How Jeff Lerner Profitably Spends $1.5 Million/Month With Some EPIC Upsells

Zach Johnson

Dylan Carpenter

Jeff Lerner

Episode
45
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Jeff Lerner

,

CEO

Entre
Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsLive on SpotifyLive on Youtube

After a decade of building multiple online businesses to over 8 figures and twice landing on the INC 5000 Jeff turned his focus to educating and inspiring entrepreneurs about the power of entrepreneurship in the modern economy. In 2018 he founded ENTRE Institute where over 50,000 students are developing their ENTREpreneurial skills. He is now regarded as one of the most inspirational voices online in business and personal development. Jeff's interest in entrepreneurship began in his 20s when as a pianist he was often hired to play in the homes of successful CEOs and business owners. In 2008, at age 29, after multiple failed ventures, including a restaurant franchise that left him with a half million dollars in debt, he found his first success online and paid off the debit in 18 months. He currently maintains an active schedule of speaking events and media appearances while working day-to-day as ENTRE's CEO, hosting the popular "Millionaire Secrets" podcast and Youtube show​, and working on his first full-length book "Millionaire Secrets: Things Rich People Know But Don't Tell You."

Transcript

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,
Episode
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Transcript

Zach (00:00):

In this episode of the rich dad, poor dad podcast, we interviewed Jeff Lerner. He talks about how hescaled from spending less than $10,000 a month. Last year, to now spending over $1.5 million a monthwith entre Institute, he dives into all his failings and his learnings of what didn't work is for ads, as wellas the split tests that led to exponential hundred 50% month over month revenue growth over the last12 months. Plus he also talks about how he managed to navigate over. I want to say 20 plus credit cards,charge cards, how some of the financial principles that he goes into of how he was able to facilitate suchamazing growth. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Jeff (00:43):

No, I mean, in all seriousness, we scaled our business, uh, about, I don't know the exact number of closeto 3000% last year in 2020. I mean, we were, we were spending $10,000 a month on ads last January.And it's to the point of this show, man, when you, when you crack the code and you figure out, youknow, some rich ads and it's not as, I mean, we're not like shysters, it's not as simple as a good ad with acrap offer. You got to have a good ad. Good offer, good fulfillment, good infrastructure, good valueladder, good culture. You know, there's a lot of goods, but none of it works without the ad. Man, whenyou, when you get that lever pulling in the, in the slot, uh, happens really fast.

Speaker 3 (01:37):[inaudible]

Zach (01:37):

You're listening to the rich add poor ed podcast, where we break down the financial principles that richadvertisers are deploying today to turn advertising into profit and get tons of traffic to their websiteswithout killing their cash. These advertisers agencies, affiliate brands are responsible for managing overa billion dollars a year in ad spend. You'll hear about what's working for them today. They're rich ads andwe'll roast their Epic failures and crappy ads on the internet with core ads. Let's get into it. Welcome toanother episode of the rich ad per ad podcast is your host sack Johnson. I'm with Mr. Dylan Carpenter.You're going to talk about some ads today. Dylan.

Jeff (02:15):
I'm pumped, man. I don't want to give any hints away, but you know,


Zach (02:18):

Turns out some millionaire secrets, man, I'm in for this one. Yeah. Today's guest spends over $1.5 milliona month on ads. I think, I think that sets a record for any single individual advertiser that we've had onour show. And I'm pretty excited to have him on board, but he's, he's doing some really cool things. He'salso a former, a musician like my self turned entrepreneur and um, he is the founder and creator ofentre Institute. So Jeff Lerner, welcome to the show.

Jeff (02:52):
Thanks guys. I'm so glad to be here. I don't know. I don't know if does this go on video or just audio?

Zach (02:57):
It's just audio saying, sit back, relax.

Jeff (03:00):
If it had been on video, people would have saw me pop some Advil, right? When you said that I spend

one and a half million dollars a month. Cause I'm like, that's

Zach (03:13):
A little nervous Nancy over here.

Jeff (03:17):
You're getting a new line of work. It's less. Yeah.

Zach (03:21):
Yeah. And you're, you're not even the credit card company. You mentioned how they feel. Yeah,

Jeff (03:27):
I love it. Okay. So for a,

Zach (03:30):
Give everybody just a little snippet of, of what you're excited about right now, what are you up to in

2021?

Jeff (03:35):

And uh, what's, what's got you kicked out. I'm excited that I spend $1.5 million a month on ads and Imake at least 1.5, $1 million in return. Yeah, I mean, in all seriousness, we scaled our business, uh,about, I don't know the exact number of close to 3000% last year in 2020. I mean, we were, we werespending $10,000 a month on ads last January. And it's to the point of this show, man, when you, whenyou crack the code and you figure out, you know, some rich ads and it's not as, I mean, we're not likeshysters, it's not as simple

Zach (04:15):
As a good ad with a crap offer. You've got to have a good ad,

Jeff (04:18):

Good offer, good fulfillment, good infrastructure, good value ladder, good culture. You know, there's alot of goods, but none of it works without the ad man. And when you, when you get that lever pulling inthe, in the slot, uh, happens really fast. So last January you were spending 10 K a month. I mean, giveher we've actually, we might not technically have been spending any, we might've been incurring andriding out previous sales, but I mean, I know that wow, revenue wise and I don't want to like totallyovershare because honestly we're making enough money that it sounds braggy when I do, uh, whichI'm, I'm humbled and grateful.

Zach (04:55):

Well, the thing that we always love to talk about on the show is we love to talk about how P how muchpeople are spending on that. It's just a thing that we like to talk about in the world of advertising

Jeff (05:03):

And everybody can deduce from that, that I am ROI positive, and I'm probably making grossing morethan that. I wish I'd edited more than that, but, um, but no, I mean, in seriousness, like I can tell you thatyesterday we yesterday we had our record day. I mean, it's the new year people are, you know,reallocating spending the stuff that matters rather than dumb to sit under their tree. And, uh, we didmore revenue loss yesterday than we did in the first six weeks of last year. Wow. Congratulations.

Zach (05:34):
It's always a good thing when your highest revenue day is yesterday, right. If you were saying it was like

a year or two ago. Yeah.

Jeff (05:41):

Platforms, are you using, they kind of spreads across, uh, do you mean from a fulfillment standpoint orare you mean ad spins? Yeah, I would see ad spend wise. Yeah. So we're um, I would say we're probably,so if I take the last six months because it ebbs and flows, cause it was gosh, darn Facebook accountscome and go. Um, I would say we've probably been 40% Facebook, 40% YouTube and 20% Googledisplay and search in some combo, man, I'm gonna learn more about YouTube and it's a beast out therewhen you do it. Right. It looks like she's shared. We get are we last year, we were getting our highestLTVs off of Facebook, but as we've gotten our audience targeting better and look, the thing aboutYouTube is it lets you do what you can't do on Facebook, which is explicitly target people with money.Like don't advertise to people that make less than $50,000 a year. If you want to sell good stuff in your,your stuff optimize, it takes a while for the pixel to learn. Cause that's a more sophisticated market andthey're, they're, they're harder to sell to cause they're more discerning, but yeah, as you dial it in yourLT, we've seen in the last six months, our last three months, especially our YouTube LTVs have exceededour Facebook. Wow.

Zach (07:04):

All right. So here's what I want to jab. It takes some serious conviction and vision to want to be able tospend 1.5 million a month on ads. Right? Like most people get pretty comfortable at like 50 K eight Kmonth, but a lifestyle business. Yeah, totally. And so all right, let's get into it.

Jeff (07:24):
So what, like what,

Zach (07:26):
What's driving this to be able to take this level of risk and take this big move.

Jeff (07:32):

So in 2018 and, and sorry, I'm kind of like flipping I talk lifestyle, like of course we want lifestyle, right.But you know what I want a lifestyle of, I want I'm 41 years old, man. If life is going to divide in half, it'sgoing to be roughly around the age of 40. You guys strike me as on the, on the first half of life go fornow, you guys live it up, man. Like fast cars, strip clubs, whatever you want. But when you turn 40, ifyou're anything like me, it's like, okay, I want to matter. I want impact. You know, I spent the first half ofmy life and I had a great interview the other day with a guy on, on millionaire, secret show who wastalking about, he has these three levels that people go through from survival to status, to significance.

Jeff (08:19):

And when he said that it clicked for me, it was like, Oh right around the time I turned, it was 39 for menot, not 39 is when I felt like I was turning 40. Um, yeah, I just flipped. I flipped from status tosignificance. Like I want to do crap that matters and crap that matters is big and a big, you know, bigintake, big input, big output, big ad spend big revenue. Big just big man. It's kind of like grant Cardonesays, if you have a $50,000 problem set a $500,000 target. So Peter Diamandis says, if you want to makea billion dollars, impact a billion people like the big thinkers, get it. And I spent 10 years hearing it andpaying it lip service and pretending I was doing it. And finally, when I was 39, I don't know if it was amidlife crisis or what I was just like, I really, what is it I want to do?

Jeff (09:12):

I had a conversation in 2016 and it took two and a half years for the seed to germinate. But I talked tothe guy, I don't want to name his name cause he's a really private guy, but he was the number eight hireat Microsoft. Um, so he's one of bill Gates, close friends, retired, you know, it was good to go. And I wastalking to him in 2016, I was fortunate to get a connection to him. And I was like, you know, man, I justI've got this agency in it. That that was a at the time our agency was growing from like, I think in twothousands, between 2016, John 17, we grew from like 2 million to 4 million in gross for the year. So itwas it. And I was a sole owner, 25% margins. Life was good. But uh, I was like, I just, I have this idea, thisvision, like I want to do.

Jeff (09:58):

And he said, man, I'll tell you the industry that needs disruption more than anything is education,education and medicine. And they're the two most regulated industries in the country. But if I had topick one I'd pick education because it's just a little easier to navigate. Um, and uh, you know, by 2018,that seed had sprouted into, particularly because I know, I know some really important stuff, which ishow to leverage the tools of the new economy to fundamentally create a quality of life. That's differentfrom what the old economy teaches and supplies via school and jobs. Like I know that and I'm a livingwitness to it and I can teach it and I can standardize it and package it. And if I'm willing to think bigenough, I can make it just as legitimate as a Harvard education, but you're not going to do that. I don'tknow. The $50,000 a month lifestyle business. That's what we're doing.

Zach (10:53):

I love it. All right, man. I want to get into it. Let's break down this rich ad, man. What, what is the, Imean, feel free, be comfortable here. Like you don't have to lay out all the numbers, but like give us thehigh level of like, what is the front end offer in the ad? Did it allow you to scale so much this last year?

Jeff (11:13):

So I can tell you that there were months that I was on the Bradley podcasts. Like it'd probably be aninteresting watch in the context of this. Cause it was, it was probably like six months ago and it was rightwhen we were in the middle of, of hyper hyper growth. I mean like hundred, 150% month over monthgrowth, you know, for a period of about six months last year. But in order to do that, I got to nose it, Oh,it's a podcast. They can't even see me scratching.

Speaker 5 (11:40):Yeah.

Jeff (11:46):

Yeah. But I was on the Brad Lee podcast and I was right in the middle of it. Like it kind of like having this,trying not to be a deer in the headlights where I was like every month, right now I'm spending over ahundred percent of the previous month's revenue on ads. So if I made $300,000 in, let's say June, then Igot to spend four. I got to budget for $400,000 on ads in July. And you know, our sales cycle takes, Iguess at the time we've compressed it, but it takes about 21 days for us to get row as positive. So I'mbetting that by the end of the month, I'm going to have recouped more than what I earned the previousmonth. And so at any month I could have stopped the train and got off and taken my margin and be like,Oh sweet.

Jeff (12:37):

I just made, you know, a hundred grand or half a million bucks or what, but no, instead I'm going todouble down month after month after month, more than double down, I'm going to, I'm going to doubledown on plus credit. And uh, that's, that's terrifying when you've never been through it. When ahundred becomes 200 becomes 400 becomes 800 and you're like, what league am I pretending I belonghere? And I had a commerce, this, I had no idea when I started a podcast, how much free consulting Iwas going to be getting from my amazing guests. Um, hope. Well, I'll try to supply you guys out here, butI mean, I know that's great. I had Alex Merrill on the podcast right around the same time that I was goingthrough that. And he was talking about his hyper-growth with, uh, with Zoosk, his dating app that hesold for $300 million.

Jeff (13:26):

He was talking about his hyper-growth with mentor box, the offer that he does with Ty Lopez and, andhe was able to speak to what I was experiencing and about the, the confidence and the certainty andthe poise that you have to maintain. And that essentially you'll never get hockey stick growth. If youhaven't prepared in advance the fortitude to be able to do what it takes to create hype, uh, you know,hockey stick growth. And so I kind of had this, like this really timely mentorship evolve around me thatkind of pushed me through it. And that's, that's how we were able to do it because honestly it is to yourpoint is scary as crap. How important do you think mentorship is? I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (14:06):
Does your land you up oxygen? We're just laying you off here. Jeff, just go.

Jeff (14:12):

Yeah. I mean, you can't, you can't get into look, everybody that's trying to change their life or most ofthe people going online or going online because of a, of an absence of opportunity offline. And sothey're going online seeking some sort of greener pasture, but you're never going to outgrow Jim Rohn'sand you're never going to outer. And your level of personal development, never going to outperformyour own thought. Somebody sat on a show the other day. You're never going to outwork your ownthoughts. Like you're trying to get what you don't have haven't had before. You have to become whoyou haven't been before and the easiest way to become something different because we're all such, youknow, susceptible beings to influence us to change your influences, you know, starts surroundingyourself with bad-ass billionaires. If everybody could have that in their life, like they don't make moremoney. So down

Zach (14:59):

An offer for us all, I am asking you again.

Jeff (15:02):

So, so here was the breakthrough last year that, uh, throughout some old thinking and brought in somenew thinking that it was really just a confirmation of what I think we kind of know, but the first half oflast year we were trying to scale with a more so I'm kind of starting poor ad first, but we were trying toscale with a more traditional, hi, my name is Jeff Lerner. Uh there's you know, I, I used to be half amillion dollars in debt. Like I have a really

Zach (15:33):
Everybody, when everybody starts, everybody starts there. Right.

Jeff (15:36):

Really great rags to riches story. And it, it, you know, to the extent I've used it in various capacities overthe last decade, it's always worked for me. So I was doing the same old thing. Nobody was listening, theyweren't hanging around. They were, they were, the attention span has just gotten shorter and shorterand shorter and trust has gotten less and less and less, less. So they're like, I don't. And you know, I havethese plaques behind me. I have, I was on the Inc 5,002 years. I have like some good muscles to flex andstill nobody cared. Nobody believed me. So I say, nobody, I mean, I'm being black and white. So we weretrying to scale with an ad that used that kind of old story-based formula. And when we switched to, andagain, I know it's not visual, but I'll hold it up for you guys.

Jeff (16:19):

This simple 20 page ebook called the millionaire shortcut. I mean, you can see how big the print is. Itliterally, it's probably only like 2000 words or 5,000 words, like is a super short, simple book. It took melike two hours to write and probably a day to get designed. And you know, when we switched to justlook, my name's Jeff White. So we shortened the ads. We got really good at setting hit hooks in like thefirst six seconds of the ad. So, so here's a giveaway and I don't know, I'll give it away because you know,my ads are viewed 7 million times a month anyway. So everybody already knows what I do, but like westarted doing like super, it's not cheesy, but it's like, kind of like in your face stuff. So, so we switched tothis ad where I go right in, right out of the gate.

Jeff (17:10):

Second, one of the out, I go big news, big news. And I like, I flare my hands out in front of the cameraand, and I was close enough to the camera that my hands like hit the sides of the frame, you know, bignews. And then right across the screen jumps big news and like flashy letters with lights. And then I gointo my spiel, just adding big news and then like, everyone's at home, what, like they perk up and thenwe shorten the ad to just be like, look, I know some cool stuff. I don't expect you to listen to me now,get my book and it's free. And that was a hundred times more effective than, hi, my name's Jeff Lerner.And I used be half a million dollars in debt and living in my ex-wife's parent's spare bedroom marketingand a robe and slippers.

Jeff (17:55):

And I was scared to come out for three months. And then I made all this money because I cracked thecode and dah, dah, dah, dah, like nobody, you know, it was just give them the book. And then, so it's notalways, I mean, as you guys know, it's not just the ad, it's the ad as it interlinks into the top of the funnel, the mouth of the funnel. And so what we did was free book. Well, first of all, big flashy ad quick hook,big attention, grab short ad free book. I'll admit I have a little devil on my shoulder going, Jeff, why areyou telling everyone all this? But I get it's all out there anyways. So you guys know that let's just behonest.

Zach (18:31):
You spend 1.5 million a month telling everybody already what you do.

Jeff (18:36):

That's true, right? This doesn't cost you anything to tell us what you got. That's a good point. Um, soanyway, it was, and this was, this was like probably just as important as changing the structure of the advideo was you say you take them to a page and it says, thanks for opting in, uh, your, you know, checkyour email in the next five to 10 minutes to get your book. In the meantime, I want to show you theshort video. No, we didn't say congratulations on getting the book, go check your email. We specificallytold them wait, five or 10 minutes, which gives us just enough time to show them a sales video. Theybasically regurgitates what's in the book and makes the book irrelevant and then actually gives them alow ticket kind of tripwire offer. And by the, and if they take that, then they're into the process.

Jeff (19:29):

And frankly, they probably forgot about the book. That was huge. Huge for us. A little change rightthere. I love it. Wait, five to 10 minutes, have a little video locked and loaded. Ready for him, man.That's a bill purpose power right there. Yeah. Yeah. It was those two things. Put those two things inplace. We were able to start scaling 50 to a hundred percent a month. Oh wow. And how many upsellsdo you have? Uh, it actually speak of mentor box. That was the most I ever saw. I went through thementor box bottle and it was seven. It starts with $7 a unipolar. They got $1,200 cart value, but no, wehave, we just have two upsells. Um, and again, uh, man, there's so much now that you guys have mereminiscing now and I'm like, we were some, we were some smart dudes and, and we're just giving theanswers. We're not giving all the crap we tested that didn't work, but like we work so hard to optimizethis stuff.

Zach (20:31):

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Jeff (21:48):

Check it out@funneldash.com. Well, let's get into it. I mean, that's literally the perfect transition, right?Let's talk about some poor ads here of like, what did you think you were, you know, you were just gungho about you thought it was going to work that, uh, yeah, I mean, there were a couple, a couple ofbreakthroughs and admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the past, so I don't remember a lot of the stuff thatdidn't work. I just remember that when we, when we finally accepted that, if you don't hook people inthe first six seconds and see, as you guys can already tell, I talk a lot. So being short-winded is like achore for me because I was more like, I'm so passionate and excited about what I do. I think I can justenroll everyone right now, but you can't, you gotta take it little baby steps, right?

Jeff (22:35):

It's like dating, you know, wait seven days to text or whatever. So really according to the movieswingers. And so I, uh, so yeah, we would do the, the sh the hook them in the first six seconds. Oh. Andthen another huge thing was disqualify them in the next 24 seconds because YouTube doesn't actuallyparticularly for YouTube, but it works on, I mean, it's valuable on Facebook too. YouTube. Doesn'tactually charge you for the ad until it's been viewed for 30 seconds. Right? So you don't want to, youdon't want to go, Hey, let me show you the fastest way to become a millionaire. And then have 14 yearold kids hanging out for two minutes to hear the fast way to become a millionaire. So in the next 24seconds, you want to get them to go away if you don't want to pay for them.

Jeff (23:16):

So hook them in the first six. And cause that's when the six second is when the skip ad button pops upon a pre-roll, you can set it to force them to watch the first five seconds, right? Six seconds. You gottahave them choose watching by choice. The next 24 seconds. You say things like, listen, if you're notserious about building a business online, if you're not, you know, at the age of consent, if you're not aperson who's really ready to consider becoming an entrepreneur in your life, at least as a viable sidefrom a job like this, isn't a video for you. Like this is serious. I'm not here to waste your time. Pleasedon't waste ours to get them out. So you don't pay for them. I mean, that, that one thing right there,adding a negative qualifier in the first 30 seconds probably cut our cost 20%. I was going to ask,

Zach (24:01):
What are those 24 seconds and tail, but you just hit her on the head. I was like here, but yeah, man,

that's

Jeff (24:06):

Straight up. Yeah, that's it. Um, and so, and then, you know, upsells was a huge thing. I mean, we, that'sone thing I think a lot of people don't spend enough time on is optimizing their, their, their whole funneland their cart as a whole, you know, we were never actually able to get to row as one with our front endoffer. You know, we're spending X to acquire a customer, actually, frankly, we're probably spending fourtimes our front end cart offer to acquire the customer right now, probably three times. And so thatdifference we've made, uh, we've been able to make up the vast majority of, with some really strategicupsells, but the upsells, you know, we had a continuity upsell disaster. I will never again sell continuityon the front end, bundled with a $39 buyer because a $39 buyer, isn't a committed enough buyer to notcharge back on you six months later when they need to buy guests for their crisp Christmas gifts for theirkids or whatever, you know? So I won't even consider continuity now until somebody is at leastprobably a thousand dollar buyer. Um, wow. I don't, I just, you know, here's the thing, if you really want to scale merchant processing is way too important to S to, to mess with things early on that are going tobite you in the later because chargeback risk compounds over time. Well now,

Zach (25:30):
Even with visa, you know, some of the rules of visa and MasterCard are putting out, like people have to

double

Jeff (25:34):

Opt in, you know, for continuity stuff, right? Like that came out. Yeah. And, and it's, and here's the thing.You, you always, all the, all the projections you do on continuity never holds up. You're like, Oh, peoplewill stick for six months. And it's like, no, they'll stick for like one. And so it's a lot harder to build, youknow, mathematical certainty in your funnel and your ads, you know, as you're setting your ad budgets,it's based on your expected cart values, and you can't forecast, it's almost like with continuity, you haveto discount anything after the first month anyways. So what we ended up doing, we stole a page out ofthe Mike Dillard playbook was okay, you want to sell a continuity offer, sell. Initially we were selling anannual membership or like, Hey, it's a, this is the membership and it's X dollars a month, but you can getit for like, you know, it was like 40 to 60% off.

Jeff (26:25):

We tested some different price points if you just prepay for a year, but then how many annual buyersrenew? That's, that's such an arbitrary thing to even try to forecast. And if your business model isdependent on it, you have a crap business model. We just said, screw it. We'll sell a lifetime membershipfor the, of like three or four months worth of continuity. And that, that did a ton for our cart value. Andthen, and then the other is just a training upsell. And we met, we liked split test price points likemaniacs, like, like we had a, we had a test running of, one of our upsells at S we had 61st, we testedbetween 67 to 97. And we tested was me more 97 or 97 to one 97. Then we tested only one 97 to two97. Then we thought we knew it was one, what was winning, but we test split test other permutations ofthose numbers. Like we never tested more than two at a time, but like we tested four different pricepoints on both of our upsells before we arrived at the magic number. The bottom line is I have a partnerand Zach, you know, him, Adam, who's just, he's a freak about testing. And, and I think most people, myexperience learning what I've learned from him is that most people are not into testing nearly as muchas they should be.

Zach (27:37):

Well, when you're spending the budgets you're spending, I mean, you're testing, you're learning just somuch faster, right? This is one thing like when I, before funnel dash, I was at lead pages, Ontraport. Wedid webinars to grow the software businesses, but like, I hate webinars because you have to spend like90 minutes, like, you know, doing these like long recordings. And then you don't know like what workedor what didn't work in that. And there's so many variables. And so I love these, you know, book funnelsand, and the opposite

Jeff (28:06):
Hire a webinar registering it's so speculative,

Zach (28:10):

Right? So like efficiency of capital, like this is a great transition actually into, uh, some financial principleshere. But like, if you're selling high ticket and you're S you're going to go spend a thousand dollars toacquire somebody, you, you have a $10,000 a month budget, you have 10 at bats to know if you'reworking or not. Right. Right. And so you, you, and if you're going to convert, you know, like you don'thave like the window of learning, there's very low. If you have a $10,000 budget to start where you wereover a year ago, and you're selling a $39 offer, you have way more at bats. Right. And you can learn in amatter of days and iterate. And I think that that efficiency is a very key thing for people to understand ifthey want to double down and spend a hundred percent, 200% month over month.

Jeff (29:00):

And, and to your, to your metaphor, your baseball metaphor, you can also change your swing every twoto four weeks with, with smaller offers, as opposed to a webinar, which honestly, to do a webinar. Right.And I don't, again, I don't think people test and optimize webinars enough either, but to really dial thewebinar. And it takes at least three months to what you get for four chances a year to try somethingnew. No. How about,

Zach (29:23):

Oh, okay. So Jeff, what are some, some financial principles here on that you would advise? Cause youhave to be a phenomenal money manager of cash to grow and credit to grow what you've done, youknow, in the last 12 months.

Jeff (29:38):

Yeah. You, you said a mouthful for sure. Credit is he, you know, the number one principle of credit isthat it won't be available when you need it. So get it when you don't need it. Right. And, um, so we, youknow, when we were still doing 50 or a hundred thousand dollars a month in sales, we were workingaggressively on getting our first half a million dollars in credit facilities in place, which as, as much aspossible, we use Amex cards because as a, as an education company, you know, assuming the worldgoes back to whatever the new normal is. At some point, um, we, we have events, you know, especiallythe size of organization. We are now we have leadership and executive meetings and we havefulfillment requirements, involve physical events. So we want to have as many travel points as possible.That's why we use Amex cards. Um, but yeah, we had a half, a million dollars in Amex cards lined up,even when we were testing at 50 grand a month, gross revenue. Um, and then frankly, as soon as wewere spending half of that, I mean, Zack, that's how you and I met right. Talking about your funnel dashproduct and how to get more credit and more capable and flexible and expandable ad spend. So, soyeah. Start working on your credit now.

Zach (30:51):
Okay. So let's, let's dive into that because how many cards, like at this level, how many cards do you

need to support that level of spend?

Jeff (31:00):
Well, what's funny is, I mean, why we don't have a visual, I have a drawer here.

Zach (31:05):
W well, now I want to take a picture of this stuff.

Jeff (31:11):

And Jeremy shuffling about, I mean, this is, this is just, what's in the drawer. And I, and I gave probablyanother 20 cards to my, uh, assistant to manage, but here's the thing I don't want to shock in all peoplewith that. That's our stupid tax, like sure. That's us, you know, opening bank accounts and dah, dah, dah,and some of that's us trying to outsmart Facebook. And the reality is we've must, we had, at one pointwe had nine ad managers in every ad manager, if they were on Facebook and YouTube, that meant twocards per ad manager for nine ad managers. Because, you know, when you're doing it, the volume we'redoing, it's like, do you put all your eggs in the basket of one unproven ad manager, be like, Hey, here's amillion dollars a month. Go spend it. Like, no. So we were, but we've actually consolidated, we're backdown to only three ad managers. Um, and we're, we're a lot better now at figuring out who the reallygood ones are. And now we're basically operating off of, I think probably six credit cards. And even thatis just some defensive, some playing some good defense, you know, like if you lose a Facebook adaccounts, you don't want to have the same credit card on another Facebook ad account because it can,you can have spill over risk. And, um,

Zach (32:29):

How I was just, this is great. How often do you have to like time the payoffs of these, right? Cause if youdon't, if you're spending that much, I mean, on a black Friday, you gotta be paying it off, like at 6:00 AM.And

Jeff (32:41):

At one point we were literally paying off. At one point we had a snafu with one Amex card that was like300 grand a month in capacity. And we'd lost that one. And so we were, we were, we were spending atthat point about a million dollars a month when we only had about a quarter million dollars a month incredit. But even then, uh, long story short, we were paying them off every two days, which was, whichwas stupid. And so we've, you know, but even us even knowing what I know I've been doing this for adecade, I still wasn't as prepared as I needed to be. Um, and some of it is, you know, it's hard forinternet marketers because most of us, we don't have 20 year histories of being an executive atGoldman Sachs where the bank will just go, Oh, here's a $2 million line of credit. Like where are theselike ragtag nobodies that pop out of nowhere and suddenly we're making all this money. And so, youknow, you gotta be proactive about it, hit up your dad, like do what you gotta do. Yeah.

Zach (33:39):
Two days, man. I love it. Okay. So we can get off the credit card stack. I mean, you, you, you, you were

just, you know, this is a great sales pitch for ad card. We'll just,

Jeff (33:48):
She said, I have no problem saying to your audience, I met Zach and Dylan because I needed their

product because of exactly what we're talking about. Right.

Zach (33:57):
Yeah. But give us some financial principles that, you know, beyond just, you know, the credit card stack

and yeah.Jeff (34:03):

A little bit. Yeah. I mean, I believe in, I believe we fully live in a world now of relational marketing trust islow. Skepticism is high. People are in a hurry. It's weird. People are in a hurry, but they're also impatient,but is kind of a like contradictory principle. They're like, I don't have a lot of time, but also you're takingtoo long or maybe that is not contradictory, but it's like a compounded problem for us as a marketerwhere they're there. Oh no, I know what I mean. Sorry, but I make this up as I go. It's like a lot of time,but also I don't trust you. So you need to prove yourself. And you're like, but you're not giving meenough time. Well, I guess we can't do business. Well, who loses in that scenario? Me the marketer.Right? So you have to find ways to really, fractionalize the relationship building into lots of little, youknow, what we call micro commitments, lots of little baby steps.

Jeff (35:01):

You got to go on a lot of dates before you pop the question now. And so we have, um, you know, weintentionally structured our process. You know, I mentioned earlier, it took us at the time it took us 21days. I think we're down to like maybe 12 days to get row as positive. Like, like healthily row as positive.But our long-term sales cycle extends almost 90 days. Now, sometimes a longer if people need to likesort out their stuff and you got to deliver content to fill all those voids deliver value. So, you know, a lotof people, I think where they, where they, they stuck with this whole ethos is like, they're like, man, Ishot 10 videos. And they're like, I built my bootcamp. I created my blueprint. Why don't people think I'mamazing? And it's like, it takes, it might take them a year to fall in love with you and you gotta be hittingthem with something new every day.

Jeff (35:58):

So I've, you know, when I, when I decided, and again, to, you know, to the 10 X grant Cardone way ofthinking, like I know a lot of people don't like grant, by the way, I interviewed grant on my showyesterday and he was super respectful and cool. And not at all, like a lot of people think he is, but, um, Itold him straight up, I'm like, dude, your 10 experts will change my life because I've always wanted tothink exponentially bigger, but there was no one around me saying, Oh yeah, that makes sense. Andthen I read your book and I'm like, wait, that's me. That's what I want to do. I don't want to, I don't wantto be a guru with a course. I want to challenge Harvard. Like I want to legitimize entrepreneurialeducation the way like where, where parents feel just as good about their kids saying, I want to go toentre and learn to be an affiliate marketer as they would their kids saying, I want to go to university ofFlorida become a mechanical engineer.

Jeff (36:52):

Well, so like that's my 10 X, right? My 10 X vision. And, um, and anyways, to do that. So when I w so, sofor me, it was not a handicap going into this to go, Hey, I need to create two years worth of contentbecause it might take somebody that long decide they want to do business with me. I was actuallyexcited because I was already willing to do 10 times. I'd already decided my starting point was doing 10times more than what's expected. So, you know, I have 595. It was on my YouTube channel that I'vecreated in the last two years. I have 750 videos on my Facebook page. Cause that, you know, it's all thesame videos, repurpose plus additional lives I have. Why am I $39 course? And I deliver you about eighthours worth of like really, really good content.

Jeff (37:35):

Like people have told me, Oh, that was thousand dollar course. Why do you only sell it for $39? Also, Ipay, I hate to put you on the phone with an advisor that actually holds your hand through the whole thing. So I'm over investing. Over-delivering over loving every step of the way. And I'm doing so patientlywithout insisting on my role, my reward. And then the more, I mean, it's sales one Oh one, man. The lessdebt sprit you act. And the more service oriented you are, the more people at the end of the day are justlike, they're going to spend money with someone. If they're in your, if they're a viable target for you,they'll just, it'll be you. If they feel like you're not pressuring them. Yep. Jeff, this has been, and actually, Iapologize. I don't mean to cut you off, but so the, the, the part, two of what I just said is, so it, it, youknow, as financial principle, which is what you asked me about, it's really real.

Jeff (38:30):

It's not just taking your time, but it's, as you build your value, it's when to ask to cash in on thereciprocity. Right? So for us, we'll start with like, let's say an average of maybe $120 cart value. We'lllove on you for two weeks, but you'll hit a point where if you want to go deeper with us, there's anotherask. I mean, we're not going to, I can't serve you for five years. Cause he gave me a hundred bucks. Soit's like, okay, if you want to go deeper, here's some courses, here's a, here's the, you know, call it themiddle wrong of our ladder. That's, you know, a few thousand dollars and it's a filter for who's. Who'sreally wanting to do this. And then we give you more. We take you through a bootcamp. We give you allthis ad training. We give you.

Jeff (39:10):

So like, we give you, if you spend $2,000 with us, you get $20,000 worth of value. But eventually it'll betime to re up if you want to keep going. But that might happen 60 days later with us. And we have highticket coaching programs and we have a mastermind. People spend a year salary to work with medirectly. And like, you know, I know that it's not viable for people to come out of the gate with all thisstuff built, but all this thinking has to be in place. So that Yaz your, so that you'll do the building as youcan, because you have to build into it. It's very unlikely that with the big ad platforms, you're going to goout and be RO as positive selling a thing.

Zach (39:53):
Hmm. Yeah. That's so good. All right. So you got a book. Let's talk about your book, man. How can

people learn more? Give, give people a point to go check out your world and where should they go?

Jeff (40:06):
Uh, yeah, if you can just go to millionaire secrets dot comm, and I think we have a link set up.

Zach (40:15):
Ooh, check you out.

Jeff (40:18):
You know what it's we don't, but I'm going to magically make it happen by the time this airs. If you'll go

to millionaire secrets.com forward slash what do you guys want? Funnel dash let's do it. Okay.

Zach (40:33):
Rich ed let's do rich billionaires

Jeff (40:36):

Secrets.com forward slash rich ad. You can get those three things you can do on that page. You cansubscribe to my YouTube channel, which again, 500 plus training videos totally free. You could literallybore. You're not boring yourself. You can entertain yourself for years on my own.

Zach (40:53):
Watch the Alex mayor one. I'm really excited to hear about that.

Jeff (40:56):

Good one, man. There's some really good interviews on there and it's not just interviews a ton oftraining. I teach about affiliate marketing. I teach about digital agency and teach about the knowledgebusiness I teach about e-commerce. I teach about all this stuff. I've done all the stuff I know. Um, youcan subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can get the book that, that free book that I told you aboutthe millionaire shortcut, which everybody now knows how it works, where it leads. And what's funny isit only make people more interested. So that's another thing. Product lines are scared to like open uptheir kimono, but we live in a world now of such radical transparency that when you, when you tellpeople how your stuff works, they trust more. And they're, they're more willing to accept how your stuffworks, right? Yeah. Like we, we, we rolled out this, uh, Guinness example.

Jeff (41:40):

We rolled out this like black diamond status for ad card for people that spend over 10 million. And wewere saying, it's unlimited 3% cash back. There's no caps. And everyone was like, what's the catch?What's the catch. What's the catch. Where's the fine print. Where's the fine print. I'm like, you, we justwant your business. And you're going to sign an exclusivity with us. And you're gonna put all your spendon ad card. And they're like, well, that can't be enough. Like, what's the catch? What's the catch. Soyou're right. There's the thing. It takes a long time to build your reputation. It takes two seconds to ruinit. Like just don't. People. Tell them what it is. People know that they got to spend the right customersknow they're going to have to spend money to get value. Just tell them how it works. So anyway, that'show you get up. Go to millionaire secrets.com forward slash rich. Add in subscribe to my YouTubechannel. You get my free ebook, the millionaire shortcut. And you can also subscribe to my podcast,millionaire secrets. You're going get a, love it, man. I'm pumped now. Don't subscribe. Thank you somuch, Jeff. This has been awesome. Yeah. I'm grateful guys is. I love working with you and now I love it.

Zach (42:45):

I love being on your shepherd. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of therich and poor ed podcast. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe onApple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and rich ed [inaudible] dot com slash podcast. And if you absolutelylove the show, go ahead and leave a review and a comment share with a friend. If you do take a copyscreenshot of it, email me zach@funneldash.com. Show me you left a review. I'll give you a free copy ofthe rich ad or ed book to learn more about the book. Go to rich ed for a.com to leave a review that arich ed or ed.com/review. Thanks again.


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About The Podcast

Jason Hornung is the founder and Creative Director at JH Media LLC, the world’s #1 direct response advertising agency focusing exclusively on the Facebook ads platform. Jason’s proprietary methods for ad creation, audience selection and scaling are responsible for producing $20 million + of profitable sales for his clients EVERY YEAR

Zach Johnson

Zach Johnson is Founder of FunnelDash, the Agency Growth and Finance Company, with their legendary Clients Like Clockwork solutions. Under Zach’s leadership, FunnelDash has grown to over 5,000+ agency customers managing over $1 Billion in ad spend across 41,000 ad accounts on. Zach’s private clients have included influencers such as Dr. Axe, Marie Forleo, Dan Kennedy, Dean Graziozi to name a few. Zach is also a noted keynote speaker and industry leader who’s now on a mission to partner with agencies to fund $1 Billion in ad spend over the next 5 years.

Dylan Carpenter

Dylan Carpenter

Dylan Carpenter will be diving into what he and his team are seeing in 200+ accounts on Google and Facebook when it comes to trends, new offerings, and new opportunities. With over $10 million in Facebook/Instagram ad spend, Dylan Carpenter had the pleasure to work with Fortune 500 companies, high investment start-ups, non-profits, and local businesses advertising everything from local services to physical and digital products. Having worked at Facebook as an Account Manager and now with 5+ years of additional Facebook Advertising under my belt, I’ve worked alongside 60+ agencies and over 500+ businesses. I work with a team of Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn experts to continue to help companies and small businesses leverage the power of digital marketing.

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