not
recognizing and saying, okay,this is where the market
actually is and so.
But market research answers alot of those questions for us
and for the owner.
And again, we spend a lot oftime just educating and really
(22:59):
making sure that they understandeverything we're doing as an
agency every step of the way,how we can help them, what we
can do to continue to grow that.
But we want them rightalongside us.
I don't want them in the dark.
We never want them in the darkof like.
Well, I don't know why it'sworking, I don't know what
they're doing.
I think they're doing something.
We want to make sure thatthey're growing with us and
(23:19):
understanding this is what we'redoing, why we're doing it, how
we're doing it and this is whyit works.
And this is when we shouldamplify that specific thing,
because we just we want them tobecome smarter in the marketing
world and not to be tactical andnot to go do it on their own,
but so that they can wake up inthe morning and in 60 seconds
say we're winning or we'relosing, and if we're losing, we
(23:41):
have to do X.
And that is our number one goalwith every client.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yes, test everything.
Mark is kind of that invisibleforce that I'm seeing.
That is another thing thatmakes you a little bit different
is that ability to put the egoto the side.
Probably a lot of people areconvinced, coming back all the
way to what we started thisconversation out, as they're
convincing themselves that theyhave the answers.
You're just super willing tosay I don't know.
Let's test everything,literally everything from square
one, so I love that approach.
(24:07):
All right, we need to go here,because I know that listeners
are going to be super excited tohear your thoughts on this.
I tease it at the very top, andthat is, of course, ai powered
lead engagement.
Marcus, let us in on yoursecrets.
It sounds to me like you'redoing some really cool things
there.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
So what is AI powered lead engagement?
Yeah, it's.
It was this kind of justthought up around.
You know, we have a fantasticpartner in the AI world in true
marketing and we just we wantedto.
We spent so much time andespecially like my career on the
franchising side, of sayinglike, hey, like lead gen,
everyone's a little bit right.
Lead generation you see a form,facebook lead form, online.
(24:48):
You fill out a form name, email, phone number and what
traditionally happens, right,people are calling, people are.
You're getting a call or textfrom the business 30 minutes
later, a day later we've seensome as bad as six days later,
right In that follow-up.
And rule of thumb is if youdon't follow up within six
minutes, that lead is dormant,dead and they've moved on,
especially in fitness world, inthe beauty world, in the
(25:11):
wellness space, people, becausethey're actively, they're like,
hey, I want this now, I want tofix this now.
Right, I want this haircut, Iwant these lash extensions, I
want to go to the gym now, Iwant the sauna therapy, I want
it right now and I want theprovider now.
And I want to know.
And what we were trying to solveis that gap of we consistently
kept hearing not on the AdCloudside, but on the franchisee side
(25:34):
like people just aren'tanswering the phone and aren't
replying to texts, and there wassuch a delay in that.
And so people started to buildup into what I call semi-auto,
which is like hey, well, you canautomate a text.
You can automate a text to goout a minute later that says hey
, marcus, here's your introoffer, you can go to adcloudcom
(25:56):
to book your appointment.
Now, is that better than manualfollow up?
Absolutely, is it the best?
No, because now what are youdoing?
You're saying hey, here's yourtext with what I just told you
when you filled out the form.
And now you have to click here,you have to go to the site, you
have to fill out, you know, andthen you have to book your
appointment.
So now you've got seven moresteps before you can be done.
So you know, what we started tolook at is like how do we
(26:18):
really optimize this and make itefficient so that someone can
book an appointment in as littleas like 40 to 60 seconds?
Sms, right, it's the highestused thing that we have on our
phones, right?
And then that's what we do.
And so we wanted to integrate AIcapability to where a lead
submits and says, hey, I'minterested in this intro offer
(26:41):
for a new client offer, theyreceive a text message within a
couple seconds that says, hey,marcus, here's your intro offer.
We have time available tomorrowat 10am with Sarah.
Would you like to go ahead andbook this or would you like
another time?
If I say yes, I want that time,my appointment is confirmed and
booked in a matter of seconds,or I can say you know what?
(27:03):
Do you have anything next weekon Monday?
Sure, tuesday, we've got 1130.
Great, let's get that bookedfor you.
They never have to leave theirdevice, which they're already on
right, because we know, becausethey're on social media, so
they can carry on conversationswith friends.
They can still stroll Instagram, all of those types of things,
but also get their appointmentbooked with little to no
(27:25):
friction from start to finish.
It is completely human-like,generative AI.
So they can ask questions aboutthe brands which we integrated
in right, how do we?
You know what's the differencebetween infrared light therapy
and red light therapy, or thislash extension versus this lash
extension, whatever those thingsare.
So it's very human-like.
What's interesting is we did abenchmark last year and majority
(27:48):
of people who came through thesystem had no idea that they
were actually conversing with AI, which is the goal, right, that
is the number one goal to makeit as human-like as possible.
But because they can askquestions and they can do
different things, it has made itjust extremely efficient and
effective and the conversionrates are phenomenal.
(28:08):
I mean, we see lead conversionsas high as 73% to 78%, and so
for us, it's a place where wereally wanted to invest in.
We don't see many agencies doit because it is a costly
venture, but the return forbusiness owners was more
important to us than saying,well, let's just skimp, buy and
(28:29):
try to do it the old way to savesome dollars and save some
margin and all of these types ofthings.
We truly want to invest inthese business owners because we
believe that it'll pay off longterm.
We have long term partnershipswith many of our franchise
owners and things in that nature, and most of them are now like
family and you know they feellike family and friends, and I
(28:50):
think that's because they knowthat we're willing to invest our
time, our money, icloud's,funding, all of those things
into the future, the longevityof their business, because
that's really what's best forour business is that their
business can stay around for 5,10, 15 years as market increases
and all of those types ofthings.
(29:11):
But I think we've really brokenthe ground and again, one of
our partners that are integratedTrulark AI.
I mean it's been justphenomenal to see the growth
across the board and we can'twait to see it take over more of
the market for people to reallyjump on board.
Ai obviously has been pushed tothe forefront over the last
couple of years.
(29:31):
And what?
Three years ago no one agopeople were like, oh, that's
weird, no one is talking aboutit.
And now a lot of people atleast understand what AI is.
I don't think everyoneunderstands how powerful it is,
but I think we're starting toshow all the ways that it can be
applied, and especially inmarketing.
It's really endless on thatside.
(29:53):
But we're all about maximizingthe ad budget, maximizing the
owner's spent dollars, and wewant to make sure that no penny
is spent without making surethat every stone has been turned
over and that we've looked inevery area to get them to
convert.
And again, with AI, it's justbecome extremely effective for
(30:14):
us to have that integrated, tobuild that into our system and,
you know, be directly importedinto the point of sale systems
that most of our clients use,and it just makes it just really
, really effective.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, marcus, it's so cool hearing those insights,
and I will say that it alsoshows how invested you are in
your clients, because here youare not only talking about
marketing and business with ustoday, but also talking about
the process of getting lashextensions.
You understand all of thesethings.
I love it, marcus.
Well, now I'm excited to tapinto your entrepreneurial mind
(30:48):
with that entrepreneurial hat on, because you called it out
earlier I say it all the time atthis point in the episodes
which is you're not only asubject matter expert, you are
one of us, you are a fellowentrepreneur.
So the question that I ask atthe end of every episode is with
that entrepreneurial hat on,what's your best piece of advice
for listeners, knowing thatwe're being listened to by both
entrepreneurs and entrepreneursentrepreneurs at all different
(31:08):
stages of their ownentrepreneurial growth journeys
what's that one thing that youwant to leave them with today?
Speaker 2 (31:15):
This is going to sound really cliche, but I tell
my staff this all the time getcomfortable with being
uncomfortable.
I think that is, you know, atthe core of everything that I am
.
You'll never see me waver, nomatter what the situation is,
and and I think that's that's ineverything.
As an entrepreneur, like I saidyou know I said earlier in the
segment of like, it is one ofthe most grueling things.
(31:39):
I think that anyone on theoutside it looks great, right,
you're like entrepreneur.
You've got all the hours in theworld, you can do whatever you
want, you can vacation, uh, andat the end of the day, you work
twice as much as you would haveif you would have stayed in
corporate America, and it's alot harder.
And then when you start to havestaff and all these things, you
now provide for other people'sfamily and there's the stress of
that.
But I think you have to reallyget comfortable with being
(32:01):
uncomfortable and acknowledgingthat.
Hey look, I may not be the besttoday, but I'm going to
continue trying and I'm going tofind ways.
Again, back to the growth hack.
I think growth hack thatterminology can be applied to
every part of your life businessand personal but I'm going to
(32:22):
find a way to make it work.
I'm going to find a way to grow, and even sometimes that means
not being the smartest one inthe room.
Sometimes it means steppingaside, putting your ego aside
and saying I need help and I dothat.
I do that often and it's aconstant learning right?
Say, hey, I'm not the bestperson for this job, but I can
find the person that is the bestat that.
And so for me, I think it'sjust a natural state of just
(32:45):
saying, like I'm in this, I'mgoing to make it work, no matter
what, what, and actively makingmoves every day to do it and
write it down.
I know I'm not a paper and penguy, but you need but put it
somewhere.
Make sure that you're settingthese daily goals for your
business and saying, like thisis what I need to reach, this is
(33:05):
what I want to reach, this iswhat I have to reach, whether
that's on the weekly basis, amonthly basis, a six-month, a
yearly, quarterly, five years,whatever that is.
And do check-ins, block offtime on your calendar and say
every Monday and Friday, I'mgoing to check in and say, hey,
did I reach that?
No, why?
What do I do next week to makeit better.
(33:25):
What do I do tomorrow to makeit better?
Don't wait six months to lookback and be like, oh, we kind of
missed the vote.
What do we do now?
You need a constant daily checkof I'm winning, I'm losing, how
do I fix it and how do I getback on the right path, and if
I'm winning, how do I amplifythat and make it work.
But again, all this goes backto just you've got to be
(33:47):
comfortable, being uncomfortableand being able to pivot without
your ego.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, important advice and, marcus, I will publicly
say that what I reallyappreciate about that advice
that you're giving our listenersis that it's advice that you
practice what you preach.
That has been on display fullyin our conversation here today,
so I'm so grateful for that.
At this point, I know thatlisteners are going to be keen
to check out your business.
I've obviously had the greatpleasure of scrolling through
your website, seeing all thegreat clients that you work with
(34:14):
the industries.
When you talk about the ai leadgeneration services that you've
embedded into the way that youoperate, I love that headline
say goodbye to cold leads.
So for listeners who want to gocheck out all this great stuff
that you're up to, drop thoselinks on us.
Where should listeners go fromhere?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
listen, yeah, go to agcloudagencycom.
Obviously, check us out oninstagram as well and listen.
If you area entrepreneur, reachout to us, reach out to our
team.
We want to help, you know.
Just for advice, if you'regetting started, we are here,
we're all in it together.
We're all figuring it out everyday, from the bottom to the top
, and just reach out and sayhello, ask your questions and
(34:53):
we're here to help.
And if you're a business ownerthat's looking for ag cloud
services, we would love to talkand explore what's going on in
your current state and how wecan help get you to the next
level.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yes, and listeners, you already know the drill.
We're making it as easy aspossible for you to find those
links down below in the shownotes.
The one other thing I will addis that Marcus means it when he
invites you to reach out.
You see how much he loves thisstuff and I will transparently
share here on the air that.
The one thing that I reallylove that his team said to us
behind the scenes before Marcusand I got together is Marcus
(35:25):
doesn't just love the work thathe's doing with ad cloud, he
doesn't just love marketing, heloves helping entrepreneurs and
business owners grow.
So you've seen it from Marcushere today.
Definitely check out thoselinks in the show notes.
Otherwise, marcus, on behalf ofmyself and all the listeners
worldwide, thanks so much forcoming on the show today.
Absolutely Thank you so much.
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanksfor tuning in to yet another
(35:48):
episode of the Wantrepreneur toEntrepreneur podcast.
If you haven't checked us outonline, there's so much good
stuff there.
Check out the show's websiteand all the show notes that we
talked about in today's episodeat the wantrepreneurshowcom, and
I just want to give a shout outto our amazing guests.
There's a reason why we are adfree and have produced so many
incredible episodes five days aweek for you, and it's because
(36:11):
our guests step up to the plate.
These are not sponsoredepisodes.
These are not infomercials.
Our guests help us cover thecosts of our productions.
They so deeply believe in thepower of getting their message
out in front of you, awesomeentrepreneurs and entrepreneurs,
that they contribute to help usmake these productions possible
.
So thank you to not onlytoday's guests, but all of our
(36:33):
guests in general, and I justwant to invite you check out our
website because you can send usa voicemail there.
We also have live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to
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Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com