From prison cell to $2 million business (The "No excuses" blueprint) | A systeme.io success story

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YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@theinfamousjoel4551

From serving a 7-year prison sentence to building a $2 million online empire, Joel Vasquez (aka "The Infamous Joel") is living proof that your past does not define your future.

In this episode, Joel breaks down exactly how he went from working as a forklift driver to making $30k/month in just two years. He reveals why he ditched low-ticket affiliate offers, how he earned the systeme.io Diamond Award, and why simplicity is the key to scaling.

He also unveils his "YouTube Trust Funnel"—a strategy so effective that it allows him to close 80% of his sales calls on autopilot without a massive sales team or expensive ads.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
🚀 The high-ticket shift: Why selling cheap products is keeping you broke (and how to find 90% margin offers).
🚀 The YouTube trust funnel: How to get leads to say "send me the invoice" before you even get on a call.
🚀 The "No Excuses" mindset: How Joel built his business during 5-minute breaks while hiding from his boss at the warehouse.
🚀 Simplicity scales: Why he fired his team and moved his entire business to systeme.io.
🚀 Why "focusing on money" actually kills your growth (and what you must focus on instead)
🚀 The dirty secret of the gurus industry and his advice: "Watch what they do, not what they say"

If you are looking for a sign to start your business, this is it. No more excuses.

Transcript

Meet the infamous Joel

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to another success story with system.io. I have the privilege of interviewing Joel Vesquez or the infamous Joel on YouTube today as he shares the behind the scenes of how he built a $2 million business with affiliate marketing and how he scaled it with the simplicity of system.io. But he's not stopping there. He's going to share how he is also shifting the perspective of his own business. And if you want to go and follow him on Infamous Joel on YouTube, you can hear all about it as he starts sharing the deep secrets of what he's learned from years of affiliate marketing and now helping coaches do the same thing and scale their business, ditching the chaos and creating automated systems so that you can get paid while you sleep. All right, let's jump into today's interview. Welcome back to another success story with system.io. We have an incredible transformational story with Joel Vesquez as we dive into how he's using system.io with digital marketing, ranging from affiliate income to your own digital products, coaching businesses, and using their tool and budget friendliness and their to turn it into digital products, coaching programs, all the things. So Joel, thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Well, you're welcome, very welcome. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Well, um I'm sure everyone listening is going to be really interested in how you got started. And I don't want to call it a rags to riches because you you talk about rich dad, poor dad on your YouTube, and you've shared your story.

From prison cell to online success

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So could you give someone maybe the bullet points or summary of like where you were to where you are now?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I'll try. It's a very long story that starts back in 2012. I was locked up in prison. I committed a crime. I deserved it. There's no innocence here. But in that time frame, I was in there for seven years and I got myself right. I got off drugs, alcohol, started reading. I had a help from other great people in there who probably some point might watch this, which is like, hey, shout out to you. Thank you for helping. Great guys in there that got me back on my feet, went to AA meetings, all that stuff. And so I read, like you said, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That was the main book that changed my entire way of thinking and life. And I said, I'm gonna start a business when I get home. That business I started when I got home was affiliate marketing. And so in affiliate marketing, about two years later, I was making around 30k per month with affiliate marketing. I was so good with it that other people came to me

Making his first $2 million

SPEAKER_00 2:27

and said, I need you to coach me. Please show me what to do. Blah blah blah blah blah. So that transitioned naturally into a coaching business where now I was mentoring and coaching other people. And glad to say I've had hundreds of success stories there, got them to quit their job, making 5, 10, 15k per month. And so I made a million dollars doing that in the coaching part, and then a year later I made another million dollars there back there with system IO, hard to see. But with system IO, I got the award for that as well. So so so but now I'm transitioning out of it. I feel like my skills are better suited for more like B2B, helping coaches, consultants build their businesses online. But affiliate marketing is my bread and butter. That's that's my roots, that's where I started. So that's where uh system.io came into play.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

That's awesome. So um rags to riches, right? That it I love that you share that piece because I think a lot of people are looking and said, Who am I to do this? I can't overcome this. I I I messed up too much, but again, the freedom that digital marketing can give people and the opportunity, and with the tool of system.io, literally there's no barrier to entry, especially when you get a good coach like you.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Appreciate it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Okay, so um were you when uh affiliate marketing, was it like a coaching program that you were affiliated with or Amazon shopping, like little affiliate links there? Can you explain like which direction you went with affiliates?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Oh god. Well, there's a lot of miss uh misinformation

Why low ticket affiliate offers fail

SPEAKER_00 3:55

in the affiliate space, and not not necessarily always misinformation, but just bad ideas. There's a lot of stuff out there. Uh, first of all, the low ticket, like you said, Amazon, Walmart, all the stuff. Can you be an affiliate? Yes. Most of the big affiliates that are that are making serious money with those programs are probably like uh stores or like uh uh blogs that have been around since like the 90s and they have a million pounds of traffic to be able to get that kind of income. And I told all my clients, skip all that small stuff, go for high ticket. Anything at least $500 and above for commissions is gonna be well worth your time. Because look, most of the time you're gonna convert about 1% of the people that see your stuff ever anyway. So if you're if you're depending on like $10, $15 little commissions here and there, it's gonna take a thousand years to get out of your job. So I always told them start with something high ticket, preferably a thousand dollars or more would be fantastic.

The power of high ticket sales

SPEAKER_00 4:49

And that's how I was able to get people removed from their business in about a month or two. Same amount of work, just change what you're selling, so you're selling more lucrative luxury stuff instead.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Wow. How how how'd you coach people through finding those types of products?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Oh, I've I've been doing it long enough where I found them all the time. I knew them. Uh, most of the time they're gonna be digital courses. That's just a fact because they're gonna have like an 80-90% margin for the course seller. Uh, the courses that they're basically invisible, right? They just live on a digital space somewhere, and because of that, there's no overhead. So if you're selling courses or coaching programs or sometimes services like travel services and stuff like that, there's very little overhead. So you want to aim to sell those because they're often going to give you a lot more commission for your work instead of like you know 2% or something crazy like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Okay. All right. So looking for those coaching programs, would you say it's numerous? Is it hard to get into? Is there a barrier?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

No. Uh, I would say it's a lot. I think the digital coursing space, uh, coursing, coaching, and courses space is growing like year by year. So it's it's insane. Uh and at this point, you can pretty much find a coaching or course type program in any niche. I know that on school, for example, which is a membership platform, like one of the big one of the big platform, one of the big schools in there is a pickleball membership. Like they they have memberships for like golf swings. Like, like there's a million things you can sell online, but that oftentimes is the problem for somebody who's brand new because they're overloaded with information. And what human beings, when we're given a lot of options, we make no options, we make no choices at all. So that's one of the main things that I would fix when I would get a new client. It's like, look, drop all these options. Here's a list that I have. I've done this for years. Here's here's what you should grow up.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And so you you already had the list, you already had social proof, the receipts saying this is possible, and you scale that to a million dollars. Now, did you utilize system.io at the beginning, midway, or near the end?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I would say, I would say midway. So I used to use a competitor. I won't say their name. So I used to use someone else. But here's here's the main part, especially when I was in a coach, like more of a coaching role. Um, 3% of people ever finish any coaching program, course. It's just natural. People just get excited in the beginning, go, wow, my life's gonna change, and then they fall off because they realize it's work. It's the same thing as when people, you know, buy exercise equipment and then it goes collects dust in the garage. There's a huge mindset that you have to have going in every day and like this is work, this is work, but it's gonna be worthwhile. It's gonna change my life. People just want the magic button, but that's neither here nor there. Um, the competitor cost money up front. So, what I kept finding was that this was a barrier to getting people results because they would get the software and they would start building funnels and doing all the things I'm instructing them to do. And then and because of the cost, it would put a lot of pressure on them, like, I need to get something done now. And

Stop focusing on making money

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I told all my clients, if you focus on making money, you won't make any money. It's a craziest thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Focus on making money. Yeah, you won't make any money.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

It's the craziest thing because people people do this all the time. They watch a few YouTube videos, they think they're an affiliate expert all of a sudden, and and they go, Okay, I'm gonna focus on making money. I need to make lots of money right now. And what happens is you get into the scarcity mindset, it's like that little mouse in the woods, like being attacked by a tiger. Oh my god, I need to make money right now. So, when you do that, you you miss all the important stuff, like the skills that you have to build to become this person that makes money. You have to learn copywriting, you have to learn proper funnel building, you have to learn how to build an audience, you have to learn good content, you have to learn all these things. So, when you focus on the make money, make money, make money, you miss all the stuff that you actually have to learn to make the money. I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, so the the competitor being like a cost up front was a huge barrier because now it's like I'm already sinking money into this and I'm not focused on the things I have to learn. So, what System.io with their freemium pricing model was a blessing because it helped. Oh, don't worry, the tools are taken care of, blah blah blah blah, it's free for now. And as they would start and grow and build, and I actually had gave them the time and the space to actually learn the skills and say, shut up and learn these skills, and now they actually started making money, and then they were able to upgrade their account, you know, go all the way up to the unlimited, which is great. But but that that is a fantastic pricing model for someone who's just starting so that they can focus on the things that are important to actually build these skills. They think if I'm just gonna be an affiliate marketer, people click a few buttons

His first funnel was a disaster

SPEAKER_00 9:38

and money shoots out of my computer. No, that's not how it works. So, yeah, you have to wear a few hats and you have to actually get good at a few things.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

I'm sure you failed a lot in the beginning, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Oh my god, yeah. I remember making my very first funnel, and like it took me weeks, no lie, weeks. Because when I first came home, I didn't know how to turn on a phone. Like, that was my level of technology and knowledge and stuff like that. So when people come on and they're they're starting their first business and they go, Oh, I'm not good with computers, I'm not good with the tech stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah. Get good. Okay, just like anything else. If you pick up a guitar in life, you don't expect to be a rock star the next day. So that's the mentality I went in with it. I said, Let me build this funnel. I spent weeks doing it. I was in the in a Facebook group when Facebook groups were a big thing of funnel builders, and I said, Check out this funnel, I finally finished it, it's amazing. And I put it out there, and a bunch of people clicked on it and checked it, and all the comments were horrible. I felt like crap. They were like, What is this? This is garbage. It looks like a like a two-year-old made this. So I've been there, I've done that, and then I made way more money than them after a while. So it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Because you didn't give up. You didn't give up.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I didn't give up. That was the key point right there. It was like, don't I just kept going. I got better as time went on, but I was terrible at it. So it's it can happen to you too.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah, you fell forward. It was like, I've already been there, I'm not gonna do that. You know, you shared a story um in on your Facebook page talking about when you were working as a forklift operator. Yes. Was that also right after you got out and you were you were learning digital marketing? So you were you were hustling, you were doing everything you could

Hustling as a forklift driver

SPEAKER_01 11:20

to take care of you know your home, your family. And and then there was a uh a day where an accident happened and you found out like you were replaceable and and they didn't care about you.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Not at all. Yeah. So um with the forklift driver thing, I obviously obviously when I came home, affiliate marketing, any business is gonna take time to build. I didn't make anything for my first maybe seven months or so. I made a dollar after that. I made like one sale for a dollar, and I said, Oh my god, I ran for the hills. I was like super happy. But but in the meantime, obviously I still had to pay bills and do all these things. So I worked as a forklift operator when I came home. And this is the important part about having a goal because I knew I wanted to build this affiliate thing and nothing was gonna stop me. When you have that mindset of it's going to work, it's just a matter of when. It's a different thing than when people join these programs, courses, they learn affiliate marketing and go, well, if it works. If you join it and say, if it works, I'll try. And you have that mentality, you are going to fail. I'm just telling you right now, you're gonna fail. Forget it, throw your money away, give it to the guru, and run away. You're never gonna see it again. You have to have the mentality of it, it's going to work. You don't know when right now, but it's gonna work. So that's the mentality that I had. And because of that, when I was working my forklift job, I was still working on my business every chance that I could. I'm like driving around with my phone. Obviously, the supervisors see me and yell at me, what do you have your phone for? And I'm like doing Facebook lives and I'm putting content out there, and I'm like, I didn't even have a car, so I'm walking to and from work, and I'm I'm putting content on Instagram about me walking to and from work. I was, like you said, hustling. I didn't have that mentality of I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm gonna fail. I didn't care. It was just you have to hit that wall in life where you just say, I don't care. So I got in trouble a lot at work, but I found little secret spots to hide somewhere and do my content and do my affiliate marketing stuff. Um, you know, but maybe some people are still there and they they'll see this, they'll go, that's where he was. He wasn't doing any work, he was hiding. Because in my mind, this in my mind, this is just temporary, it's paying the bills. I have an ultimate goal, I have a destiny, I'm gonna reach it, and that's it. So yeah, that that's kind of how all that happened.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I okay, I think there's gonna be plenty of people who are listening who are stuck in the grind and they're like, How when am I gonna have time? Lunch breaks, the five-minute break, you know, the walking back and forth to the bus or to the house. Because you know, my husband, when we got married, he didn't have a car when he first started. He was driving his bike, you know, driving his bike, riding his bike, you know, and he talks about how hard it was. And his boss said, you know, because he's in manufacturing, well, you know what? Target's always hiring, you know, or you know, like put in the work, like keep pushing, don't give up. And because you know, he was raising a family, getting his master's, and all these kinds of things. So, like there's a time where you just have to grind, and and then there the passive income, the the it sells the myth that you're just gonna passively start getting it. But there's so much work that has to go into it first. So, can you talk about how affiliate marketing uh and how when you made the transition to system.io, what was it about it that pulled you in, the freemium that you talked about? Like did you already learned how to make funnels at the other place, and you got ripped apart with your first one, you didn't give up. What was it about system.io with your affiliate marketing?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Well, I did pretty well with the

Why I chose systeme.io

SPEAKER_00 14:50

other software eventually, but but the main thing with systemio and why I just stopped. First of all, customer service was way better, way better. I would write tickets, something's breaking, whatever, and and it would be like weeks. By the time that they fixed it, it was like weeks later, and I already fixed it. I'm like, I don't even need this anymore. And then on top of that, the other software was great at building funnels, but that's all it did. So when someone introduced me to system.io, they're like, you know, you can just replace these 95 other tools that you have right now for email and course hosting and all these other things. I said, there's one tool that just does all that stuff. And I was like, okay, what is I saw systemio and I'm like, I'm moving all my stuff over here. Like, this is great. Because when you have an established business like that, I went from beginner to established business, and and you get a new you get a new problem. Always new problems arise, and that is when one thing breaks, the entire system breaks. So so like my emails, whatever, my text, whatever all breaks, everything goes downhill. So by having it all under one software where it was all taken care of, systemio, that was a huge, huge benefit. Now I only have to worry about one software that houses all of my marketing, all of my back end, all my sales, all my stuff. That was huge for me. I was like, thank God, the headache is gone. I don't have all these other things to worry about. So that was that was big for me. That's why I moved all my my entire business moved over there overnight, canceled like 50 subscriptions.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Now, did you use their transfer migration service to do that?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

They didn't have it back then.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

That's how far back you go. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

You OG Yeah, they didn't have it back then. I'm like, God damn it, they got it now. Oh man, I spent all this money. I was paid VAs to move all my funnels and all these things. That would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, they probably heard people like you say, Hey, could you help us out in bringing everything over? And they did. That's that's a beautiful thing. They listen and they implement.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

They absolutely do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

All right. So uh before we jumped on, I was asking about your YouTube and your affiliate marketing, and you shared that you're in a transition yourself. Not only did you transition from software, you know, and from a forklift operator to digital marketing to affiliate income to a new platform, you're doing it again.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

What's the infamous, you know, Joel doing now?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Well, I think that in in business and in life, you're always transitioning. The only thing that never changes is change, right? So I'm changing now. I worked with affiliate marketers, beginners online for years and years, and it was great. I had wonderful clients, I had hundreds of people who quit their job, and they were great to work with, but there's also about the 80% or so, and this is just the nature of that industry, is it it attracts a lot of people who don't really take it seriously. And I think that my skill set and where I am in my business, and a few months ago, I just decided I'm gonna start working with other coaches like myself. Because as I was scaling and growing my coaching business, I was hitting walls like 30k, 40k, 50k, and then beyond that, hitting to like 100k, 200k, which I eventually got to. It was hard, it was very hard. And everyone and their grandma had different advice on how to get there, like hire a team, uh run Facebook ads, do all these things. And I found so many different problems with all of them, and I can list them, but it we we wouldn't have time to list how many freaking problems it's so it was keeping me up at night all the time. And so what I ended up doing was just using a very simple YouTube system. I eventually

The YouTube trust funnel explained

SPEAKER_00 18:24

landed on, hey, YouTube, this is where I'm getting my best quality clients or cut, you know, leads from because they're watching my videos, they're spending time getting to know me, know the results. We're posting testimonials and case studies on the YouTube channel, and they come to the the calls to buy my program, which at the time was seven grand, they were like, Yes, they were there was no, I need to talk to the wife, I don't know, blah blah blah. They I I noticed that now in 2025 and beyond, people like doing their own research, they like to learn about you, they like to trust you, they don't like hard sales tactics and high pressure stuff. I'm telling you, we got so many people from YouTube where over time it was like, forget these Facebook ads, forget all this stuff. This is where we're getting the I need to talk to my wife crowd, and there's people ghosting. Because and I get it, because they just saw an ad, they clicked it, and you book a call, and that it that's it, you know. Like, well, I don't even know you, I'm gonna fork over seven thousand dollars. I don't know what this is, but when you prioritize YouTube as I did, everything got so much easier. That's when I was hitting the 100k months, and and it was like I was like, this makes it so much simpler. I wonder if other coaches know about this. And as I look around the marketplace and how there's a lot of programs out there, agencies that are pitching them, we'll do ads, we'll do this, we'll give you closers and and all this stuff. I'm like, they don't know about this. A lot of coaches don't even have a YouTube channel, and I'm like, what are you doing? Yep. So that's what I've been doing lately. Yeah, that's what I've been doing lately, is we call it the YouTube trust funnel, and we're showing uh coaches how to utilize YouTube and how to use that and a little bit of paid ads. We can speed it up a little bit because a lot of coaches also say, Well, doesn't YouTube take forever? Not if you do it right, it's not true. I used to think that too, and that's why I prioritize the ads and stuff, and it's just not true. So we do that, and then we give them very we get them very, very warm leads because now they're actually putting the trust forward. So by the time they get to the call, you're getting like 60, 70, 80 close rates, which is if anyone doesn't know watching this, unbelievable. Like, you know, it's like super high. Uh

Getting an 80% close rate

SPEAKER_00 20:37

they don't believe me at first, but when they get their first client on on a call and they're like, hey, I'm in, just skip to like how much this is. Send me the invoice now. Like, don't you want to have a whole hour-long sales call? No, no, no, I'm in. And I'm like, there it is, that's the magic of it. Because you're giving people the opportunity to get to know you and trust you first. Everything is handled by YouTube, so it's so much better. So that's what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

All right, the YouTube trust funnel. So, what if the person who wants to do coaching doesn't mind talking to people on camera like this in a Zoom or a chat, but they don't want to sit down and film content. How do you coach those people into putting content on get over it?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Because a lot of times they film content for ads anyway, right? And I'm like, well, you're doing it anyway, but you're doing it in snippets. Just sit down and explain what you do on YouTube. So the the call, there's cost to everything. I'm like, sure, you can do that, right? But I'm telling you, the cost is gonna be very high ad cost, low ROI, pissed off sales teams because nobody closes. Like, so so you gotta pick your poison in business. And I eventually had to, and I've chat I'm telling you, I was scared to death to cut off my ads because I'm like, well, we're getting all these all these leads and all these uh calls booked and all this stuff. What if I just turn them off and we get nothing? When I turn them off and I prioritize YouTube, I still use ads on YouTube a little bit, but But when I prioritized YouTube, not only were we still getting calls, we were totally fine, but by doubling down on YouTube, we got more calls and they were way higher quality. So I just tell them get over it. If you're just gonna sit down and have hour-long calls all the time, anyway, take that everyday 50-hour long calls and prioritize YouTube. You can make a 30-minute video and now it sells for you every day, all day in the background. It's just crazy to me that someone would think that. I mean, if they do, that's fine, they can go somewhere else. But I'm here to speak to that benefit of like cut that out. That way it fixes all of these other problems in your business and you're able to scale more predictably. You're not starting every month from zero going, oh my god, I hope my ads work again. I don't know what's gonna happen. I get it. I've been there, and it's like we don't have any closes yet. Now the Facebook shut us down or something crazy. Now you're crying. Now you're running down the street going, Oh my god, my business is dead. When you have a YouTube channel, your business is not ever gonna die. And you have that predictability, you can wake up every morning knowing we're gonna get leads, we're gonna get sales. It's working perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Okay. All right. Yeah, so let's walk through this trust funnel, you know, as much as you uh like to share here. So you got your content on YouTube. Are you pulling them into a cold um conf, you know, complimentary call, or do you give them a value exchange like a freebie or something like that? And how is system.io utilized? Do you use their coachings, calendar? Like I'm intrigued. What are the steps? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

So we use the calendar. Um, I have

How to retarget warm leads

SPEAKER_00 23:33

taught some people to do the the lead magnet thing, it depends on kind of how their business is structured. Mine goes straight to a call, period. And then all of my YouTube videos are I look at it like this. I look at YouTube like a funnel itself, right? And the funnel, people have no idea who you are. You need something cold. They're probably searching on YouTube to solve a problem. So this is where you have to know your clients, know your perfect person that you serve. It's like, okay, what problems are they having that they're likely searching on YouTube right now, right? So you make a few videos on that, seven to ten videos. It's a nice sweet spot. Hey, are you this person and you're going through this problem? Let's solve it right now. Just a mini problem in their business. Maybe it's uh their calendar is not working right, you know, whatever the hell. Maybe they're using Calendly or something, they're using too many softwares or something. Maybe you can make a video about system.io and show them how it fixes the problem. And that little bit, just that little value exchange, builds that trust internally. It's just like like, okay, that person gave me great value, they helped me fix a problem. I have trust with them now. Then the next video, you can actually retarget them with some ads, $5 a day or something small. Since they watched that first video, hey, you might be interested in I could actually increase your call booking rate, right? Here's a here's five tricks that you can actually increase your call booking rate. By this time, they saw something, you saw the small problem in their business. So the next video that is recommended to them by YouTube, or you can use some ads, it makes logical sense for them to move to that next step. It's like, hey, there's that same person I saw before. They're gonna teach me some tips and tricks. And like every time that you hit them with a new retarget, a new like $5, $2 ad, I use ads a lot, but I don't spend as much as I used to because I'm using the YouTube algorithm the way it's designed for teaching, for education. Instead of book this call right now, they will book a call when they've decided you're the person. Right? So there's like final retargeting phase where it's like, hey, this is for the hottest of you. It's like, hey, you're probably this kind of coach stuck in this position. You're not seeing the consistency, blah, blah, blah. Here's my video, here's what I do. I'll take them over to my page on on System.io. They just see a VSL. Likely it's like five to ten minutes, it's nothing super long because they don't have time, but but also because by this time they've already seen all my stuff. So that they're gonna sit down, watch the whole thing, and they're gonna go booking a call, 80% close rate. So all of my my entire funnel built the trust before they ever got to me or anyone on my sales team. And it's huge, it's a huge, huge night and day difference. And in that, we spent, you know, who knows, but $800 was originally like my my cost per client acquisition, and now it's down to $250. You know, so we're we're scaling this thing. Yeah, it's insane. It was scaling this thing, and it it's growing and growing. I am making new content now, so that's what's kind of slowing it down. But if you look at my affiliate marketing content over the years, at a certain point, I would say like a year or two ago, I started doubling down on the affiliate marketing content. We started running a lot of ads. Some videos have way more views than others in my channel. There's a reason for that, is because we ran ads to them. Strategic. Yeah, so we ran those ads. YouTube will give us that data who's watching, uh, how long they're watching. That tells us, hey, this is the warm audience. We need to retarget them with more ads, and we would just use these very low budget kinds of uh systems and strategies and eventually get them to

Why he had to fire his sales team

SPEAKER_00 27:13

the call. And they were like in already. It was so much easier on our sales team, so much easier. I don't even have setters anymore. Just got rid of them.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

You got rid of them.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

I was a tyrant. I said, Everyone go, only sales guys, really, yeah, because there was no need. The videos were already setting people for us, basically, and it was so much easier to get the closes. Uh unfortunately, I also let go some closers. So I had a very lean and small team. It was just me and two other closers and a VA. That's it. That was the entire team and uh doing 100k plus per month. That was the entire team and system.io.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah, so you slim down your team, you slim down your software, and so now with your coaching approach, uh, you know, targeting coaches, how big is your team today?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Today it's just me because I'm I'm switching back over. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, just me now. So, but I'm also just now doing the coaching and consulting business. This is new. Uh, literally, as we booked this call and as we were talking, I was like changing my YouTube banners and stuff. So the other closers, I'm like, hey, I'm doing this transition, I'm stopping the affiliate stuff and all these things. I'm like, go go work for somebody else because I'm not I'm not gonna have any leads or anything coming in and all that stuff. So I'm like, go do something else. If like you want to come back when things start picking back up again, you're always welcome. You know, so they're waiting. They're like, I start picking back up. But and this in this transition, I'm making new content. I just uploaded a brand new video yesterday actually about how build how to build an offer for coaches and stuff like that. So I'm just getting my feet wet in this new niche and and starting to attract a different type of client, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Do you already know the funnel works? Because I've done it, so now I'm just gonna apply it to a different audience.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Okay, and then what's the product that you're funneling um your viewers to? Do you already have that built out?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Eventually, this, yeah, eventually the YouTube trust funnel. It's like eventually I want to convince these coaches and consultants. Hey, like everything you're being taught about like run ads, build a big team, do all this extra stuff. Forget that. Just build a YouTube trust funnel. It's 10 times easier. Here's how it works. So I'm I'm building out the content now.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Okay, that is so exciting. Oh, look, I'm happy to have you back on, you know, in a year to evaluate how this has grown.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Get another award, yeah. Yes, that's the goal. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

So the award behind your head, that system.io diamond award. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

That's the diamond, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

That was for your affiliate program when you brought all that over. And now you're gonna transition. Are are you gonna do a whole new branding reset, like new domains and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Just me. It's always been personal brand. I've been a fan of personal brand from the beginning because I looked at Robert Kiyosaki, a rich dad, poor dad. He's just him, right? Just a personal brand. And what's cool about a personal brand is that it's a real asset that'll never go away. You can just keep on selling over and over, maybe different products, services. So people know me now. There's there's some, luckily, there's some affiliate marketing type crowd and people that have been with me forever that want to transition into becoming a coach now because they see how I'm I'm doing this stuff. I'm actually very soon I'm launching a three-day challenge to show those people how to launch their own coaching offer. So we're getting some signups for that. I'm excited about that. But at first I was really nervous because I built up everything that I've that I'm associated my personal brand with for years of like affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing. I'm like, guys, you know who's really making lots of money online? The people selling affiliate marketing. It's like, you know, I'm always just dead honest with people. It's like the people selling information, courses, coaching. This is like you can track the diamond awards, all the other

Do what gurus do, not what they say

SPEAKER_00 30:57

awards online. Who's making those awards? Who's getting those awards? The info businesses, the people selling the information. So, you know, to peel back the layers is like, don't do this, do what they do, not do what they say. So that that's kind of the new movement now. It's like I'm they know I'm the infamous you're well, they know I'm gonna tell them exactly what it is. No fluff, no lies. And it's like, you know, I said affiliate marketing for years, and yes, that's a very good beginner business, but like it's not that hard to just start your own thing, it's really not. Um, so I want to show them that in this challenge, and hopefully at least some of them come over and start working with me on the coaching thing as well. If not, that's okay. There's plenty of affiliate offers out there. I'm just not gonna focus on that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Okay. So when it comes to coaching, is it gonna be are you gonna help them create their own digital product or is it one-to-one services or a one-to-many kind of service?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Well, the cool thing about the digital product, right? So, courses. For example, I launch courses all the time. I always have new courses and I sell them as courses. But what I don't do is I don't record them ahead of time. I think that's the worst mistake a course seller could ever do. Well, I haven't sold your course yet. Well, I haven't recorded it yet. Why would you record it

Get paid while recording your course

SPEAKER_00 32:09

before you even know someone's gonna spend a dollar for it? So all course creators should and often do start as coaches. They sit down with someone one-on-one or maybe in a group setting and they teach it live. They might go through some slides, they might show examples, whatever they're doing. That is the recording for their course eventually. Now, at least you've proven the offer first, right? It's like here, they've already spent money buying this event or this challenge or whatever. The challenge itself probably will be a course I release later. So that that you know what I mean. I'm doing it live, I don't have to prepare anything, I'm just gonna talk. But recording that then becomes the product you can resell over and over. You never have to do it again. That's the cool thing about digital courses and the right way to do it. You want to do it once, get paid for it, and then never have to do it again. A lot of them record first, and and they end up uh it nobody bought it. Well, why don't you make sure someone bought it first?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, yeah, this is a great vetting process, you know. I I I did this recently, I got a course and I got in there. She's like, We'll record these course, you know, modules on this day. And so literally every live she did went into her course, and those are I'm like, Oh, I was I was sitting live on that one, and and now it's sitting there, and then she just revamped it every two or three years, you know. So you're that's it, yeah. You're our yeah, be do what they're doing, you know, and create your own uh program. So whenever you do this, what tools are you gonna use inside of system.io? Their community, their calendar, their funnel, their email, they have course hosting, yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

They have all they have everything you need. So um SMS is a newer one that they added. Um, and I used to use SMS as a separate service for another like app, and it was like, oh my god, they have SMS now. So that's huge because they're booking calls, you know, you're sending people reminders and things like that. It's gonna be huge if you're a coach and you're selling a course or a coaching one-to-one offer, any of those things. So uh being a coach, you can really run the spectrum. You have one-to-one group courses. I tend to sell all three, and I tell people like, yes, sell all three. Maybe in the beginning you'll start one-to-one, but you'll record those sessions and start productizing and monetizing those things.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

All right. That is amazing. All right, can all right, as we start to kind of land the plane, uh, I mentioned your personal brand. Uh, can you explain the little verb or you know, description in front of your name? The infamous Joel.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

So the fun the funny part about the uh the infamous part is it was invented by another inmate when I was locked up. So it was funny because he was like, I was telling him my plans, and and by the way, when I was in jail, I I got so good

The origin of the "Infamous Joel" name

SPEAKER_00 34:52

at business, at least on paper, because I was reading about business all the time. Like every entrepreneur book you've ever heard of, I probably read it. I read a lot of books, but uh, I started teaching a class when I was in jail. So I started, I we got the approval of the warden we call the superintendent now, and it was like, yeah, we got it because we did this naturally on the block, as they call it. We had our books out and we were studying stuff. So we're like, let's make this an official class. And they they elected me to be the teacher, and it was awesome. Um, long story short, I'm telling him about my plans. I'm like, when I get home, I'm gonna have my own YouTube channel, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and I'm super excited, and then he shut my dreams down, as a lot of people do when you're when you know crabs in a barrel. Well, what if people Google you and find out you have felons and felonies and all these things? And I was like, Oh man, I was like, I guess I'll just have to be honest about it. I can't really hide it. And then he was like, Oh, okay, so you're you're not gonna be famous, you're gonna be infamous. And I was like, infamous. Because at the time I was looking for like a brand name, like what am I gonna call my company or myself or something? I can't just be Joel Vasquez. It just didn't sound right to me. I don't know. I I've always been a fan of like WWE wrestling, and I like like the character, I like that kind of thing. So I'm like, what can I have like a character name, like a fun name people can remember? And when he said infamous that day, it just stick, it just stuck. I was just like, in the infamous Joel, that sounds really good. So yeah, and it fits perfect for the people that have been following me for a long time. They know I'm very counter to what they learn everywhere else, they know I'm very brutally honest, they know they're gonna get the brashness and all that stuff. So they they get it, they're like, that's why you're infamous. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

I love that actually, because it it again it speaks into redemption, yeah, and getting ahead of it, you know, like instead of trying to hide your dirty skeletons in the closet or under the rug, it's like I can't change it, but it changed me.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

And so I thank you for sharing that and being so transparent. I really think people are gonna get a lot out of this. So, what's your expectations with this course as we kind of land this down, this new you know, direction? Are you still making affiliate income or has that completely died because you walked away, or are you getting a little revenue because it's it is what it is? So you now have margin to do this.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah, the fun part about that is uh just on on one side, I also am an affiliate, right? So I've always been an affiliate myself. That part has never died for my business. And I tell other coaches the same thing like the affiliate side, the affiliate revenue of your business should like, what are you why are you not just making recommendations? That's all it is to your clients. You know, why are you not just making referrals for different tools they should use or you know, whatever else? Um, so I've always promoted system IO, and as I've been transitioning, System IO is still sending me a check every month. So so I'm like, hey, I'm comfortable, I'm fine, I'm still getting a check, I'm still getting the passive income. It took obviously years to build that up, but that's been amazing, and that's never gonna go away. I'm always gonna make recommendations to my clients what tools I think are the best, you know, to get the job done. That's that's what I think affiliate marketing should be. You're helping someone get to from point A to point B, but what are the tools and what are the systems they need to get there? Those are your referrals.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yep, yep. There you go. Work smarter, not harder. And and that, and once you've built that up, it does continue to just keep pouring in and pouring in. So what is the gift that entrepreneurial, you know? What is the gift that being an entrepreneur has given you?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Oh my god, it's numerous. I I feel like I'm an entirely different person than I

Escaping the victim mentality is the first step

SPEAKER_00 38:42

used to be. Um, I know that's like cliche to say, but it really is true. I don't think the same, I don't approach things the same, uh, I don't have the same perspective as I used to. I used to be very like a victim mindset. Oh, why poor me? Oh, there's the society does this and the police do that and whatever else, you know. But when I when I decided to become an entrepreneur, what comes with that is that a rising tide raises all boats. So I looked at my kids, I looked at my family, I said, you know, this is because of me. And that's a good thing. A lot of people in that victim mindset, they're afraid to point the finger at themselves because, like, well, that means I'm wrong, but it also means you're in control. So it's huge when I when I decided that, hey, I am wrong, but also I'm in control, I can choose different in the future, and so that that's been the biggest, most like transformative part is when something goes wrong in business, in life, whatever, I did it and I can fix it. That's that's very that's a very beautiful, you know, a sword to walk around like I can do things. Um I don't need the all these excuses, and everyone has different circumstances. Don't get me wrong, you probably, you know, whoever might be watching this probably has some kind of a crutch or something of well, this is holding me back, that's holding me back. That's fine, that's okay. It anything in life worth doing should be hard. If it wasn't hard, why would you do it in the first place? You know, lifting weights and going to the gym is hard, but you get great results. So, same thing in business and in life. You got to take responsibility. I'm doing the same thing, I've done the same thing. Um, and that's been the biggest shift for me is getting that that victim stuff out of my head. I'm not a victim, I can make decisions today that'll impact me tomorrow. That's been huge.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

That's amazing. Now, if you could use one word or maybe one sentence, how would you describe system.io?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Simple. Simple. I love simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

That's amazing. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yeah, it's simple because there's too many tools out there. I love that they make it nice and simple and clear and crystal, here's what you get. Easy for anyone to pick up. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

I I right? I I'm I sell it all the time to people too. I'm like, y'all, stop overthinking it, you system. And they're like, what is that? And there's still, I feel like in America we still have so much opportunity to share about this new program. Um, and so with our last question, if someone, and you've already kind of touched on it multiple times, if someone's sitting on the edge of their seat and they haven't quite dipped their toe into digital marketing, affiliate, coaching, you know, whatever it may be, what would you say to them to get started?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

I think earlier I said it best when the only thing that doesn't change in life is change. The world

Why you must start today

SPEAKER_00 41:39

is crumbling down around you. And if you don't, I mean, this is true. AI is doing a lot of things in the job play in the job marketplace. Uh a degree doesn't mean the same thing that it used to 20, 30 years ago. There's so much that is like you're in a burning building right now, and if you stay stuck and you're looking around, you're going, what do I do next? And you just keep running back into the burning building. I don't understand that mindset. There is there's a very clear path forward, right? On the internet, on computers, all like what where are people actually gathering? What's actually what where is the market actually moving?

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Right?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

They're moving, everything's moving online. Amazon proved it, all these other businesses proved it. This is where everything is going. So if you're not dipping your toe in the water, at least, and I say go all the way in, but at least dip your toe, at least try one five-dollar course or something, just learn something, then you're gonna be left behind. That's just a reality. Uh, you know, I I I have heard a lot of people, even in my old audience, like, oh, I looked into this for 20 years and I never got started, and I should have got started so long ago.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Well, the boat's not going yet.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

You can jump on, come on.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah, time does not wait, you know. So you have to make that jump. Uh, I think someone taught me a long time ago said entrepreneur comes from a French word that means risk taker. Naturally, it's gonna feel scary, you know. It's like jumping out of a plane, but that's a good thing. Why live your life and be like 80 in your deathbed and go, I never took any risks? Good for me.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Good for me.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yay!

SPEAKER_01 43:13

I played safe.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

So this was so much fun, and uh I'm so thankful that you shared so much of like your transformational story and then how you've used it in a very simple way. So, anyone listening, I hope you got some key takeaways for maybe starting your own affiliate, you know, income business, um, starting your own coaching business. And so, if someone's interested in learning how to use YouTube as their vehicle for coaching, how can they get a hold to you?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

So, through my YouTube channel, I almost always pitch my free school community. So, you get a double dose there. Uh, you can either just watch my YouTube videos where I give a lot of free training, free information, or in my community. You can even talk to me directly in there. I hang out with my community every day. Uh we post funny stuff. So if you if you don't have a sense of humor, maybe it's not for you. But we definitely uh have a good time. We learn stuff in there and it's free. So just join and kick back and have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

All right. Well, thank you. Um, those links will be down below in the description box. And make sure you go check out his YouTube channel, right? Is Infamous Joel.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

That's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

All right. And I thank you for being here and working through those technical glitches at the very beginning, which y'all didn't get to see. Uh and so he he's also very patient. That's a great quality in a coach. So, all right. Thanks for joining us in another success story from system.io. And until next time, keep creating.