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Kickoff Sessions
Weekly podcast episodes with the sharpest minds in the world to help you live a richer & more fulfilling life.
Previous guests include Luke Belmar, Justin Waller, Sahil Bloom, Gad Saad, Peter Schiff, Stirling Cooper, Jack Hopkins, Sadia Khan, Matt Gray, Daniel Priestley, Richard Cooper, Justin Welsh, Arlin Moore and more.
Kickoff Sessions
#304 Jeremy Pogue - How to Build a 6 Figure Coaching Business With Ads & Setters ONLY
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(00:00) Preview and Intro
(01:12) Building a Lean Team Without Burnout
(04:06) Revenue vs. Profit: The Coaching Dilemma
(06:47) Why Coaching Businesses Aren’t Sellable
(08:14) Jeremy’s Background in Software & Mini Exits
(10:23) The Biggest Lie in Online Business
(12:22) Redefining Success & Lifestyle Goals
(16:04) Personal Brand Positioning
(19:05) From Organic Marketing to Paid Ads
(22:12) Why Simple Scales and Fancy Fails
(23:34) Content Alone Won’t Save Your Business
(25:31) Selling What Clients Want, Delivering What They Need
(29:30) Ads to VSL vs. Ads to Followers
(33:57) How to Qualify Clients Through Ads
(36:30) Willing vs. Able: Filtering the Right Audience
(40:54) Building Cult-Like Communities & Masterminds
(47:43) Lessons From Top Entrepreneurs & Mentors
(52:21) Consistency, Coachability, and Long-Term Thinking
(54:09) Why Hypothesis-Driven Testing Beats Guesswork
All you need is like 30 bucks a day and an Instagram account. That's all. There's no landing page, there's no, nothing, and so it's like super, super simple. A lot of people try to put a bandaid over a bullet hole and they just try to mask the symptoms instead of solving the root problem. The traditional way of running ads and this is like all of the programs and courses I've ever taken on ads is add to a landing page with a VSL and then call, and I think that used to work really well five, six, seven years ago, but now it's so expensive and it's so common that most of the people in the industry, the people you're selling to, have become pretty sophisticated.
Jeremy:If you're stuck posting every day, burning out in DMs and wondering why your business isn't growing, you're not alone. Most online business owners are told to build their audience, but what they need is an actual system that sells. Jeremy Pogue scaled past 200k a month using paid ads, killer sales reps and a lean backend that closes without chaos. In this episode, we break down the exact ads sales process and funnel that sells high ticket every single day without ever relying on virality. This is the anti-burnout path to scaling. Don't miss it. Your team is still super lean, like it's not. It's not like a bloated team at the moment.
Darren:Yeah, exactly Super lean. There's me and just one client success manager for, like the, the backend delivery side, and then obviously I got an assistant content guy um setter closer and that's it that's super, super lean, jesus christ.
Jeremy:I thought even looking at your customer success like frameworks and stuff, I thought you'd have more guys in there, but you're. But obviously the program is just super efficient, right like. You got to the point where boy like it's not about making a bigger instead of making more efficient exactly.
Darren:Yeah, because a lot of the guys that's in the space like they just they get sucked in. I, I was a slave to this too. I fell for the trap where you get sucked into the revenue, like vortex, where all you care about is just like a bigger stripe screenshot every month, yeah and it. But then what I see end up happening is like you make a lot of revenue but then you have to hire a big team or like spend a ton on ads and things get really bloated. Your margins just tank. And then you're like you're making less money than you would if you were just like a one man show, and like there's some clients that are coming in that like maybe aren't great fits and like dealing with like refunds or like I don't know, just a whole lot of nightmares and stuff. And so I was like well, I don't really want to do that, I don't really want to model what those guys are doing, and so I kind of put a constraint on like my goals, because at the end of the day, it's like a coaching business really has no enterprise value, so it's not really sellable. And so what's the end goal? Well, if it's not to sellable. And so what's the end goal? Well, if it's not to sell it, it's to make it as damn good as possible right now, which means like cash flow and profitability is a huge thing, and then also just word of mouth, reputation, client results and all that kind of stuff.
Darren:And so, rather than just trying to, like, make more sales and just kind of fall victim to that, I much prefer to just kind of put some constraints on it. So I'm like, right now, my goal is to scale, like still scale pretty far, but do it without hiring anybody else, one butt per seat, five people on in the team and stay super lean. And as a result of putting those constraints in there, I don't have an option to tolerate anything less than an a player on the team, because there's no, there's no room for mediocrity. And so, as a result, first of all, like, in order for me to attract and keep a players, I have to be an A player leader myself, so I had to lead by example, and so it forces me to step up in that regard, but then also forces the whole team to step up as well. And so, yeah, I think that's a, at least at this stage anyways, it's a much funner game than just trying to hire 20, 30, 40 people. Scale to a million a month, only take home 200.
Jeremy:so yeah, dude, 100. And the funny part about this is that you're already at that like very, very desirable goal, right, getting a pass like 200k a month is extremely tough for most people without going going big. You know, because for us, like we have, like the education business, and then we have the agency. But I, my background well, not my background, but my background in online business was in the agency space, or still is, should I say, because we still have the agency at a very high level but the margins just get shot the fuck out. And it's actually. It's funny because it's not actually your fault, right, because we take like rev shares. Okay for some people, so if we're only taking, only taking 40% of a rev share, well, that's before everything else comes out, okay.
Jeremy:And I was mentored by a lot of the very big agency guys and they were telling me to keep scaling and keep scaling, keep scaling it in, with the idea that the margin would get swallowed, like that was the whole logic. And some of the guys that mentored me, basically, they're doing like 25 million a year and they're probably doing around 7% margin, probably 7%, dude, and it's fucking crazy. And that's because of the nature of the business. Now, when I speak to some other people in the coaching space, they're also getting shot with their margin right, which is just hilarious, because that's the opposite of how coaching should be. It should be cashflow, it should feed your life, you should be able to travel and do everything that you're doing right, and that was my intention too. That was from the very beginning. Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because, if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today.
Darren:Yeah, you absolutely nailed it, man. And what I've come to realize is like there's no perfect model, there's no right model. There's just the right model for you, yeah. And so it really depends on what your goal is now with like an agency, as long as it can run without you. Now you've got a sellable asset. So even if you are running 7% margins like is the goal cashflow or like a big exit yeah, at least you got some optionality there. But with coaching it's like man, you really like don't.
Darren:And last year I was at the Hermoses HQ in Vegas and went to one of their scaling workshops and I met some guys there. One of them is doing like, yeah, 1.1 million a month with their coaching, they've added software. And like lap fans all 1.1 million a month with their coaching, they've added software and like latin fans, all this kind of stuff and they're asking questions because we did like these round table events or like this round table exercise where it was like one of like the hormoses, like top staff would like come into our circle of like 15 of us or whatever. We'd be able to just like ask them questions and then they move to the next circle. We would get like, then we get like the head of sales, then he would go, and then we get like the head of marketing and stuff like that.
Darren:And so this guy asked the same question to like three different people and he's like hey, we're doing this, we're trying to go for like a big exit. Like what are we missing? What are we not doing? We try this, this that you know, like dude, to be honest, like info is just not that valuable. Like info, businesses aren't that sellable and they're not that desirable because, like every day that goes on, like information gets less and less valuable. And so they're like, obviously, if you add software to it, that's better. If you add like live events and it's like an awesome community and like some sort of like a diverse acquisition process and you're, you're in much better shape, but still it's just it's not one of those things that's like insanely attractive to investors. And yeah, so I was like huh, I got my answer there.
Jeremy:Dude, 100%. And like my, uh, one of my good friends, will Brown. You might be familiar with Will online. He actually lives like down the road from me, uh, a couple of miles down the road from me, and he sold his company. He sold his education business, the trading business, but he ran into like a ton of issues with it. Like I think they were at like 600K a month, 700k a month, but like ad costs just threw the roof and he just got sick of it so he just wanted to get rid of it, you know. And then he now he's rebuilt it again and he has like his new business, which is build, grow and exit. And he always asked me do I ever want to sell my business? He asked me like one, basically like once a month, but it's from a different nature.
Jeremy:Like my background was in software man. Like I literally came from software and this was before like the AI software era, where it was a bit easier. Like I mean, I was in software 10 years ago, dude, when I was 19,. Which is fucking crazy. And that was the days whereby you would raise like 14 million and then hire like a hundred developers and just pray to God that it's going to work out. That was actually. It was like a prey model. So I think just coming from that set my expectations really good in the education and coaching and agency space and just being like, yeah, you're doing, I heard quite recently which being like, yeah, you're doing, I heard quite recently which is like you're doing it to get an exit every single year. That's how much you should be doing it. Right, you should be making money that it's an exit equivalent every single year. A mini exit, should I say man, that's so good.
Darren:Yeah, I love that concept and uh yeah, because why not?
Jeremy:you know, that's the whole the idea with cash flow, you know. But, um, yeah, fucking dude, let's just, let's just start recording and then let's just go, because I feel like, um, I feel, like conversations we have in general.
Jeremy:but, dude, I want to say beforehand like a big thank you for everything, though, and uh, I feel like you fucking, you've really really set the way for this stuff. So this is going to be, this is going to be great man. And uh, you can also ask questions back to me too, right? Like it's not a one-way system, and I actually do have a coaching call in like an hour and 15 minutes, so we'll go sharp, we'll smash it from there.
Darren:Sounds good. I do have to run a boxing in like probably 50 minutes as well, so just a heads up there.
Jeremy:Yeah, so you have a call at half past. Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, I'll have to run sick then. Perfect, awesome. By any chance, can you record your audio on your side? Um, you don't have like a software or some shit on your laptop?
Darren:if you don't, it's chill I'm sure I could get uh obs uh, it's fine, fuck it, don't worry about it.
Jeremy:Don't worry about it, dude. I just want to make sure that the audio comes out like super clear on that side, but I think everything looks fine. Yeah, it's fine, cool. All right, rob, let's kick off, all right. Where I want to start is what's the biggest lie in the online business space that everyone believes, that you don't believe I think the biggest lie that there is is like there's a perfect model that's going to solve all of your problems.
Darren:And I think a lot of people get sucked into this thing where it's like there's a perfect model that's going to solve all of your problems. And I think a lot of people get sucked into this thing where it's like they're just kind of looking for that next thing and that thing is going to be better. Now I will say there's different strategies, different models that are better than others, but how do you define better? I think it really comes down to what's best for you. There's no right model, there's just the right model for you. And what that means to me is like some people they want to just see how far they can take their business and they want to scale to one, two, 3 million a month, but then, like their margins absolutely tank and like there's tons of headaches and stuff like that. And other people they're're like I don't want that at all.
Darren:I just want to make 40k a month, travel the world and like I'm happy and I'm fired up, and so I think it really depends on what the end goal is and what your end game looks like, and then reverse engineering it from there. And so I think with that there's like yeah, it's just an of like you got to get clear on what you want was important to you, and then everything else can fall into place from there.
Jeremy:So you might be familiar with James Kemp. He uh, he was coaching under Tacky Moore, who's worked at Dan Martell, and a few other guys, and um James, big mentor to mine. He said to me, he always said to me. He said what does success look like for you and for your clients, for people that join your program or join my program? Success could be just paying. Success could be just being around other people that are killers. Success doesn't need to be a hundred K a month and a striped screenshot and on Instagram and a Rolex and in Miami and in Dubai. It's so interesting to observe, right, and I look at it through that lens because then you can get better results when you understand what success is for you and also what are you optimizing for. And it's a nice mental model because I know that you balance your life very well with your business and even, like you said, there were profitability to me like 50 fucking times already.
Darren:So it shows that, like at its core, you're not looking for, like this crazy maniac business, almost something that's like calm and just peaceful, to be perfectly honest yeah, I think right now, like and this, this shifts over time like a couple years ago, when I first started the business, I was like I will die before I don't hit a hundred K a month. I'm like I will sacrifice everything, that's all I care about, like bull in a China shop just ramming my head through the wall until I get there. And then I think I hit it month seven and then month eight, we doubled again and it was just me and a setter and so I was taking, like I was the CSM, I was doing all the content, sales, like ops, admin, like everything, and I just had a setter booking calls on my calendar, I was blasting ads and it was so much fun and I think I had like 87% margins too, because I was paying my setter 10% and like not spending much on ads at all and they were just really, really effective, because back then the marketing message was like brand new and it was like a super new opportunity and so, anyways, yeah, that was awesome. And then I hit it and I was like, cool, what now? 100, then we did 200 a month and then, like, from there I was like, okay, now I'm going to sort of build a bit of a team, because I don't want to be working 12 hours a day and doing absolutely everything. So then I built a team I think there's five or six of us to kind of have one butt per seat right now.
Darren:And I feel like now I have, like you said, I have a lot more balance in my life and I can have a lot more fun.
Darren:I can be a lot more creative to create better content, create better content for my clients, show up more prepared for coaching calls, spend more time with clients and stuff like that too, and now like it's just yeah, I think at the end of the day, you want to optimize, especially with coaching, because truly I don't think coaching is like like building a coaching business is a sellable asset, especially like with what I do is like marketing coaching it's like man, like instagram could have an update tomorrow and like everything I teach could just be irrelevant, and so that's like super risky for investors, like maybe for like, and it's super competitive too. Like there's millions of other competitors. It's ridiculously expensive for ads for my niche and everything like that. So like I'm not going to sell it and so with that I that means you gotta like. I love what you said earlier, but like, have like a mini exit every year, yeah, and so that shifts into profitability.
Jeremy:So if you optimize for peace and profit and just like simplicity, I think that's the recipe for success yeah, dude, I think I've really observed that from you because of, like, who you've been mentored by too right, like you've had some really good people in your corner, and it's the hand over the shoulder equivalent right, which is like hey, don't do this, this is kind of dumb. I'm going to save you like 10 years of agony and pain, because we all fall victim to that, and I absolutely have as well as well. So there needs to be that balance between the two. One observation I've made of you as well is your positioning is so dialed in right.
Jeremy:You have like an art to be able to position yourself in the market in equivalent to a red ocean, which is just filled with like people chopping each other up to where you've kind of created like a blue ocean opportunity, which is like the ads and setter model is is very unique to you. It's very, very unique to you and I think that's been a big unlock. That's like, oh, jeremy, is the ads plus setter, dude, which is very difficult to be able to find. Like. How did you manufacture that type of positioning to really become like one of one in that space?
Darren:Great question and I nerd out about this stuff. So we're going to go deep here. Let's go, and hopefully it'll be very tactical. So, like you kind of alluded to, the last thing you want to do is build an improvement offer saying I'm going to help you do organic marketing better, or like scale your coaching business in a better way. It's like you got to be completely different, and so a couple of years ago, what I noticed is that every single person was saying I'll help you get more coaching clients without spending a dime on ads. And then I came along I was like that's stupid, because I don't want to do organic, I don't want to spend my time doing that. I'd rather spend my money to then help me get more time back. And so then I was like I'll help you get clients with ads so you no longer have to do all the things you hate. And so one of my favorite things when it comes to marketing is throwing rocks at the enemy. So you had to create an enemy, which is, for me, organic marketing coaches. Coaches that tell you I'm going to help you scale your coaching business by teaching you how to do organic, send cold DMS, try to go viral your coaching business by teaching you how to do organic, send cold DMS, try to go viral, posting Facebook groups, all that kind of stuff. And the reason like I get passionate about it is because, like I used to do that.
Darren:So before starting summit a couple of years ago, I worked for another coach in the space. When I joined him, um, he was actually my old business coach when I was growing my advertising agency and and I was seeing success in the agency. And then he was like dude, like you're crushing it, do you want to join my team as my head coach and teach my other students how you've been able to grow? I was like, sure, because I was getting burnt out with the agency. And then I joined his team as a coach. A month later his sales guy quit, so I started taking sales calls for him. And guy quit, so I started taking sales calls for him and I was like, hey, dude, why don't I run ads for you too, and we'll just pack up the calendar? He's like, yeah, let's do it.
Darren:In like six, seven months we went from 40 K a month to 220. And it was just like four young dudes in our twenties just blasting it. But we were teaching organic, we're teaching organic marketing. And so, like we were making a ton of money, but then, like our clients were like grinding their asses off to try and just like get through it, and I was like something's wrong here. It's like we're doing one thing but we're teaching the other thing. And so I started teaching our ad strategy to some of our mastermind clients and they were crushing it and things were like going really, really well for them and I was like okay, I, I'm like I got something here. And immediately, like they were just like two, three, four extra business. I was like okay, and then some stuff happened with that um, with that business, that mentor, and then I left. The rest of the team followed me and then a couple months later, I started summit and then I was like I'm just going to teach what works, which was running ads on Instagram. I had an appointment setter, booking calls and then long form on YouTube with some sales assets like VSLs, retargeting ads, all that kind of stuff. And so I just did what worked and then use that to create the enemy of the organic marketing coach.
Darren:Because another thing, too, is like I don't work with beginners. I don't want to like I've worked, I've helped hundreds of beginners start their coaching business and pick their niche and all of that when I used to be a CSM for him. And I just didn't want to do that. I want to work with established people who are like five to 30 K a month and just like ready to just like they're good at what they do, they know how to sell. They just need more people to sell to. And so when I got super clear on that, I was like all right, that means to get to five to 30 K a month. They've been in other programs before.
Darren:I kept hearing that on sales calls, yeah, I've been burned before, you know, and so there's a lot of pain there.
Darren:So I'm like okay, I can either be part of the pain or be part of the solution to the pain. And so I was like, yeah, no shit, they burned you because this is what they promised to sell you. And so I was like that's the reason why you got burned, that's the reason why you're still stuck is because you're doing organic and you're just relying on that inconsistent, it's unpredictable and you can't actually scale. And I'm like, on the other hand, with ads, you build a system put $1 in, you get $4 out, $10 out, consistently, predictably, every single month. You just get people coming to you and so I basically took all the pains and problems that they had with all of the other models and competitors and then I was like, well, let's just flip it on its head and throw rocks at them. Like, yeah, they do suck. I'm on your side. This is why I do what I do, and here's how. It's better and different, and the main thing here is different is better than better.
Jeremy:Double top on that, go a bit deeper on that.
Darren:It goes with the improvement offer versus new opportunity. Right, it's an improvement offer, then it's not that sexy, it's not that attractive, it's just like, oh, I'll help you, just do what you're currently doing, but like a little bit better. You're like, yeah, that's nice to have, but it's not a need to have, whereas if it's different, then it doesn't have all of the emotional pain associated with what I've already tried and didn't work before and it promises to solve the pain as well. So it's different from what I've tried. So I don't have this bias towards, I don't have this emotional pain towards that thing.
Darren:So, bringing this back down to earth ads, for example there's kind of two sides of this. It's people who have never tried as before. Now, ads and setters is like a different new opportunity from organic, so there's no pain yet. Or there's the people that have tried ads and they wasted money and they lost money and it didn't work for them. And then I'm like, okay, well, the reason didn't do that, like the reason it didn't work is because you had to build all these funnels and have all these campaigns and landing pages and there's all this complexity. Like my ass, all you need is like 30 bucks a day and an Instagram account and that's all. There's no landing pages, no, nothing. And so it's like super, super simple. And then I'm like the reason it didn't work is because it's too complex. You're trying to build something that was just like way too complicated and simple scales, fancy fails.
Jeremy:Dude. That's so interesting. There's so much mini observations in there as to why other programs fail as well. Right, because if you're over promising, like one specific thing, like going viral, right, going viral on Instagram, going viral on YouTube, like that is one tiny segment of everything that needs to happen, right? Let me give an example.
Jeremy:So, obviously, my background in the online space was in podcasting, okay, and our media company is a podcast media company, so we run a lot of famous people's podcasts. And then our education business in the beginning, version one was just teaching people and help people get into the podcast space. But we quickly and I mean very quickly iterated on that, which was helping podcasters monetize their audience, and then we swapped it to helping business owners make more money with content. And the reason why I'm saying this is because content was only a proponent Okay, it was one. We call it one third of the equation. The other third was sales man. They had to fucking learn how to sell. They had to learn something. They had to learn how to close. They needed some system. They needed some way to get people true, whether it's sell by chat, whether it's a call funnel and then they needed a fucking good offer, so they needed a delivery system that had a good offer to be able to do something, because it didn't matter how good your content was or it didn't matter how good you were showing up on camera If you didn't have like, let's say, like the three pieces.
Jeremy:But if I compare that to other people that are like, oh dude, just just create a YouTube video, just create like a, an Instagram reel, they're selling like a symptomatic issue, symptomatic fix to much deeper, root cause problem. I think that's why people literally get burned, because we have the exact same feedback which is like, hey, I bought these programs before I was told to do this and it didn't work. Because a lot of our clients they well, they would initially get caught in masturbation, procrastination land, which is like they just think about what they're doing so much versus actually physically doing it, running that ad, getting people to come there having a conversation, actually selling the program. You know there has to be that action component which I think you've really, really nailed with your clients to get them to like do shit, literally just do shit. You know there is that component.
Jeremy:Are you an agency owner, coach or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Vox, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you wanna see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025.
Darren:Oh, we can go deep here. Man, You're opening a can of worms.
Jeremy:Let's go.
Darren:It's awesome. So a couple of things there. Yeah, you're exactly right. A lot of people try to put a bandaid over a bullet hole and they just try to mask the symptoms instead of solving the root problem, and that is a huge cause for exactly what you said. And on the other side, it's like you have to balance, like the delivery, like the front end, the backend, so what you market and sell, versus what you actually deliver. And so, on the one hand, you kind of have to like at least well, I won't say you, you kind of have to. I'll just tell you what I do. And so I just sell as insetters.
Darren:90% of my clients come to me because they're like hey, jeremy, I need more leads or better leads. I'm like, okay, cool, that's the problem that they think they have. It could be their offer, it could be their sales sucks, it could be who knows what right, but they think that their problem is they just need more, better leads, and so that's that's what I sell, that's how I position it. My whole front end, all my marketing and everything is just ads and setters, ads and setters, more leads, better leads. Now, when they get into the program, it's a different story. Yes, we focus on ads and setters and I can talk about like how I designed the program too. We can, like I said we can, we can get into this. I love this shit and I nerd out about it, but that's what they buy. However, we're not going to let them run ads and hire a setter if their offer sucks. And so the first place we start with them, like once they sign up, it's like within like a day or two, get on onboarding call and we send them through offer optimization. So that's where we get clear on the positioning, on the messaging Okay, who exactly are we speaking to? How are? How are we going to speak to them as well? What makes them tick? What are their pains or their desires? All that kind of stuff.
Darren:So we get crystal clear on that, on the offer and the positioning of it. And then we can take that clear on that on the offer and the positioning of it, and then we can take that, put that into the ads. And so, if we think about there's like a handful of different things, you need to scale like your business, you need your offers, you gotta be good, you gotta make really good content, you gotta have ads to get people watching your content, you gotta have like DM conversations, you gotta have a sales conversation conversation. You gotta have delivery systems and ops and all that kind of stuff. And if I like, a lot of the time what we do is we help people with their offer. Like I said at the start, and if I sold that on the front end, if I marketed like I'm the offer helper guy, it's like dude'd be broke, we wouldn't be talking right now because nobody thinks that they need that. So you got to sell them what they want and then give them what they need on the backend. And so we start there.
Darren:Then we go into ads, launch those Once we got the leads coming through. Now we got to warm them up and nurture them, build a VSL, create very intentional content and brand positioning to then create the separation between you and everybody else, throw rocks at the enemy and just kind of create a blue ocean, even if it's in a fiercely bloody red ocean. And then from there appointment center, dial in sales and go from there Like we have five group coaching calls a week. Only one of them is about ads and that's like ads marketing. That's mine on Monday. And then we've got one on appointment setting, one on delivery and operations and then two on sales, because we can give them a ton of leads with the ads, but if they can't close them, like you said, then all of a sudden the leads suck and Jeremy's program sucks A hundred percent. And yeah, so it's. Uh, it's a fun, fun game, man.
Jeremy:There's a lot of moving pieces it's always the case, right, it's always the case to give people what they want. So you can give them what they need. Like that's why people get into fitness for a six-pack and to look good in miami. But then they're like, oh, like I actually sleep better and then I train better and then I have better relationship with my friends and myself and everything. Like you, you have to understand, like almost like, what's the internal driver initially, which is like leads.
Jeremy:People think they have a leads problem, that they actually have an offer problem. They actually have a sales problem, and even even guys like it's so interesting, because the way that you view things is, you know, you can't scale the shit out of it if you don't know how to close them. Right, if you can't close a door, how the hell are you going to close a 6k paid in full? Like it's just, it's almost like obvious. But you don't want to hurt someone's ego too, right? You want to actually help someone. That's consult of selling and showing people. Oh, yes, this is exactly where you are and this is where you're going to get to Now. Obviously, your ad strategy is super unique and I really want to double tap on this. What's your opinion on running an ad to a VSL so landing page versus running an ad to a follower account and then nurturing the leads overall.
Darren:Great question. So the traditional way of running ads and this is like all of the programs and courses I've ever taken on ads is add to a landing page with a VSL and then call, and I think that used to work really well five, six, seven years ago, but now it's so expensive and it's so like common that most of the people in the industry, the people that you're selling to, have become pretty sophisticated At least the people in my niche, right, they understand what it is, and so I don't think it's as effective, plus a lot of those guys. It's like what? Like how they defined good and successful was like a three X row, as you're getting a one to three return on your money, or three to one return on your money. You're like an advertising God and you're like you have this incredible thing for me, if I get a three to one, wrote like row as I should shut my business down and get a nine to five and like. That's kind of the way I see it. So the follower ads yes, you're sending them to your Instagram profile.
Darren:Now the downside of it is it's like impossible to track the track ability. The measurability is horrific, but the profitability is disgusting, and so like on any given month, like we're averaging a 10 to a 12 X return. Some months it's like up to 18. And that means like the margins are way higher. But, like I said, the tracking, the measurability, the testing isn't as robust as like a VSL funnel or something like that too. Now, vsl funnel is more scalable, for sure, because it's like you can just put it all in and get three out or four like pretty consistently, whereas the followers it's like a bit of a slower burn. But I think, especially in like a super competitive industry, it's good to like, it's never a bad thing to have more qualified people with money and pain in your audience watching your content, getting to know like and trust you every single day, then not, and so I'd like to get your opinion on this, because for tracking, this is the way I do it.
Jeremy:So I want to guess you tell me this is terrible if you want to. So spend money on ads, follow ads, let's say a hundred dollars a day. Just keep it simple. Total followers that come in, let's just say it's 50, and then of that 50, how many are qualified in that day? So let's just say it's 50. And then of that 50, how many are qualified in that day? So let's say 30. And then of that 30, there being conversations are started. We just do a special like kind of tag or a special symbol or something in the conversation so that then in T90, so within 90 days, if they book, we can attribute that to the follower ad. Now is that stupid or is that a good idea? Because for me that's kind of like checking out logically.
Darren:Yeah, no, that makes total sense and that's kind of what we do and a lot of our clients do. So, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there and like but what I'm like seeing with like the trackability is like that is like a super manual process 100%. But what I'm like saying with like the trackability is like that is like a super manual process. It's very like hands-on right and so there's ways to get around it, whereas like vsl, it's like you can see exactly which specific ad they came from and like when, and like it tracks like all of their clicks, like throughout the entire like journey, and so, um, yeah, kind of just again, two different ways. I love the follower ads because, like anybody can do it, like I've had clients in their like late 40s, early 50s that like don't know what an instagram real is, start making reels.
Jeremy:we made one ad and then, like one of my clients, tom, helped me go from zero to 100k a month with one ad I saw that dude, I saw that guy, I actually saw that interview and I was like if that guy can do it because he's like obviously in like mid 50s, like probably like in that kind of like boomer stage and like anybody could do it right, like quite literally I say that respectfully like the guy probably has no background in fucking instagram.
Darren:He probably doesn't even use instagram, you know, historically yeah, he didn't know what a reel was and he jokes about that all the time, like he's uh, we meet up every single week and he's in my mastermind and like he tells that story all the time too. And yeah, he's like, but it's just simple man, and and that's it okay.
Jeremy:So what? What do you do in those ads to like crush it? That stand, that really stand out right, because those you know asymmetrical returns you're getting are based on how good your scripts are. How base are good are your actual fucking ads actually?
Darren:are. So a couple things. One of the main things I focus on is financial qualification, because the worst thing ever in the world is when you just have an audience full of broke people, and that's not fun, that's not something I want to do and it's not something I want to put my clients through either. And so, um, the main thing is like making sure that you're financially qualified. So what I mean by that is like in the ad copy and what you're saying, how are you calling out people that have money and how are you repelling people that don't? And so like there's ways you can do it.
Darren:I've had, like, for example, fitness coaches scale to seven figures. Like one guy, adrian, he was at like 20 K a month doing organic for five years and then we launched one ad that four X the business up to the seven figure mark, and in that he was targeting like women that wanted to lose weight. But we needed to find like women that had money to invest, because one thing that we could hear all the time was, like they need to talk to their husband and you get like kind of permission because like he was the breadwinner and stuff like that. So like, how can we go after women that like have their own money. And so the script with that it was like, if you're a career, career driven woman, struggling, or whose letter health slip as a result of being too busy with your work, this is for you.
Darren:It's like you're probably like advancing your career, you're making great money, but you've just kind of let your health fall to the back burner as a result of being so busy. And then it's like, in other words, you've got the money and the finances dialed in, but not the health and fitness. And so, like we're kind of flip flopping back and forth between a you have the money, b you have the pain that we solve. A you have the money, b you have the pain. A you have the money, b you have the pain. And so that's how we're qualifying. And so, like, people that aren't advancing in their career, people that don't have their money and their finances dialed in, aren't going to listen. They're probably going to keep scrolling, which is exactly what we want. And so, as a result, he's able to sell a $4,500 fitness coaching offer to people that have money and do it with a relative amount of ease.
Jeremy:It's so interesting, right, because the way I think about it is willing and able. So everyone is willing to work with Jeremy. Everyone wants to join his program, but not everyone is able to pay $9,500. And I think that's a very interesting way to separate out your audience, because people are like, oh, like, I'm getting attention, right, and it's a one-on-one like didn't get attention as a child, and now I'm getting attention on social media. They are willing to work with you, and then they book up a shit ton of calls and then they're not able to.
Jeremy:And dude, just for a bit of context on this about how your audience can get super skewed it's a guy that trains at my gym, nice guy.
Jeremy:He has 2.7 million subscribers on YouTube, 800k on Instagram and making like between two to 5K a month. Because his audience is filled with actual women, would you believe, cause it's like the type of workouts he does. His audience is filled with actual women, would you believe, because it's like the type of workouts he does, his audience is filled with people that are just generally broke and that's, I guess, a that's a cause and effect of creating just a bunch of like very viral content, and now his ecosystem is just contained of people that will never buy. So we were like chatting and I was like, okay, you know, for an audience of that size do you even run a call, funnel, right, because the audience is so big. It's like, how do you even solve that problem, bro? And I think like the logic is like initially see like who books in, or how can you book in, or how do you set them, and then get to the point of, okay, maybe, maybe, just maybe there's a small 1% of people that are able to actually come and actually work with you.
Darren:Yeah, few things here. So, first of all, I think something that would be great to filter is like a low ticket product and then from there going for the call ascension on the back end of that. So then you're you're only offering a call to people that have proven that they're buyers. Yes, correct, rather like buyers are different than leads, and so that would be a good kind of like filter there. It could be $27, it could be $7, it could be 97. It doesn't matter, right. And then on the backend of that, have like a phone setter calling all the buyers or like some sort of like CSM type thing client support rep, helping them like go through it, um, on the back end, and then from there try to go for the upsells if they're qualified, um, so yeah, that could be, could be a good way around it. Um, we'll see. But uh, yeah, that's crazy man like.
Darren:I had a client a few weeks ago it's kind of like a similar thing. He had a reel popped off, got like over a million views and he's like dude, my business absolutely tanked because it was just like the reel was like kind of unrelated to what he was doing. So he's a fitness coach working with catholic men and helping them like get in shape. And so he made a reel just about like religion in general. That was like a little like polarizing and so it popped off. So we got a lot of people that are just interested in like religion and not fitness.
Darren:And then now he had like tens of thousands of new followers come through that aren't interested in fitness and the transformation that he helps people achieve, and they don't have the pain, they're just there because they were like interested in this, this, like one reel on a different kind of unrelated topic. Yeah, and so you're going to kind of let the, let the wave rot, let the wave ride out, and then fix things and kind of like patch it up from there. So a lot of times it can do more harm than good. Oh dude 100.
Jeremy:The way I think about it is that every, every video is like a vsl, whether it's a real or youtube video, and then every written copy is sales copy. So, looking at a true dot lens and even with our clients that we work with, like, I want to make sure that there's like this one-to-one relationship between the content you produce it's long form or short form and how does it relate to your product or service. So, like, if I'm talking, if I'm talking literally about like equipment in to do with a podcast, like that has to relate to somewhere in my fucking program that has some sort of equipment alignment, otherwise what am I doing it for? Like, literally, what am I doing it for? I can talk to my friends about this shit in my spare time. If I'm only if I have a couple of shots in a week to put out posts. I'm not going to be putting out stuff. That's in a misalignment. But it's a weird thing because people don't get that right, because I guess there is like value-based content.
Jeremy:So you know, those offers I sell to, let's say, christian founders. It's based on values, right, the value of being Christian and whatever that aligns with in terms of your belief system. And then there's the operation and mechanism. That's like fitness or business or relationships or whatever that may be. So again, it's positioning right. Brandon is actually so good at that. You know he's targeting his fitness. It's just like Christian business owners, and he's done such an amazing job with that too, which is separating out his uh, his entire audience.
Darren:Totally, yeah, and that's how you build a really good brand. Like a cult like audience is when you have an aligned vision and values and talk about that too. And so I've been going really deep here because, um, about a month from, I'm hosting a client retreat here in my hometown, in Kelowna, bc, canada, and a small town like middle of nowhere, it's a nightmare to get to, but we've got, I think, 45 people flying out and coming to this event. I actually opened it up to non-clients for the first time ever, just testing it out, we'll see. And I got dan martell speaking and his right hand man and another buddy doing a million a month and, excuse me, unreal.
Darren:But a couple of days are like just me and I'm building this, this training on how to build a cult-like audience, because that's how you do it and like that's how, like, the most successful people in the space are the most successful people in the space are the most successful people in the space. Yeah, they build a call like audience, like russell brunson did that with quick funnels, even like andy elliott, like you can see. Like so when you understand behind the the scenes, like what the things are, what the boxes are to check, you're like oh, I can see this guy doing that exactly, dude. So 100.
Jeremy:I have a few crazy stories and that's the first thing on the mastermind dude. Best of luck with that. I just ran my second mastermind this year and it's so good for building a cult literally so good. One of my best mates, lara costa, spoke at it and one of our aspects we called, we joked on it, calling like building a cult, like how do you do it? So I so I ran my first mastermind in January in Bali and it was for mostly clients, 80% clients. All of them came back in May for the next one.
Jeremy:Plus, we had external people then and then they came into the ecosystem and were like Jesus, like what's going on here? Like there's, like it's. So it's a strong click, you know, and the people that are inside are really inside. We on click, you know, and the people that are inside are really inside. We all think the way, same way. We all build the same businesses in the same way and it was crazy because some guys, to your point, like they're making like 200k a month, 200k a month, 400k a month. You attract person that's based on the values as a result. So that was like a huge, huge unlock. But one thing that was very apparent was my team and it's a small team. A lot of my kind of main kind of guys were there. They flew in. So, just for context, people flew from all around the world America, europe, dubai, australia, to Bali, where I'm based and the biggest observation people made was of our team. They're like, oh like, the team is super strong, super strong values. You all guys are working the same thing.
Jeremy:And I had a post on LinkedIn. I know people think LinkedIn is for losers, but I think it's really good. I had a post on LinkedIn about me and one of my sales reps. So one of my sales reps. He was making $150 a month in Vietnam and now he's joined us. He's making around $7,000 a month. And I had this post on LinkedIn and I went like super viral, very polarizing in terms of like what the fuck's your excuse? And guess who messaged me? Andy Elliott messaged me in DM, being like love the story about you and your sales rep. Dude, keep crushing it, keep at it. And when I looked at it I was like that was the exact attitude that he has around sales and it was a real full circle moment.
Darren:Man Wow, that's hilarious. Man, go ahead. Oh no, I was just gonna say it's crazy like the impact of the live events specifically can have, though. It just makes everything like it brings it all back down to earth and like that genuine connection. Yeah, the in-person energy is next level.
Jeremy:And dude, I always talk about this too, right, Because for our agency, a lot of the guys are kind of siloed because they're just doing their own thing. They work with us as an agency partner. We bring them to our events and it really connects everyone too. Because one of my mentors said to me before I said why is the relationship between coaching and agency clients different? And he said because you do a service to them, so you are a servant of them. It was such an interesting observation and because you do something for someone, the relationship is just different, just different, right, um, not necessarily positive or negative.
Jeremy:Sometimes it can be negative, but we're doing our last event in september, so turn three events this year and I have like matt lakovich and william brown speaking and again it's just bringing people together. And, oh, to be fair, this time like there's so much emphasis on the content and what we're teaching. But what I would say, what I always say, is that the most value is between the members, when they're interacting on their own. So when we're just having dinner and having lunch, that's when they get the most value from people. And I love, like six months from now, people I see like people that were at the event recording podcasts together. They're like doing partnerships together. They're running their own event together and and it's, it's dude, that's like, that's like the most beautiful part of business. I think that's why I love running events so much.
Darren:Yeah, man, a hundred percent, and I've literally said the exact same thing too. So the last one we hosted was in March in Miami and I literally said that to everyone. I'm like, guys, it's like I've got a lot of really good stuff planned for you, like for the workshops I'm going to be teaching, but I promise you, your biggest takeaways are going to be from the conversations like around the dinner table or around the pool and stuff like that. And it's like we had some incredible like speakers, like another buddy, austin, who scaled to a couple hundred K a month Like he spoke.
Darren:I have a buddy who was the top, the top sales rep for Tony Robbins for like and personally one-on-one mentored by him for like 15 years and now like he set the record for doing like $12.6 million from like one single presentation and like crazy, like, now the top sales reps at Tony Robbins get the, the award named after him.
Darren:And so he came like, did this incredible presentation with us, hung out with us for the day, went to the miami heat game and stuff, and it was like unreal and uh, it's so like a, it's super cool being able to like, be like in relation, like in orbit, with guys like that, um, and like be able to attract that and help, like help my clients like also get that energy too, um, but also they like, yeah, just a lot of the feedback that I got was like how his presentation made them feel, how his standards made them feel, but then also just that like nothing to do with anything that we organized too and just completely like irrelevant and just like, oh yeah, this dinner conversation I had just completely shifted everything that I I ever did in my entire business and now like it's just, it's crazy and the energy is like nuts afterwards too, it's like people go home, they hit like record months and like they're just fired up. The community is just pumping.
Jeremy:It's so, so, so cool it's a small things man dude. If you're doing a mastermind in europe or if I'm in america, I'll come. I'll come to your next one, like 100.
Jeremy:If you're doing external people, like, yeah I'd fucking love to come, man, and you know what's so interesting? Like you're a young dude, like I'm pretty fucking young too, for the most part like I always observed the people that were in quantum with Sam Ovens a few years ago. So, like you know, five fucking years ago, when they were in quantum, a lot of these guys were making like 100k a month, 150k a month. Now they're doing like two million a month, three million months, selling businesses. So, like this is the precursor for like what you do in your life. It's, it's, it actually does set you up so well. But in relationships, what you know, knowledge, like dude, I remember watching a Will Brown mastermind three years ago and Charlie Morgan was in the room and he was teaching Charlie Morgan how to build a sales team. Like that was only three years ago, dude, and Charlie was like a young guy, he's, like you know, mid-20s, and he's teaching him a little how to build a sales team. So fucking three years ago. And now charlie's like doing like 30 million a year or some shit, and uh, it's just interesting, right? Success leaves clues.
Jeremy:Coachability I watched a david dre video the other day which was, like you know, the second, you stop becoming coachable. You're fucking cooked. You're over, bro the second. You think that you're better than the game, you're better than sales, you're better than offers. You're just over, and it's a very humbling experience, man. What I want to ask you I know you need to jump in a sec is like so you've been coached by a lot of great people. What are some observations you've made from being coached by people like Dan Martell and other guys in the space?
Darren:It's all in how they they view themselves and then everything that they do is just a reflection of that, and usually it's nothing crazy either. They're they're masters of the basics, they're masters of the fundamentals. And yeah, like Dan Martell, him and I are very close. We live in the same town. I just had a bunch of guys like his business partner, creative director, head of sales, head of like the media um, all those guys came over for barbecue at my place last week and so like it's super cool to have such a close relationship and spend a lot of time together in that regard. And also, like I met Ed Milet, spent a day with him in his house in Florida, and other guys have sold nine figures in this space, and it really just becomes like so glaringly obvious. It's like they're just masters of the fundamentals. Man, it's the basics of personal development. They choose, they of personal development, they choose, they prioritize personal development first, and then everything they do is just a reflection of that.
Darren:And like a few months ago, well, at the start of the year, I was like I'm reading 52 books this year, a book a week because one of my team members was like, hey, I'd never finished a book before, but I'm gonna read 52 this year, like and, and I'm like, shit, dude, all right, I'll join you. And so, anyways, I got like I was doing so well for like two, two and a half months and then I was like two weeks ahead of my reading. I'm like, oh yeah, I fucking got this. And then I had like a month of just like back-to-back travel. I had like four trips like a week or like sorry, like a week at a time, like I'm home for like a day and then like flying out again and I just kind of got like a little overwhelmed and burnt out and lost my sorry, chose to give up my momentum and so I just like stopped reading for like a month or two. And then last I don't know a week or two ago, I was like man, like why, why did I do that?
Darren:And I noticed too, like the energy in my community kind of lowered a little bit.
Darren:My team kind of lowered a little bit my content and I was like, ah, and so since then I've just been absolutely like going hard on the reading and journaling and like visualization and vision boards and stuff like that, and just like that passion, that fire, it's, it's so back and so like that was just like a little mini example that I've learned recently of just like it's gotta just be a standard, it's just daily non-negotiables, man, and it's it's reading, it's learning, it's growing, it's pushing yourself to just become better, smarter, every single day, and just like default to action.
Darren:That's one thing that that Dan like preaches a lot is is your default setting to just be take action. Don't overthink it, don't try to like say, okay, well, what if I? He's like dude, just just fucking do it to take action and then iterate from there and then try to make it better. And so I think a lot of people can get out of that procrastination and just mental masturbation phase when they let go of their vices. They just prioritize personal development and reading and they just take massive action 100% man Dude.
Jeremy:That's so interesting. I say my observation myself. Right, I've recorded a podcast every single week for five years and coming up to the mastermind obviously was super fucking busy. So I actually I had I have a backlog always but I kind of went like two and a half weeks of recording a podcast and then I finished on monday and I was like I for me, want to get back recording, I want to get back like hammering I think. I think I'm doing like seven podcasts in the next, like 10 days, flying to london on monday doing five in london. That'll be in marbella, doing five in london.
Jeremy:And like my podcast is only a proponent of what I do. It's not even like I don't even fucking monetize it, man. It's for my podcast, it's for my actual business and I just enjoy meeting people. Like it's 6 am bro on a fucking tuesday, um, but I I do it because it's like a highest value for me. It's like how you do one thing is how you do everything and, as you said, your clients and customers reflect that energy in you and you don't need to be up here at 100 times, but it's good to be at like an 8 or a 7 out of 10, just consistently. Consistently at that, because then you never lose, right?
Jeremy:I had dinner with Jordan Platten. He's been really big in the agency space. He was in my house yesterday but we had dinner and he was like, do you work like every day? And I was like, yeah, I do, but I don't work at like a hundred percent, a hundred miles an hour. It's just like I work every day on my business agency content, everything just a bit Like I work on it and it always moves forward. And if I do that over 10 years I I'm physically not going to lose like quite literally.
Jeremy:Like how can I lose if I just keep doing the same thing and I keep getting better and better and iterating, and sorry, the last thing I was going to say on this was have you ever read the lean startup by eric rose? I haven't. No, oh, dude, if you're on your, if you're on the reading fucking hype, get that book, dude. Buy that right now. I'll buy it for you, right, it's like a seven dollar book. It was the first book I ever read. So again, I have a background.
Jeremy:The first book I was given in university was the lean startup, and the guy came in and he was like I don't give a fuck how good your business idea is, I don't give a fuck how good you think your development is or your marketing is. The only thing that matters is testing it in the market, and it's called, like, hypothesis thinking. So I saw your video on this as well. But this is where, where it came from, which is, everything you do is a hypothesis until it's in the market. And the whole logic was the silicon valley startups. They were building for 20 or for 10 years in their basement, but the the best startups in the 90s and 80s were the ones that came true and literally went on the floor.
Jeremy:So this means, if you have a hypothesis, go to the market and test it. Ask someone hey, do you want x, do you want a program on setters and ads? And then you want someone to say, no, that is shit. Like you literally want people to tell you that it's terrible. And that's how I built my first two startups man 20 and 2023, which was dude. I had a passport startup tech startup. I went to the airport in dublin and I would stand at the departure lounge and would be like would you, you use this app? And I literally did it for like six months straight because it was the only thing that mattered was customer feedback. You will love that book, dude, because you'll get so much ideas as to like is there small things you want to add or improve to your program? And the whole logic is it's a customer feedback loop continuously and it's an amazing book, amazing.
Darren:I've heard great things about it, yeah I read it, you're reading.
Jeremy:It's one of those classics.
Darren:I just haven't like gotten around to reading yet so send me your address.
Jeremy:I'll order a few as a gift for this podcast oh, I appreciate that man, I appreciate that big thank you man. This was such a sick podcast. I I really really, really do appreciate it. I'd love to do another one in person. Uh, I'm in America quite often I don't know how many times you come down from Canada, but to be fair, we'll get it done in person. Or if you're coming to Europe, I know you do a bit of trips across Europe too, but in the meantime once I said big, big thank you man.
Darren:Yeah, of course, man. This was absolutely awesome and love the conversation today.