Agency Success Interview with Mark Petree from Limo Marketer

Josh Nelson, the seven figure agency and I’m super excited On today’s episode to be interviewing Mark Petree of mobile marketer. On this interview, he shares some amazing insights on how he grew his agency from $26,000 a month to over $50,000 per month and recurring over the last 12 months. He also shares how he was able to make a pivot from chasing prospects down to having prospects and clients come to him preposition to buy. I really love this interview, I know you’re going to get great value and insight from it. So check it out. Mark, thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah, no, it’s it’s great to be here, Josh, I’m glad I could add, but I could do this.

Fantastic. So before we dive in, you know, I know you, I know you a little bit and kind of have a sense of your background and what you’re up to, and kind of where you’re at, but kind of give us a high level overview of your agency like this terms of how many clients how much recurring revenue, kind of how you got started in this business in the first place?

Sure, so I got started.

At the end of 2015, I, I’d been doing marketing at that point, like Google ads for a company that was like an audio visual company. And so I found the best way to grow that business was through, like online marketing. So doing SEO, which I didn’t do personally, but you know, I did the Google ads, all the pay per click. And so I was with that company for nine years. And it was kind of, I just knew, it wasn’t really going anywhere. I knew I needed to change. And so I knew I could do pay per click, and I knew I could cold call. So that’s what I did. I just picked up the phone. And I started calling on companies that, you know, when I inspected like their website, and you can just tell when you check out the ads, if they know what they’re doing, right. So I just started calling on those companies. I think within two or three weeks, I got my first client. And as anyone knows, when you get that first client, you see what’s possible, right? You’re like, Okay, this is doable. And so.

So yeah, so fast forward.

It’s been what now probably a little over three years, three years and four months, I went full time and April, because I’ll start my other job part time. So I went full time in April of 2016. And so So today, I’m at, think around 6465 clients about about 5656 grand in recurring revenue. So I only offer pay per click, I don’t do any SEO, I don’t get into websites, I don’t really do any of that. Aside from that, you know, I I do like retargeting and for some of my clients, I’ve been offering like a follow up, system up pretty much white labelled Active Campaign to kind of help my clients close more of the leads by having, you know, an automated follow up system. And so, um, yeah, initially, I grew my business by cold calling, but I discovered about, you know, 889 months ago, you know, Josh, and, you know, learned a tonne from him about positioning, and becoming the kind of 40 almost mini celebrity in your little niche, and finding out, you know, how powerful that can be, it takes time. You know, it doesn’t happen right away. But cold calling is like, you get that immediate, you know, gratification, but it’s much harder to scale. And so I’ve just found that the inbound marketing that I’m doing now to be really effective.

That’s awesome. So so like, nine years, basically learning the learning the ins and the outs of pay per click right at this audio visual company, the signing, you want to go out on your own, starting your own thing, counting the phones, and now starting to get to the place where you get some momentum, because the clients are coming in, throw some thumbs up if you’re pretty excited about kind of going to 56 game monthly recurring. That’s, that’s awesome. And congratulations. Again. Can you talk a little bit about the the types of companies that you serve?

Oh, sure. That mentioned that.

Yeah. So I just work with the transportation industry right now. So limousine companies, companies that rent part party buses, large charter buses, motor coaches. So I really just say transportation industry now because I work with all different types of companies. But yeah, transportation or limo would be kind of the niche that

we everybody wants to know, like two things universal? How did you wind up in that as your niche? So we’ll talk a little bit about that a second. And the other is, you know, this 56 k only pay per click, which is like a great model? Um, do you include your budget in that? Or is your fee plus PPC kind of on top of that.

So the 56, that does not include that. So my clients then the ad spent separately. So that’s just and that’s just in the agency fees. And how I got in the niche was actually one of my, one of my best friends. At the time that I was living with he he did SEO. And so he had a limo client that he said, was spending like eight grand a month and pay per click. And this is actually really, I guess, what gave me the idea. He said, he’s spending eight grand a month and he just isn’t sure how good of an ROI is getting. So I looked at his campaign. I was like, This is insane that spending this much money because I just, you know, if you know anything about pay per click, you know, search term report was a mass, he wasn’t tracking conversions. And the only reason I think he didn’t, he didn’t realise how dire his situation was, was because his SEO was on point. So he was, you know, number one in his market, he on multiple websites, and so that he was getting a tonne of leads, he just didn’t know that, you know, a lot of those leads are coming from SEO, and his ROI and pay per click, I’m sure was horrible. So I redid his whole account, I spent like, probably the most time I’ve ever spent on an account on his, and I got him down to like probably three grand or 3500 ad spend, because that’s all his market could really could really handle with relevant searches. And and then yeah, his lead volume probably like more than doubled or tripled. And so like he was insanely happy, still a client today. And so I was thinking, Okay, if this guy’s got such a horrible campaign, most of these transportation companies, I’m guessing have horrible campaigns. And of course, pretty much all companies like, generally speaking, their campaigns can be massively improved, you know, either the landing page, you know, the conversion rate of the landing page, or just their, you know, their pay per click campaign itself.

Nice. So you found a problem, you solved it, and you’re like, wait a minute there, you know, this guy’s having these issues is probably an issue in this industry. And that’s kind of the basic premise of business, right? Find a problem that you can solve, solve it, and then go out and market it to others. Right. Exactly. That’s awesome. Well, congratulations. You know, obviously, you’ve kind of broken into that space. We’ll talk more about what you’re doing to land clients, position yourself. But I guess what I’d like to start is I think you and I started working together about at the beginning of the year, and obviously there was a problem you were looking to solve. Can you talk a little bit about like, where you were at what challenges you were facing?

Yeah, sure. So actually, I heard about you from my, your stages. Sorry about that. had someone go ahead?

No worries. I had actually heard about you from my same friend. I used to live with the guy who did SEO and he was like, have you checked out this Josh guy like, He’s everywhere. And so I started following you. And you know, again, retargeting and everything. I’m like, Dude, this guy is just like, everywhere. And he’s totally got his marketing off point. And at the time, I was kind of looking for something to join, I think it’s always important to be a part of some sort of training, right, some sort of group because you get the motivation, and just the mindset and everything from that. And so, at the time, I had just started working with a JV partner for like, probably two months or so. And he, he brought me a tonne of clients, I didn’t really structure the deal very well, because I just didn’t see what I was bringing to the table. And I was so excited to have like a source of new clients coming in that, you know, he got a pretty sweet deal. But look, I brought on a lot of clients from it. So I’m happy it happened, because it also gave me you know, gave me a little more authority in the industry since I was associated with him. And so I still think it was completely worth it, I wouldn’t change anything. But when I found you, I just wanted to really learn more about how you went about positioning yourself and really having kind of a game plan on what I needed to implement to, you know, you know, reach your level of positioning, which I knew wasn’t gonna happen overnight, but I just was looking for some sort of a roadmap, so to speak.

Okay, so it was kind of like you were in this place where you had you had some massive momentum from the GV been a lot of your business was directly related to that JV and or the cold sale outreach that you’ve done in the past? And kind of what you were looking to solve for was, how do I position myself and kind of get my own business coming in? Is that fair to say?

Yeah, exactly. Because before the JV, all all I did was Outreach at that point and, and cold calling. I wasn’t actually doing it, I had some appointment setters. And what I found the reason, which there’s no problem with outreach, I don’t actually do a lot of it, I’d like to start doing it again. But I was doing outreach without any sort of retargeting. I wasn’t doing any sort of, I didn’t have any assets in place that could be doing some of the work for me, so to speak, like videos, they could be watching, I found that’s just huge these days. A lot of the people I talked to you now they’re like, Oh, you know, I’ve seen a bunch of your videos, where, before, when I was just cold calling, it would be me myself on the phone, educating them having several talks, and each client, I don’t even know how much time each client took, but some signed up right away. But a lot of them took lots and lots of follow up. And I was just like, doing it this way is not scalable, right? Obviously, you only have so much time in the day, and so on. So I went from that to what when I had this JV the sales calls, you know, they pretty much sign up right away, right? And it was just like, you know, something clicked and I’m like, this is what I want. And so then I was like, all right, I really need to learn how to market my own business, which is pretty ironic, right? Because I help other people market their businesses. But I’ve been learning, you know, in the past eight, nine months, how to market my own business. So

no doubt and as as marketing, digital marketing agency owners, we get so fixated on serving our clients that you did the first transportation client, you got, like really going deep, rolling up the sleeves, what’s wrong with this campaign? Why doesn’t this convert? How do we make it work? And that’s where you have to start. But it’s hard. And kind of like, how do I market myself as the agency owner? How do I grow my business? And so it’s great that you made that made that transition? Because before we dive into what you changed, I’d like to know, like, what would have been the outcome or the impact if you hadn’t made a change? If you had just, like kept your strategy? Like it was? Like, how do you think that would have impacted your business and the ability for the business to grow?

So I was getting to the point. And I think a lot of companies, once you get to a certain level of clients, you’ve got churn, right? And so really, to continue growing, you have to be, let’s say, if you’re at 60 clients, I’ve noticed my average churn rate is like 5%, a month or so, so far this year, so I lose about on average, three clients a month or so. And so to continue growing at, let’s say, you know, 5000 a month in recurring revenue, then you have to be bringing on maybe eight or 10 clients a month. And the more clients you get, you know, the higher that term goes, you know, which is, in turn you need, you know, more more leads coming in more all of that. And so, I think, I think I would have been pretty frustrated at this point, just because it is so much work, just doing all outbound. And, and it’s just a grind, really, you know, and it’s just not the best way to do it. And I’m almost wish, you know, I’m glad I went all through that. I don’t regret anything. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, like investing in yourself, investing in education, it’s literally the best investment you’ll ever make. Right? Learning from guys like you, because it can really accelerate you. No doubt. Yeah,

no doubt, and, and 100%, I’ve always done the same. I’ve always, even right now I made a bunch of groups and learn from a lot of the top leaders. So that’s really the most powerful thing you can do is find, find people that are doing what you want to accomplish or have solved something that you’re trying to solve, and align with them. So you can shortcut the process significantly. So awesome. So all right, so you made some changes, and you’ve had some massive momentum, can you talk a little bit about like the top three things that you change in your agency to kind of get the momentum that you’re getting now?

Sure. Um, so I actually didn’t go to a lot of events. Okay. So I would say the number one most important thing we’ll start at number one would be creating content, participating in Facebook groups, and just starting to get that content out there posting it on my fan page on my personal page. You know, I’m in some Facebook groups where they let me post the content, and just consistently posting it. You know, right now, I post about four days a week, I believe, but I’d like to get that to seven days a week, I just need to find the content I can fill in on those other days. But I would say that’s probably the probably the most important thing I’ve done, which has really helped everything else start working, so to speak. So that would be number one. Number two, just going to industry events and, and talking to people just showing your face. A lot of these business owners they still want to meet, you know, especially my larger clients, they want to meet face to face know who they’re working with. So that helps out a lot.

What else

you know, just setting up you know, I never had any sort of funnels in place before. So I’ve got you know, couple case study lead magnets as been using that I’ve been working out really well. Just the exact funnel you teach lead magnet to thanks for thanks for downloading this resource. Hey, if you’re like most transportation companies, owners, you like to be in enough like I’ve memorised it now, because I’ve said it so many times. It’s pretty much a copy of what you said.

That’s, that’s great.

Yeah. So that that funnels been working great and fantastic. So the top three things you’re saying is, you know, just being very present in the marketplace, putting out content, positioning yourself as the expert. Getting out in the real world at these industry events and association meetings. I’ve seen a lot of pictures of you doing that, on average, just making sure you’ve got it dialled in funnel so that all of that content leads them somewhere where they can get on your calendar, you can take them through a sales process and get a yes or no, at the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. Can you talk about because and if you look, mark up, you’ll see you’ll see he’s doing lots of great video content to probably get some additional pixels now people in your retargeting sphere. But can you talk about how you come up with the content for these videos? Because it seems like you’re putting out great things about specifically like how they can dial in their AdWords and things like that. Can you just share a little bit on that front? Where you’re coming up with the ideas?

Yeah, so how I come up with the ideas is I keep a running log of questions that I get from, from my clients, or from even, you know, people like I’m on a sales call with and so I’m constantly I have just I think it’s like a Google Sheet I use that whenever I hear like, a question that I think would make an interesting video, I just put it on this Google Sheet and I probably got another hundred. But the funny thing is, a lot of the questions have the same answers. But if they’re different questions, you know, you don’t want to overthink the content. That was like, I was like, Oh, I don’t want to be putting out like this videos kind of like this one. I don’t think about that anymore. Because many times, not everyone’s watching every video, and you’re the only one who really knows everything you put out. And you just think people know everything you’ve done. They don’t. And they don’t care,

you know, so much. It’s such a great point, right? You ain’t as the person creating the content, you feel like it has to be completely unique from one to the next. The reality is probably 1% of the eyeballs that saw your stuff would would even recognise that. So you know, iterate, even if it’s just an incremental change, it’s a valuable piece of content that you’re putting out. So that’s it. That’s a salient point.

Yeah, and, and really more than anything, it’s just like a mindset set, I used to have a little fear of like creating videos and putting them on Facebook. And it’s just something that you have to get past because really, if if you want to achieve a certain level of success, you got to get attention. You know, that’s the name of the game, if no one knows who you are, you know, how do you position yourself as any sort of authority. And so just putting yourself out there and yeah, my, my videos are probably better than when then when they first work, that I’m still getting better and better. Like, now I can do like one take shoots and whatever. But yeah, in the beginning there, it was just like, you know, making the video, I’m like sweating. I’m like, I can’t believe I’m gonna upload this taking several takes. And finally I realised it doesn’t have to look perfect. You know, if you’re providing good content, you care a lot more than anyone else that’s watching the video does, right? So down.

Yeah, the perfection is the enemy of execution. And especially as it relates to video, we always think, on that I got to get the lights, right, my hair has to be right, the audio needs to be right. And if you’re thinking all that stuff, it creates friction, and you don’t create the content, you’d much better serve, create, you know, not perfect content on a consistent basis than to wait for for perfection. So kudos, kudos to you for kind of breaking through that mental barrier, getting the content done. I recognise that you made a couple of shifts over the last couple, I guess over the last year. So one was a you know, name, a name change from a quick profits to limo marketer. And then, and then a kind of a positioning change where instead of posting from your personal profile, you created a, like a brand profile for Mark Petri. Can you talk a little bit about what the thought process behind that was? And how that’s working for you?

Yeah, so, um, I changed. I did have a general agency called clicks profit up until like four or five months ago, and I switched it over to limo marketer. Yeah, like four months ago, it’s really hard for me to say, and maybe it hasn’t been that long, whether that is going to matter at all. Because, you know, people they don’t remember when a marketer they like I talked to lot of people, they’re like, oh, liberal marketing, or they think it’s some other name or click, like clicks, you know, they say the names wrong all the time. But who do they always remember? The Patriot? Yeah. And so I found people just, it’s hard. People don’t connect as much with brand. Well, I mean, you know, this, they connect with people. And so you know, all the big guys out there, you usually don’t see them, you know, doing like, for instance, I do Facebook ads, I run it from Mark PT, I don’t run it from local marketer.

So it’s hard to say I’ve never tried running the ads from local marketer, but

I definitely recommend doing it from your personal profile. Yeah. I mean, not from your personal brand profile.

Yeah, no, that’s when I was talking to my JV who’s I don’t you think you should rebrand as little marketer? I think, you know, because people they connect, and he very well might have been right, I don’t know how much it actually helped or not. It’s, it’s too soon to say, but you know, what, in three years, you know, if you want to get to a certain size, it can’t just be you can’t just be the guy, right? Like, but you’re still the face of plumber, SEO and so no doubt.

Yeah, well, I mean, I did a video about this a couple couple weeks ago, kind of the the generalist expert, celebrity expert, kind of the hierarchy of authority, people aren’t going to attach to a brand, they’re going to attach to the person, and they’ll pay premium dollar to deal with the individual that’s most known as the expert in their space. And so by putting yourself out as the face of the company with all of the marketing that you’re doing, you’re creating that celebrity status in your in your niche.

Exactly. And that’s really the key.

So as you’re, you know, as you created this brand profile under Mark Petri, can you talk a little bit about the strategy behind that, and how it plays into what you’re doing in the Facebook groups and how you’re building your your audiences?

Yes, so I’m gonna give a shout out to Josh Wheeler, he helped out with this. So he suggested, like four months ago, he said, what you want to do is you want to start building up like a retargeting audience, with videos, and he said, how you do that is, you know, turn your personal page into a fan page, which I think every one of your friends already gives you an automatic likes. So you start out with like, 1400 friends and 1400 lights. And I think they all automatically follow your brand page as well. And so he said, what you do is, you know, you upload videos to your fan page, and then you share them into the different channels like, you know, I’m going to several Facebook groups, I started my own Facebook group, great idea, by the way, it’s finally gaining some traction. Yeah, share the videos into that. And so, and I’ve been, you know, doing pretty much for videos, I believe about four videos every week for the past few months. And so I’ve got, I think the audience like 2100 or so have watched at least like three seconds of the video. And so I’ve been using that audience, retargeting those people in my like Facebook ads. And so that’s, that’s helped a tonne. I know. So I’m glad I i’m glad i did that.

Yeah, so it comments, I’d love to hear like, what are your thoughts about that strategy? Is that something you can implement? It really is a game changer. Because if you as a company, let’s say plumber, SEO, created content, and then tried to share it into industry groups. It looks tacky, right? It looks like why is plumber SEO posting this. Whereas if Josh Nelson profile page starts posting into those groups, it looks like Josh Nelson, the member of the group is posting out there sharing content, it’s a lot more acceptable. And so by doing that, not only are you’re getting eyeballs on your stuff, but you’re creating customers audience is that you can advertise on Facebook too. And for very low cost, do like kind of develop that on the presence in your in your top prospects world. So great year, great year mark. So that was the content creation piece, you know, don’t let it get lost on you. That mark is creating content. Like he’s creating videos, you said four times per week is the target.

Yeah, so that’s a, I realised A while ago, like creating four unique videos a week, that’s can’t take me forever. So what I actually started doing is two of the videos a week, I just offer free website reviews. And the funny thing is, I pretty much say the same thing every time, the recommendations are very similar. I just posted in a few of these groups on my head, it would like their website reviewed, I’m going to post it on here, I’ll tag you. And I’ve just got like, so that’s two videos a week, they take me like five minutes each to shoot. So typically, one day, every month, I’ll shoot, you know, I guess that’s eight, eight of those videos a month. And it takes me you know, maybe an hour to do it. And then I do one testimonial a week. And then I do just one like education Whiteboard Video week. So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing right now. And I’m thinking about possibly on that fifth day, going with your strategy where you know, cut up a webinar, I’m still using your guy by the West, and then maybe posting one of those videos. You know,

I love that I thanks for sharing, and it kind of simplifies it. It goes from like, Man, I’m going a couple of five videos do Hey, I mean, I can find a couple people that are willing to let me review their website and come up with one unique piece of content to record the testimonial pieces that like a live interview with the prospect or can you talk about what that means?

Yes, so um, so I’ve got a couple different types. I do have some live interviews with, with prospects. And this is actually something that I just started doing a month ago that I wish I would have been doing a long time ago because I realised really what’s moving the needle for me is these these case studies like people always bring them up on my pay. I watched your video is so and so on. Well, yeah, that was pretty, you know, well, you saw the one with with nephew that was probably the best video I’ve ever shot.

Yeah, that was amazing. I love that. I was like sharing out of the group of me. Look, guys, you need to do more of this type of stuff. Right? Yeah,

yeah, he had quite the storey. But um,yeah, what I wish I had been doing from the very start of my business was as soon as they say, let’s do this, you know, let’s sign me up. I say okay, but first, I have to, I have to say this, you know, the life of the lifeblood of my business is referrals. And so I’m going to, you know, try my hardest to get you really insane results. But I would ask you this, at the end of three months, if you think I’ve done what I said I would do, and you are impressed with the results, I would ask you do one of two things, either give me three referrals? Or do a video testimonial? For me. And everyone I used to think people would like be scared. No, no, I really got on. And I would love to exactly. Because the more of those you have. I mean, that’s probably the biggest asset you can, if you have 3040 testimonial videos, I mean, and all people in your niche, you know, there’s there’s nothing better than that. Plus, it gives you like new lead magnet ideas, right?

Hundred percent and amazing sheer guys. Thumbs up. If you like that idea. You know, post a mark, thanks so much for sharing. Right? How easy is that at the beginning to plant the seed? I’m going to give 110% if I do what I promised over the next three months, will you do one of these two things? Right? Three referrals? testimonial video, right? And how many? How many of them have followed through on that for you at this point?

Oh, well, so I just I knew I should have implemented this long. It just kind of getting to this

down. Yeah, we even talked about this. I wanted the mastermind events. I think I was talking to Nicholas i think is his name. And

he’s with us as well. He’s on the on the call. What’s up Nicholas?

Nicholas, yeah, I wish, I wish I would have taken that and done that four or five months ago, I just never implemented it. But it’s kind of like, again, when I look back at what I’ve done wrong in the past, it’s really short term thinking. I’ve noticed like everything I’ve been doing recently, I’m like, Okay, this isn’t going to help me right now. But three months from now, six months from now, like, you know, it could really start making a difference. And so, but I already have like a dozen or more of those testimonial videos actually call my clients, the ones who had gotten outstanding results. And, and, you know, ask them for, and you know, a lot of them agreed to do it. But it’s just like pulling teeth. Now they say they’ll do it. And then you have to remind them like 20 times. And so I really think this is going to work the best because I’m guessing they will remember Oh, yes. Should I did say I would do. So I think it’ll work. So

yeah, so I’m excited about that. Absolutely great, great play. And if you want to see some examples of that, I believe 100% these case study videos like this are the most interesting to prospects, because it’s more about their industry than it is about some piece of education, the most influential because you’re not just saying you can get a result you’re showing a look, this is somebody I work with, this is the result they’ve got. And you know, this has been their experience. So look, look mark up and you can see some of those. Also, if you go to plumbing marketing.net You know, that’s where we kind of aggregate all of those types of testimonials for plumbing, NH back SEO, and just simplify it for yourself have like a five or six questions that you’ve thought out in advance, and either send it to them and advanced, get them on a zoom session, kind of like what we’re doing here and record it. And now you get video, you get audio, you can do podcast out of it. And it helps to create the content and that positioning value. So amazing. Sheer.

Yeah, one last thing I think.

I think in the future, I’m going to try to do all of them as interview style. Because whenever they’re shooting a testimonial, I’ve had a few that on my ads. Yeah. Not to criticise testimonial, because really, you want to establish Okay, where were you at? Before we start working together? You know, you want to create that separation, right? Where they had their, you know, former situation, you know, and paint company not growing? And then what was the transition like and talking about that, you know, desired situation. And they don’t always do that when they just shoot it on their cell phone. They’re like, Oh, Mark’s done a great job. He helps us with our marketing things. That’s not as powerful as like, Hey, I was like, I was really struggling. And I thought, you know, my might be going out of business and what which not all storeys are that dire but, and then look at where I’m at today. That’s, that’s really, you know, the storey is is the power. It’s not like them just saying some words, which actually had a client literally read off this free and have been working with Mark, which I’m like I can’t use. So

I look up the look up the debut interview that mark did, and that’s like the perfect storey of here’s the problem. Here’s where I was stuck. And, you know, Mark saved my life. And now here’s where I’m at today. Right? That’s exactly exactly what you want. And you can kind of you won’t always get it, but you can engineer your questions in a way that that kind of lead to that type of storey right, Mark?

Exactly. Yeah, I just talked with the guy yesterday, who had watched a few testimonial videos. He was uh, yeah, you know, those videos were, you know, they’re good. But he was like, I never really, it seemed like you were just like, asking them for a favour. And like, you know, they weren’t, like, really? Where’s that net new video, you can really see, you know, the honesty there, right? Because people are very even a video testimonials. People are sceptical of those, you know, and so, really telling a storey, you know, people engage more in that than just a Hey, marks done a great job for us. Even mean, yeah, you know, because I found, you know, in our industry, we all talk Okay, how much are you doing a month, but I don’t know what it is, if it’s just the limo industry, or? I don’t think it is. But these guys, they don’t like talking about numbers. It’s like pulling teeth. It seems anyways, or maybe that’s just my perception. And so maybe I’m weird about asking it. And then they’re weird about telling me I don’t know what it is exactly.

It could be they hold their numbers close to the vest, you know, anybody you know, some of them, some of them can and some of them will. Nicholas shot as thanks for having you know, being on here. He says, happy to hear that you use the language from my contract that our conversation was useful. So he appreciates that. Dean’s asking. So are you posting the limbo page and the Mark PT page and then boosting any of the posts? My understanding is you post on Mark Petri. And that’s the play that the the brand not the personal profile, and then you share out everywhere you want it to be. So you can collect that audience. Is that right?

Exactly. So if you post on your personal profile and share from there, you can’t build an audience. So you have to upload the video to your fan page and share it from there into all of the other channels. And so that’s that’s how you build that on.

Yeah. And okay, so Dean, let us know if that answered that question for you. JOHN says sounds like you stop thinking of business in the transactional model, and started thinking long term. And that’s it. That’s a game change. Move.

Yeah, know exactly. It’s that instant gratification of trying to get away from that because it’s, it’s not as I can see long term will be able to scale much quicker. When I start implementing these things. They take time. And they suck building out like your fusion soft thing, which fortunately, I got help. George’s has been a great help with that. But George is a massive headache, man, because there’s just so many things you need to have just right. And but once it’s all built out in the works done, then it’s just like sending traffic to that page in any way you can. So

absolutely. So okay, so we’ll ask the answer one more question on this. And we’ll keep going forward. But Dean’s asking, what channels do you share it to? So you recorded and uploaded onto more Petri brand page? Where do you share it from there?

So I share it to my personal page, I share it I’m a part of, I own a Facebook group that has about 400 members, you get up to 400 already.

That’s killer.

Yeah, well, I’ve got a VA who goes in every morning, and she’s adding people from other groups and then trying to move them over to that group. That’s been how, by the way, I’m not posting any of these videos myself. I I hired a VA who does this every morning.

The only way to do it, guys. Yeah, the way to do it. Yeah.

But yeah, so I’m sharing from my fan page, my personal, two different Facebook groups. And then I’m also posting every single video on LinkedIn as well.

Nice. So talk to me about that strategy for the VA going into groups and adding them into into your group I they just friend requesting is you and then once they say yes, inviting them to the group.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I’m pretty sure she’s covered all the groups I’m in but yeah, what she was doing is she’s going through these little groups, adding them as friends. And then once they accept the request, she moves them over into the little marketing mastermind group. Love it.

And she’s doing that obviously is more Petri. Right? She’s logged in as you Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, she’s got my own personal why it’s kind of weird, a va having your own but it is what it is. Now. I really only use Facebook for business, you know. So

this is the secret to do it, guys. If you I mean, you can’t do this yourself, right, you have to get vas. And there’s all kinds of people that can do this, whether they’re stateside or international. And they can be the ones interacting as you in groups, doing comment chats and all kinds of things to build your audience and to grow the group. That’s that’s of course your to build your own build your own group a little bit quicker. So does that I think, Dean that must answer that that question there. Are you also then taking the video putting it on your blog? Are you keeping it just in the Facebook and LinkedIn sphere?

Know, so that’s, I haven’t even really gotten into posting the videos on my blog into you know, I have been posting them to YouTube, I’m building that channel. But I haven’t even started doing that, which I know, that’s like the next thing I need to start building out once I have the Facebook thing in place, then, you know, to the next thing, right?

All it is is like another set of instructions, right? They take your YouTube video, embed it on a page, have it transcribed through otter.ia. And then you’ve got a post as well, which is getting SEO juice to it. So let’s talk about that after and how to get that. leverage that one more.

I’m sure you have the instructions for that.

I’ll hook you up with that. That’s, that’s awesome. Okay, so we’ve got the content piece down, right. So this is what’s positioning you as the expert, building your audience, warming these people up. So they’re like, oh, man, Mark is the celebrity that knows what he’s doing. So they come into your funnel. Let’s talk a little bit about number two, which was getting involved in these industry events. What What do you mean by that? Can you talk about kind of how you’re tapping into it?

So there a couple different there’s one major event every year, it’s in Vegas, it’s called LCT. I think it’s in March. And so I’ve been just going there every year. And actually, what I found the town worked really well, this past year, and I discovered it by accident is one of my clients was there.

And

so so we met up and it was his first time there. I told him he had never been before. I was like, dude, there’s great networking here, you should really go. And so he loved it. And so I actually was just walking around with him. And I didn’t ask him to like, start telling people about me. But he was like, Hey, who are you know, and so we were walking around, and he was like, Hey, who are you shooting for? He’s like, Dude, this guy’s been killing it. For me. I’m like, Okay. And so, towards the end, I was walking around with like a group of my clients. And they were, they were kind of like, helping me get cards and whatever. So, so that was pretty cool. I didn’t even have a booth, which I plan on doing a booth at this next one, I wish I would have done one at this last one. Because I don’t think there was one marketing company.

That’s it. That’s an opportunity. So at this point, I know that strategy worked well for you. In that case, for all the other events you’ve been going to it’s you’re just hanging out like one of the guys. And ideally a client kind of grabs you by the shoulder and starts introducing you to all their buddies as the as the secret weapon that’s growing their business.

Yeah, so I’ve been to two events that I got to speak at that was when I was kind of doing more. We’re not like on bad terms, but we just haven’t been working together. Like we were we were doing a weekly podcast, me and that JV and so he’s just got a lot of other opportunities on his plate. So I think it just wasn’t even worth it for him anymore. But yeah, I mean, if you can speak on stage, I mean, there’s nothing better than that.

No doubt, no doubt. So I mean, this is one of the keys to your success, right, just being at the industry events being face to face with people, you know, a lot of us we want to stay behind our computer and be inside the office. But really, those those elbow to elbow interactions are powerful. And you leverage it in a nice way to because you take pictures of yourself at the event, you put it up in your Facebook page and in the group. And so it kind of it paints you as not just somebody that claims to be in the inside, but you’re actually showing it because you’re out there in the in the world with these guys at their events and stuff.

No, exactly. Yeah, one of my clients even mentioned that in his video testimonial, he’s I marks been going all the industry events, he’s been at this one, this one, this one. And so that just kind of made it real for me how big of a deal that was. One other thing I noticed when I go to these events, is people will just walk up to me and be like, Oh, hey, your mark, I watch your videos. And the funny thing is, the videos don’t get that many likes, and not hardly any comments. And so you think no one’s watching them. But lots of people are watching them. You just don’t know it. And so more than I ever thought and so that’s pretty cool.

Developing that celebrity status in the in the group, right? I mean, that’s, that’s super powerful celebrity.

So that that’s number to all of you guys, if you’re not part of an association, going to the events, seeking opportunities to speak, you know, ideally getting a booth, you’re leaving opportunity on the table, for sure. And then number three, it sounded like was, was the funnel getting the funnel dialled in on just kind of talk about that a little bit like the key funnel pieces that you’re using as your lead magnet, and how you getting people on to the strategy sessions.

Sure. So after I did that interview with my client, Matthew, I remember you saying of to that is probably one of the best case studies I’ve ever seen, you should use that as your lead magnet. And so I always thought in the back of my mind, and you create a lead magnet from it. So I finally did you know, I set up. So it’s essentially three pages. So the first page they go to, is, you know, the download your case study page, right, and the page is actually super simple. I mean, you can see it it’s limo marketer.com, slash BML dash case, study. And it’s

that EMLBN like Blue Nile every BNL dash case dash study and the page, it’s like, super, super simple, actually.I’ll share this not in the comments as a point of reference.

And so it’s super simple, right? It just has what they’ll learn, it has a video of me talking about the case study, and then they hit the button, they leave their email, then the most important pieces the following, then it sends them to a page that has a video of me, Hey, you know, it’s your like most transportation company owners, you like to be in the know, but at the end of the day, you’re looking to partner with someone who can help you grow your business. And, and then that that’s where they sign up for the case study. Right? And then after they do that they book a time on calland Lee, then it redirects them to a questionnaire, which has a video on the page that tells them what they should expect to please you know, not miss it. You know that? You know, I say like, Oh, you know, I’m going to respect your business. I hope you can respect mine. And you know, if you need to reschedule No problem, please do it. 24 hours in advance, you know, be at a computer, if there’s anyone else that needs to, you know, if you have any partner in your business, if they need to be on the call, please happen there. And so, so yeah, that’s been working pretty well. That’s awesome. And

what a share, guys, please, thumbs up. Thanks for sharing like this is this is great stuff. So all right. So these are the key three things. I’m sure there’s been a lot of other things that you’ve been implemented and rolled out what what has been the result? And how are things kind of moving as a result of having these three things dialled in and moving in a positive direction for you?

Yeah, so um, I first started doing Facebook ads for my business on June 23. And so it’s been just over a month, and I’ve landed 12 clients in the past one, so it’s been my best 30 days ever made. It’s all it’s all from Facebook. Yeah,

that’s killer. 12 clients in the last month, guys, how many of you guys would love to get that in the last six months? You’re going to mean, kudos? Well done. And I think the key is, a lot of us think, okay, we’re gonna run Facebook ads, but how do we get the targeting right? And the key is what he explained there. He’s like, correct me if I’m wrong, but the reason it works is because you’re putting out content. And really, these ads are targeted to people that have seen the videos. Am I right about that? Or is there some other targeting ninja hack that you’ve tapped into?

Yeah, so I just created. So that’s so part of its the video retargeting that helps a tonne. But I also created a custom audience. That is pretty much just, I’ve got like 2500 or 3000 emails and contact info for limo companies. And so. So I created a custom audience with that didn’t do any look alike or anything like that. And the ads run, it does really well, in the first week or two. Of course, since it’s such a small audience frequency goes up cost per click goes up, ads stopped working. So now I’m trying to figure out, so I refresh the lead magnet. So far, I’ve done a case study lead magnet and a webinar. And so my plan is to do two, two campaigns a month one lead magnet, one webinar, and so that I’m promoting something pretty much all month long on Facebook. And I honestly don’t know how long it’s going to keep working. I don’t see why one. I don’t think I can keep using the same lead magnet actually tried that. I’m not sure if I did something wrong. But yeah, so I’m going to, I’m rolling out a new lead magnet here. And another three or four days just finished the infusion soft and so just need some photos, which is another thing I learned why it’s so important. Whenever you’re at an industry have that take a million photos, because, like, with Facebook ads, I’ve found the best photos that have been working are the ones when I’m with my client, especially if they’re well known person in the industry, right? For obvious reasons. Right? It gives you kind of that. That social proof.

Yeah, powerful. I think Josh, Josh Wheeler, and the other Facebook guy will tell you Yeah, I mean, when your audience is relatively small like that, Facebook fatigue, or ad fatigue kicks in pretty quick. So it’s smart to rotate those ads every month and door, when you start to see the the impression or the the rates drop off.

Exactly. And, and yeah, just so I don’t know how much the copy, you know, everything I’ve read says the copy is super important. And how I generated that is I record all of my sales calls, and the best thing to do is listen to those sales calls. And a lot of these guys have the same storey, you know, they’re a lot of them wanting to go from being in the driver’s seat being 24. Seven, they don’t want to grow their business, so solely just for the money they want to grow, because you know, they want more time and they want to have more time to spend working, you know, on their business rather than in it. And so that’s kind of helped me write, you know, the copy for the ads with

inside. That’s a great, that’s a great short that right? sales, some real sales conversations play very well, in sales, scripting. Yeah. All right. So all right. So so we’ve got these these things we’ve changed. We got 12 new clients in the last 30 days and some massive momentum with Facebook ads, were three lessons that you’ve learned from getting this change that, you know, those listening can can benefit from?

A one is I wish I would have tried Facebook ads a lot sooner. I I don’t know why I didn’t I Well, actually, I do know I didn’t because I was always told that if you have a small audience that Facebook has just doesn’t work. And the truth is, there is truth to that, right? Because you can’t it’s hard to scale. Because in my industry, there’s no like interest that I can target. It’s just not a big enough industry. So I had to just use a straight custom audience. And I wish I would have tried that out a lot sooner. I wish I would have been creating content for like, instead of just the past, like six months, I mean, I can’t imagine where I’ll be, you know, in a few years, you know, just creating content, which I’m Jessie Nelson, who knows if I’ll still be in the industry, I don’t know what the future holds. But yeah, just start creating the content. Start that today, right? Because that’s really something that takes, you know, it’s like a snowball, right? So start doing that, you know, posting from your fan page, those other pages, give Facebook ads a shot, try a custom audience. If you have a few thousand emails and contacts, I just had to be a scrape. You know, I’ve actually got a few days because it works. So well. I’m trying to make that list bigger. So give that a shot. And then really, I’ve adjusted my sales script a lot recently, I don’t get technical at all anymore. My sales calls follow like an exact script. I know, it’s crazy, but I wasn’t doing this like a year ago, I would just wing it. And I would get into a lot of technical details, which I don’t get technical at all anymore. It’s me asking them questions, you know, me trying to figure out where they’re at where they want to be, more importantly,

why do they want to be they’re really trying to flesh out, you know, this is sales one on one, but I wasn’t actually doing this, I was kind of figuring out oh, you know, you’re this could be but let me show you this landing pages could convert better, and you’re getting all these irrelevant clicks. And I don’t think that ever sold these people I think really what’s sold them is just like, Okay, this guy sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, you know, but, uh, but I knew like, if I ever want to hire you, My plan is to hire sales guy, you know, by the end of the year, and I knew to find a sales guy that was as technical as me. First off, I don’t need that. And now that I have a script, a tonne of recorded calls as a formula. And now as specific as I get is typically saying, Oh, you just need to have, you know, the right people clicking on your ads for the lowest price possible, sending them to a page that’s going to turn them from a business into a lead. And that’s as technical as I get. I don’t talk about cost per click or any of this other stuff, really. Unless they’re kind of technical, mental, throw a little technical stuff in there. But I found that’s generally especially because they’re pre sold, right? They know who I am. I’ve got a lot of success storeys. And so the sales process is already halfway complete, right? It’s kind of like, can they afford it?

powerful, right? powerful, keep it simple. Keep it about them, keep it about the examples and case studies and ask for the business. So those those are the three big things, you know, give a shout out and comments here, if that’s useful to kind of hear those lessons that he’s learned that have moved the needle so much for him? What other nuggets of wisdom would you share with these these agencies that are going wherever they’re at, they’re looking to get to the next level, they’re looking to continue to grow? Any suggestions or nuggets of wisdom that you want to drop?

So yeah, I think I think things have changed a lot in the past, like five or 10 years, with social media. Business and social is like kind of merging, it seems. And so like I think now for outreach, if I started like being aggressive without reach, again, what I do is I probably got to create the content, right? be posting on my profile, and probably start, you know, just reaching out to people adding them as friends on Facebook, they can see my profile. So that might be if I was just starting out again, totally, you know, starting from scratch, I know you pretty much have to start with outreach, right might not have money for ads and all this other stuff, I would start creating content ASAP.

Well, actually, I should sit and say before any of that you have to be able to get results. reason I’ve been able to do this, and iterate isn’t that high? Is because I get results. I know you guys get results. That’s like the most important thing. So you really have to know your craft first, you know, anyone that says, Oh, you know, just jump in, and I get it because you don’t want to be on the sidelines too long. But you need to get a little bit of success. You know, before in my opinion before you try to go out and get 20 clients and, and going in acquiring clients and then outsourcing all the work. I know that can work. Me personally, I don’t think you should ever outsource your core competency. Right? Yeah. So um, so yeah, creating content. And in order to create that content, you have to have some sort of competency, right. And then just reaching out to people on Facebook, getting active socially, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, try to figure out where your prospects are, and try to start making Connexions. If they add you, as a friend shoot them a message says, Hey, I help these people, you know, to this. I help you know, transportation businesses grow, using, you know, proven marketing. So I don’t even say Google Ads anymore. Typically, I know my last webinar did, because I needed a topic, but I try to even avoid sandpaper clamp. Google ads, I just have a proven marketing system. Because a lot of people already have like a funky taste in their mouth where they’ve tried something before and the minute they hear, oh, you do Google Ads out there that says, Oh, you do SEO now that’s and so I just have a proven marketing system, you know, and that’s pretty much it.

I like that powerful, powerful shares. I know that you’re a big mindset guy you really diligent with your time management, what dumb, you know, how much do you feel like mindset has played in your success in your ability to get the kind of momentum that you’ve gotten over the past year? So?

Yeah, no, that’s, that’s been, like, a massive shift for me. You know, I just certain things I do every morning, you know, I started meditating, if you would have asked me five years ago, do you like about, like, what, that’s some hippy bullshit. That, so that that’s, that’s helped me a lot, because I’m definitely a type. So I’m, like, quick to react. And, and so that’s helped a lot. And yeah, just goal setting. You know, I write my goals down every morning, because I gotta, like, remind myself, you know, why I do what I do. And the truth is, I’m far from perfect. I’m a lot better than I was six, eight months ago, as far as time management, but there’s still days at like, you know, two or 3pm, I just, you know, want to go the gym or something, and so I will. But yeah, that’s, that’s been huge for me, just, you know, all that meditation goal setting. You know, just reminding myself, Why do this, I think it’s especially important when you work by yourself. When I used to have an office, part of the reason I got the office was because I knew if I went in, and was around other people, that would bring me motivation, but I realised it just didn’t fit my business where it’s at right now. And, and I don’t need those people is actually almost more of a distraction for me. And so now that I’m working from home, my margins are higher, I actually don’t have any full time employees. And, and, yeah, I just get so much more done. But I also think if this was me a year ago, you know, working from home, you know, I made a lot of changes, mindset wise, that have made me more productive when I am at home. You know, when I’m working, I’m working.

So good stuff. Well, hey, guys, I mean, we’re gonna we’re about to wrap up. So if you have any questions, we’ll I’ll look at the comment box here will be sharing this wonderful time career here.

And I just finished, try and sorry about that. That started, autoplay will try and address a couple of the questions. Mark, thank you so much for your willingness to share right, you’ll find that world class people are willing to share what what’s working for them. And and don’t let that be lost on you. Right, Mark is just open the kimono talked about his niche, talked about what’s working for him, you know, share some love in the Facebook group, share some faces, some love in the in the comments, and thank Mark for his willingness to do this. And Tim’s going to look at comments. Paul says this has been really helpful. Um, Nicholas says Awesome job, Mark. And Josh. Great questions. Josh. Very good answers, Mark. Let’s see. Somebody wants to know about can you share one of Mark’s marketing videos? Yeah, I’ll be sure to pop that in. In in comments. Excellent info. I’m not seeing any any specific questions. So share my screen here real quick.

That’s, that’s good. I have to go soon. Anyways, actual sales appointment. I have work to do, guys, come on. So we’re gonna, Mark thanks. Again. If you’d like to hear more interviews with highly successful digital marketing agency owners that are growing and scaling, be sure to go to seven figure agency com, hit the blog section. There. We’ve got a lot of interviews like this with other successful agencies. Also, if you’re not already, be sure to join the local agency success group at seven figure agency com slash group will get you added right away. Mark, I know you got to go. Thanks for your time. We’ll talk to you later.

Thanks, Josh. I will help you get value from this session. If you’d like more ideas, strategies and techniques on how to more effectively grow and scale your digital marketing agency. I’d like to invite you to go to seven figure agency com, they’ll you’ll find a training series completely free of charge that walks you through how we were able to grow our agency from zero to over $300,000 per month in less than seven years, yours and how we’re adding clients on a consistent basis. So we walk you through, you know the quickest way to position yourself as the expert in a particular market and proven models to get customers coming to you preposition to buy. So if you get value from this and you like more, you can go to seven figure agency.com. There’s a free video series for you there. Just get there. You’ll enter your name, your email address, and you’ll get access in the next couple of minutes. So thanks for joining us. Go to seven figure agency. com now and we’ll talk to you soon