From an $11/hour job to a $2 million business | A systeme.io success story

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Website: http://www.dadtreprenewerskool.com/
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From hand-cutting coffee filters for $11.25/hour in his in-laws' basement to generating over $2 million online, Josh Smith (aka "The Dadtreprenewer") is proof that you don't need a degree or a bank loan to succeed in the "New Age" of entrepreneurship.

In this episode, Josh reveals how he went from struggling to pay $300 in rent to making his first $100,000 in just 8 months—all while working a full-time job. He breaks down the exact moment he realized "working harder" was a lie and how he built a system that allowed him to quit his 9-5 forever.

He also opens up about his transition from affiliate marketing to running a high-profit "Done-For-You" agency. He explains how he uses systeme.io sub-accounts to manage clients effortlessly and why a simple 2-page funnel is often more profitable than a complicated website.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
✅ The "New Age" blueprint: How to make your first $100k in 8 months (even if you have a full-time job and kids).
✅ The 2-page funnel strategy: Why Josh swears by simplicity to generate massive affiliate commissions.
✅ The "Done-For-You" shift: How he uses systeme.io sub-accounts to build a scalable agency without the tech headaches.
✅ Email domination: How he achieves 47% open rates using systeme.io (busting the myth about deliverability).
✅ The "Uncomfortable" truth: Why embracing discomfort is the only way to escape the "daily grind."

If you are tired of trading time for money and want to see how a regular dad built a 7-figure empire from scratch, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Introduction to digital wealth

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to another episode with Success Stories with System.io. Today we're going to be interviewing Josh Smith from Datrepreneur and talking about how the newer part of digital marketing and entrepreneurship is online, and that this age of scaling with the digital mission field is not going anywhere. So he shares his story of what he was able to overcome from working at $11.25 here in America, cutting coffee filters to making over $2 million from his basement and able to quit his full-time nine to five and raise his three little girls with his wife on his own homestead. So uh let's introduce Josh Smith. Welcome back to another success story with system.io. Today we're sitting down with Josh Dadrapeneur Smith as we dive into his digital marketing journey and how he is now making five figures a month regularly. But I might be outdated with that information. So let him introduce himself and give us a little clip notes. Thanks for joining us, Josh.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, thanks for having me here. Um yeah, five five figure months, that's that's a little outdated. We've been doing that for a while now, um, which is kind of even surreal, you know, like income isn't something I always talk about or you know, like to lead with in my marketing. Um, but it's kind of crazy when people say that to even think about it. You know, I I sit here and I'm like, even if I were to go back to a traditional job and work like a really good job, I can't make anywhere near as much as I can make in this digital world that we live in. So it's kind of crazy to hear somebody say that. That like I say it occasionally, but to hear somebody else say it, it kind of really sinks in and kind of resonates with like, wow, it's it's almost unbelievable to think about. And yet that's just small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. There's people making, you know, six figures a month, seven figures a month. It's it's wild. It's a crazy world that we live in.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I can't even fathom that one. But yeah, like there's so many people who are listening, I feel like that jump onto the podcast and uh are following it on YouTube and they hear the five figures and they're like, I just want to make, you know, a thousand. That'd be

From cutting coffee filters to millions

SPEAKER_02 2:26

great. And so let's go back. You know, can you give us where you were back when you first started looking into digital marketing? Did you start in a techie software background or were you a nurse? Were you a fireman? Like, tell us about the backstory.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, so I was one of those people that I really just wanted to make a few extra hundred bucks a month. Like a thousand wasn't even my first goal. I was hand cutting coffee paper filters for $1125 an hour. We were living in the in-laws basement. Um, I was an ex-college athlete who got my girlfriend at the time, now wife, um, pregnant with our first baby girl the last semester of college and gave up on my NFL dreams. I was like your classic case of the, you know, in the movies, you see the guy who's at the bar and was like, ah, if only I didn't blow out my ACL, I'd have been in the NFL. You know, I didn't drink, but um, I was that classic case of, you know, I blamed everybody else except myself for things that were really my fault. Uh so I was a terrible husband, I was a terrible father for, you know, the first year of um my newborn daughter's life. And, you know, like I said, we were living in the in-laws' basement and I was hand cutting coffee paper filters for $1,125 an hour. They charged us $300 a month in rent. Um, and I like to tell people most months I avoided them like the plague because I didn't have their $300 in rent. Um, so when I say I was a bum, I was I was a I was a bum there for a while. Um, and so that's kind of how it all started. And you know, the athlete in me, I've always kind of thought outside the box and thought differently. And I would see all these things on TikTok and Facebook at that time, and it was like, well, it seems really cool. Like all these people they're finding, you know, non-traditional ways to make money, and you know, just a guy who's punching a clock doing what I could at that time. I I was one of those people I was a little bit skeptical at first, and I was like, you know what? My dad has always told me, you know, like you can make monthly, what was it? What was it called? He was a big network marketer for a while. Um, so residual income is what they always used to say. So I had that ingrained in me, and I was like, there's gotta be a better way than trading time for a paycheck. And that's kind of how I ended up down the digital marketing rabbit trail. And sure enough, I found a course and a platform that I really resonated with at the start, somebody who had a very similar story to me. Um, and I just dove in head first and I consumed everything that he said. He laid out a step-by-step blueprint and I was like, I'm gonna follow it and I'm gonna make this work. And sure enough, here we are, six years later, and I've been doing this um full-time since September of 2022, is when I left my full-time job forever.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

So September 2022. So we're talking about three years ago. Yeah, you were able to leave your full-time job and do this full-time.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

That is correct.

Making $100k in just 8 months

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Crazy part is I in my first eight months, I made $100,000. So, like, I could have left my job much earlier. But the cool part is, and this is what a lot of people don't talk about, is when I started learning these digital skills, I went from hand cutting coffee paper filters into a sales and marketing position, into a management role where I was managing email marketing teams, where I was managing social media teams, where I was managing an Amazon FBA ads team. So I started learning all these skills and I would casually just bring them to my boss and be like, hey, you know, I was thinking like, you know, we could build a funnel and collect emails for our website. And they're like, that's genius. I wish I would have thought of that. In in three years, uh, or sorry, in two years, I got three raises, literally doubling my salary at my job. So I was like, I'm in a pretty good role, I'm making good money in this side hustle. So I stuck I stuck around for a lot longer um than I probably should have, but I kind of liked what I was doing at that time. Um yeah. But it was a blessing because at the sorry, it was a blessing because at the end of all of it, it ended up crashing down. Like I thought I met, I thought I was like, you know, in with this company. I was one of, you know, their their top dogs, and I thought we were going places and we were building this hundred million dollar brand, and they were gonna sell the company and I was gonna get a percentage of it and ride off into the sunset. And sure enough, like a lot of other corporate type of places, things crashed and burned around me. And I was able to say, as it was all crashing and burning, I was able to say, All right, guys, well, I'm out of here. I got this side hustle, I got this business, I can't deal with this stuff anymore. So I'm out. So it ended up being a huge blessing from that perspective.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Oh, wow. Okay, we have to unpack all that. It's a lot. Well, and and I think a lot of people probably resonated with every step of the way, right? There's probably someone who felt that underdog story, someone who's like, I can relate to that. I am in a place right now that I need to get myself out of the pit. And content creation or digital marketing looks like it might be the way because everyone has a fancy cell phone in their hand and therefore a digital office. But you decided to not only find a plan, you followed it like a playbook, like the athlete that you were, and you did it step by step by step. And a lot of people, me, I don't follow the steps. My creative ADHD bounces off the wall. So I'd like to visit that and say, what made you stick to the plan? But then there's also a couple of other things. Digital marketing skills are lucrative. So what if you, you know, throw some spaghetti at the wall, try out system.io, learn about funnels, and it doesn't work. You, you know, you get a little far, you can always get a job, y'all, because there's so many opportunities with these lucrative skills. You're not hurting yourself by learning what is trending and desirable. But then you're expendable. So why not build some residual income on the side? So I really appreciate that little own ramp onto digital marketing.

Discovering the affiliate marketing blueprint

SPEAKER_02 8:48

So talk to us about that digital blueprint. What made you stick to it instead of bouncing around?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

You know, at that point in my life, I had tried so many different things. So I mean, I did bounce around a little bit, right? I wanted to be an Instagram influencer, like doing the fitness thing, and I was trying to sell MLM supplements, and um, you know, I tried Amazon FBA on my own and my own drop shipping Shopify store because I managed all that stuff for the company that I worked for. And so I tried all this stuff kind of on my own, and you know, for years, it was like, okay, I'm kind of passionate about this, but not really. And I kind of got to the point where I was just like, you know, this sounds great, but I've done so many different things. I've been a part of so many opportunities, and I haven't really seen any success. In fact, I didn't make a dime in any of that other stuff. Um, in the blueprint, oddly enough, was the affiliate marketing blueprint, right? So I was struggling with like, well, do I sell my own coaching offer? Do I man, I want to sell a digital product, but then like, how do I know someone's gonna buy the digital product? And so what I did is somebody told me in that blueprint, they said, Hey, by the way, you don't even need to have your own products, you can simply recommend other people's products as an affiliate and get paid commissions. And instantly it clicked. I was like, this is everything I've been looking for. I work a full-time job. I have uh at that time it was only one kid, um, a second one on the way. Uh, we got three now, obviously, but at that time it was only one kid. We had a second on the way. I was like, I don't really have time for coming up with all this stuff, and I'm not really sure about all these skills that I have and what my passions are. A lot like everybody goes through, right? Especially if you've known something your entire life. Like I was a college football player for 20 years, all I knew was football. That's how I found my identity. And then, you know, uh, so I got introduced to affiliate marketing, and it was like, okay, you can learn one skill essentially. If you can figure out how to do content creation and just drive traffic to this funnel that they had already built because it was an affiliate funnel, all you got to do is send traffic to it and we'll pay you 40% of every single sale. Instantly that clicked in my mind, and I was up and running. I like, I stayed up for what felt like three weeks straight, but really it was just you know a couple days, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night, you know, work at like two, three o'clock in the morning for a few weeks until about six when everybody started waking up. And then I had to go to my job and hang out with my wife and my daughter when I came back, and I wake up in the middle of the night, do it all over again. And I was up and running really, really quickly because again, affiliate marketing, everything was already in place. I just kind of went through the blueprint, learned the skills, and it was like, okay, well, get good at marketing, right? Get good at marketing, prove that it works by promoting somebody else's stuff. And then I loved it so much, I stuck with it for like my first three years. And then after I finally left my full-time job, that's when I created my own digital products and started moving in. And it was like, well, you know, I already know how to market. So now I just need to create an offer that people are gonna buy. I know how to market it. And so it was really easy to transition. But the key was I was able to learn about all the skills and make some income while promoting something as an affiliate. So I didn't have to spend months trying to test different products and build different products. It was just simply recommend people to the same education that I was using at that time to learn about all of it. So it flowed really naturally.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Okay. All right. So for a while you were using someone else's blueprint, pushing the content that they kind of crafted and curated for you. Now, uh, once you got into that funnel, was it one affiliate in particular? Or like what were you selling to make those commissions? Was it just that one with the 40%?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, so that was the beautiful part about it. It was just, well, and this is something that I teach all my students now is being able to have this singular focus, right? So what this company did at that time was it was genius in my mind because all you had to do was drive traffic. And rather than, you know, everybody hears like, oh, the average millionaire has got seven streams of income. Well, sure, but they made their first million from one thing, right? So what this company did really excellently was hey, promote this one thing, you'll get tagged to that customer for life, and then everything else that we build, everything else that we recommend to your customer, you're gonna continue to get commissions off of over and over and over again. Whether they upgrade to a $10,000 package, you know, a year down the road, or they upgrade, you know, to monthly software. We were able to plug in our affiliate links, everything inside of one dashboard, and they handled the rest for us. So that it was kind of it was kind of really genius. I got to focus on one thing. It was like, hey, go get your digital marketing education, they will teach you everything you need from A to Z. Oh, by the way, you'll have potential to earn while you learn. I don't mean I gotta be careful because I don't think you can say earn while you learn according to the FTC. I don't really know these days, but you could earn while you're going through everything and not even needing your own products, right? So that's kind of that's kind of how it went. And oddly enough,

Switching to systeme.io to save the business

SPEAKER_00 14:33

what made me switch and kind of want to go off and do my own thing was there's a lot of like unfortunately, sometimes people I gotta I gotta think of the right way to say this. Sometimes people kind of get caught up in their own success, right? And they tell you one thing and then they start doing another. So I actually, oddly enough, when I started, when it came to soft software, I was promoting one of your largest competitors at that time. And then they upgraded to a new software, and the whole thing that they taught me from the beginning was get a customer once, you're tagged to them for life. And so I had 90 people, 92 people inside of their software every single month. They launched a new version of it and they opened it up and made it a free-for-all. So all 92 customers, 92 customers that I had created, not a single one of them was tagged to me anymore. So I decided I'm not gonna promote their launch because I'm not sold on their software yet. Like their new version was clunky. I didn't like it. I'm not gonna recommend something to people that I don't like. And so, because I didn't do that, literally over a 48-hour period, I lost 45 customers to the bigger marketers out there because they opened it up, anybody could promote it, and all of my customers went and upgraded. But because it was a free-for-all, I was no longer tagged to these people for life, like they taught me in the beginning. So that was a hard lesson to learn. So I went out there and I found something different that honestly, with system.io, it ended up being um, is that even sorry, is it even in uh I know it's a European-based company, so is it system me.io or is it systemi or is it system? Because over here I always just say system.io. Like that's that's how I've always said it. But anyway, I found system.io. That's yeah, yep. Okay, so I'm saying it right, perfect. Um, but anyways, I've I found you all right at around the same time that that was happening, and I was like, holy crap, they're like a third of the price. It's simpler, I could do all the same things, and I was mad at the other company anyway because they kind of went back on their own promise. And so I was like, this is really cool. And at that time, I was starting to sell my own stuff, and I had never even logged into an account before. Somebody was just like, hey, try this software. You're if you're looking for something new, it's really great. I've been using it for like a year. Like, okay, sounds good. I go in, I plug and play everything that I needed, and boom, I'm up and running in like 24 hours with a brand new business. And at that time, I was selling something that was uh $497. I created a 20-minute long um VSL and I was literally making sales the next day. Like, so I haven't looked back since.

The story behind the name "Dadtreprenewer"

SPEAKER_00 17:47

You know, I got my you can't see it right now, but I got my award right there on the wall hanging up behind me.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

So and and now that you brought that up, can you tell us about your name, the dadrepreneur? Like it's not spelled entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, so I have a if any of my students are watching this right now, they they've heard me say this one a thousand times, but uh I always tell everybody it was by design, right? It's N-E-W instead of the traditional way to spell entrepreneur. First of all, everybody thinks it's because I can't spell it, but it was by design, but also I can't really spell it, so we'll just leave that one there. Um, but it's NEW because we live in a new age. And when I was starting and thinking about all this stuff, I saw the light of where the world was going. And it was truly at that time when I first started, it was 2020, the world had shut down. And in my mind, I was like, the world was already going more digital, it's only going to continue to get more and more and more digital. And so to myself, I was like, we live in a new age where anybody, right? Because traditionally, to build a business, what'd you have to do? You had to go to college, you had to get a six-year degree, your four-year degree, a two-year MBA, you had to go write a big extensive business plan, present it to a bank, get a loan. You know, opportunities to build businesses traditionally have only been available to a certain type of individual who, frankly, already has money, right? Except in very rare cases. But we were going into a new age where there was opportunity for everybody, even busy parents like myself who hand cut coffee, paper, filters for $11.25 an hour and were dead broke in a bum. There was an opportunity for me to build a real income stream in a real business. And so that's kind of why I spelt it that way, because we live in a new age and there's new opportunities for everybody. And that's I just kind of ran with it from the start, and that's kind of been my brand ever since.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

So let's lean into that new because you said in 2022 you went full-time. So you found system.io, whenever the other software company kind of did you dirty. Um, so talk to us about that transition with your brand new business. You know, so you started from scratch with your own digital products. Did you start singular? Did you have multiple funnels? Tell us about what it was about system.io. You said affordability and simplicity that really attracted you and got you running right out the gate.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, so I think it was really the affordability and the simplicity. Yeah, there's always been aspects of other softwares. Even, you know, even when I moved on to different ones from that original company and were testing other things out. I've had some success with other softwares, but I think that's just kind of because of my marketing background. I never really found the one that I really liked until I dove into system. Um, and again, the the the affordability, the simplicity, but then the ability to recommend that to other beginners, right? Because that's who I help right now. I'm starting to graduate into helping more business owners, but initially, and what it's been the past six years for the most part is other beginners who were in a similar situation to me, right? Like we didn't we didn't need a ton of the fancy stuff and the bells and the whistles. Some of these softwares that you get into, there's like a thousand different things you could do, and you got no clue where to start. And it just overwhelms beginners. And then everybody else is white labeling a version of this software and white labeling a version of that software, and it's this brand new breakthrough software, and then you sign up for their software and you realize it's just the same one as all the others, it's just got different colors on it, you know, like in a different name. And so I think with System IO, it was just it just it felt right. It seemed like a really good fit. My customers, as they started using it and going through my training, they were like, This is really simple. I didn't realize, you know, all I needed was a simple landing page and a checkout page, and I could start making money. And then I slowly expanded into, I thought you needed, you

Getting 47% open rates with systeme.io

SPEAKER_00 22:11

know, all I let me tell you this. When I first signed up for uh system.io, I told the guy that got me signed up, I was like, I'm not doing email through them. Nope. I'm gonna stick with my old email software that works really good because it was different than a funnel building software. And eventually, actually about a year ago, I was like, I gave in and I was just like, okay, I want to just simplify, get everything kind of right in one place without it being too overwhelming. And sure enough, I started sending emails and they were landing in people's inboxes. And I was like, huh. I've always been told that you can't send emails from a funnel building software because you'll you won't land in people's inboxes, and the deliverability is bad and all this stuff, and blah, blah, blah. And right now, if you go into one of my campaigns, I think my first email gets opened at like a 47% rate with like a 20% click-through rate. So started sending all the emails through there, and then I graduated into done for you services for my customers.

Using sub-accounts for done-for-you services

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And System.io was like, hey, by the way, we have this brand new feature where you can create sub accounts and you can either charge for people, charge people for it, or you could just give it away. And so what I decided to do was I just thought about where I was when I first started. I didn't want to have to pay for some high-ticket course and then software monthly. And so I was like, you know what? We'll build their done for you systems on a sub account and we'll just give it to them. They'll get the same level of access as me. And so I'm not even charging my customers right now. Um, I build everything for them, they get the the one-time fee, and we manage everything for them. And it's just, it's it's super simple. It's so simple. That's just okay. I know there's a lot. That was probably a long-winded answer, but it's it's simplicity, is what it really comes down to.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Let's sit in sub accounts for a minute, because a lot of people who have I've interviewed so far tend to have their business and not really done for you services unless they're managing it for someone on their team, you know. So we had one gentleman, um, Mr. Chance, and his sub accounts were for churches. And so, you know, it was a little different. And so here, what you're saying is, you know, if you have a system.io account, you are paying for that, you know, overall fee. And so it's all included. And can't you have unlimited sub accounts under your account?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Is that you know, I believe so. I have not ran into an issue yet. We got about, I don't know the exact amount of sub accounts that we have, but I haven't ran into an issue yet where I've got an email from you guys that says, hey, you need to start paying for something or upgrade or whatever. So I believe it is unlimited. I just I guess I've never looked into the finer details of it.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

And so if you pay the all-inclusive um, you know, monthly fee, which is still exponentially less than most people, very affordable, you can then have your sub accounts and then become a hosting web maintenance person for your other clients. Yep. And go in and manage it for them. Yeah. And and then sell that as a ticket, as a high ticket item if you want, or medium ticket, and say, all right, here's your done for you services, here's your funnels, here's your website, here's your email marketing. You set it all up for them.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Which is exactly what we do right now.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

So is anyone listening? Ah, that is what I I envisioned when I saw those sub accounts. I was like, hello, you know, like the website manager being able to do that, especially for people if they are a business owner, or perhaps the their skill set isn't the tech part. That it's a gold mine, especially if this comes, you know, relatively easy and you're able to like grow a team and be able to handle that. So I'm so glad that you stepped into that. And then um, if they did want to take that, it's so easy to like copy and paste, be able to like take that off and then copy it into their own and move their domain. It's it's it's really easy functionality to move from one place to another within system.io.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah. And I mean, it made it really simple for me too, because I still collect, I, I, you know, I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head, which is bad. As a business owner, I feel like I should. Um, but you know, I've just been collecting affiliate commissions for so long that I get I get stuff that somebody signed up for like six years ago. Like one of the first things I ever even promoted. I've still got like two or three customers that every single month I get a notification for it. So there's like, there's some things where I just don't pay close enough attention. But what I actually did in what um system.io allowed me to do is I have my own free community where I teach people how to do affiliate marketing. So that's kind of like my lead magnet. And naturally, what are you going to do? You're gonna show people how to use the exact same software that you were using. And guess what? System.io pays you a 60% commission. So obviously, I'm going to have my affiliate links everywhere when they click to go create a free account and follow my step-by-step process. But the thing is, I tell my audience all the time, everyone's like, well, I want to get started for free, or how much is it gonna cost, right? And I understand that, but it's gonna cost you no matter what, right? Either it's gonna cost you with what? Time, right? If you want to learn how to do it all yourself and go through a step-by-step playbook, it's gonna cost you time, or there's a specific type of people who they've got the resources and the funds available to pay for done for you services. So my free community and course is the blueprint to do it yourself and how I make money off of that is affiliate links, recommending system.io software. And then when the people run into it and they're like, man, this is kind of you know time consuming, but I can catch the vision and I can see how all this would work, I just don't have time to put it together. Well, hey, here's a link to my team's calendar. Go chat with them and let's see about getting done for you services for you. And it just flows so effortlessly that way, and then that's one of the benefits is like, hey, you know, as part of our done for you services, you don't have to pay for software again. You can get off the monthly subscription, we'll we'll build it all for you.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

So and so do they still have access when this is a sub account? You can add them as like an admin or editor so they can go in and still maintain what they need to.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah, I got a great tech guy named Frank who does all the setups now. You know, I pay him a flat fee. He goes in, he does all his the setups, and one of the first things he does, he gets the email address from the customer and then he adds them to their own sub account. So they get to set up a login, it's their account, but we can access it and help them manage it and make all the changes on their behalf. So, I mean, we even go in and we wire their domain for them. Part of our offer, we we purchase their domain, we wire it all together because we know how to do it, right? That hangs a lot of people up at the beginning, even though uh system.io has great instructions on how to do it if you want to follow the blueprint. But I still remember as a beginner trying to set that stuff up. I'm like, I swear I'm doing it exactly as the instructions say. And it's like two weeks later, and I still don't have my domain verified.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

So yeah, and then also like uh getting the DNS records for your email marketing. You do that too, set it up?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yeah, we do it all. And then we even we even set up forwarding rules where if they want to promote my offers, we'll handle all their email inbox for them. So all the we'll set up an autoresponder sequence. And when people come in and they reply to one of their emails, it will get forwarded to my sales team's inbox, and we'll have people go to work on your behalf on the back end.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Oh, wow. Wow. Okay, there's a lot of systems and automations at play here that is really I'm leaking out over right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

There's there's so much you could do, and I think that's the beautiful part is like system.io, why I like it so much. And you know, this might be a shameless plug, but I promise audience, I'm not getting paid to say this. Okay. This is truly my thoughts, is they've expanded so much over the years and they've added new elements and different things to be able to take stuff to the next level, but it's still from a really simplistic point of view, where if you're a complete beginner and you you get inside there, it it's it's simple to navigate and to figure everything out. And then, oh, now I kind of want to add this, or I want to plug in a calendar. It it just flows naturally. Where a lot of these other places, it's like you go in and there's literally a thousand things to do before you can even like access your software, it feels like. And by the time you do all thousand things, you're like, I don't want to do this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Like so decision fatigue is real, you know, like I'm done. Like, I don't need the bells and whistles. So before we jump into like what funnels you have and kind of like the business per se, like all the steps. Can we sit on affiliate marketing? Like what what kind of revenue have you hit so far with affiliate sales of system.io, you know, with that commission rate?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yeah, again, I don't I don't know exactly. Um that's hard. I mean, I've got the I've got the the $50,000 award sitting behind me for a combination um of sales and affiliate commissions. Okay. So but honestly, it's I have just been too lazy. I've crossed the $100,000 mark and I should get the next award. I just I've been lazy and I haven't done it yet. So to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Yeah, and that's fine. I roundabouts are good enough. You know, again, like someone listening, they you know, five figures a month. Okay, so let's now let's move into the business per se. So you've talked about you still promote your affiliate marketing, you funnel people into your community, and and then you have a done-for-you services. Can you kind of like walk us through to through how many funnels you have with system.io specifically, and kind of like how you funnel them into like different lanes.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, and what that's led to.

The simple 2-page funnel strategy

SPEAKER_00 32:48

I mean, overall funnels, I've got a lot, probably more than I care to admit, just because trying different things, and every time you buy a course, somebody's got a funnel template and all these different types of things. However, I like to keep it really, really simple. And my main funnel that drives all of the leads and gets people into my ecosystem is two pages. It's an opt-in page and is what I call uh a bridge page, where as an affiliate, you need to bridge the gap for people, right? You don't want to have them opt in for something where they think it's you, and then immediately you send them to somebody else's stuff. It causes confusion and a confused person. What do they do? They leave, they don't buy. Yep. So we have what's called a bridge page. Yep, exactly. So we have what's called a bridge page where we bridge the gap from what they've seen to what they're about to see. Very simple, very straightforward. And then they get over to my school community, or sorry, my I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. My community um and everything else goes to work. And then I've got another funnel inside of the community. So I don't want to, I don't want to try to, you know, complicate it too much, but my first so as an affiliate marketer, my first seven figures that I earned online came from a simple opt-in page, bridge page, affiliate offer. That's it. Wow. I mean, no more than probably 500 words on both pages combined in a three-minute long video from me. That's yeah, that's it. Like it that's how simple it can be.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

I walked through that one just saying, you know, when I check stuff out. So I went to your opt-in page, I went to the next page, and one of them had a VSL that was about an hour and 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, actually, so 45 minutes. I'm glad you brought that up because we test a lot of different things at this day and age. Back when I was first started, we kept it really, really simple. But now that I have my own stuff and the world is kind of evolving, um, I do, I am currently testing an opt-in page to a, I guess you would call it a webinar. I mean, it's a it's like an hour and 15 minutes. So yeah, it's a webinar, and then they can book a call with my sales team immediately. So rather than giving away a community in course for free, I'm testing the traditional kind of webinar concept where you know I walk them through kind of how everything works, and then I give them an opportunity to get on a call with my sales team.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

So and then that's what I, you know, that's why I was asking what kind of funnels because I I found you through Facebook. I checked those funnels out, then I went to Instagram, I checked out those funnels, I went to YouTube, I checked out those funnels, and so you have different funnels on different platforms.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

And that's that's part of what I'm sorting out here going into 2026. Is I've had success on it. I I don't want to come across as not humble when I say this, but I've had success on every single platform with every single piece of software or thing that I have ever promoted. Because I learned the skills of marketing, I've been able to successfully do that. So I still have funnels for things that like I haven't recommended in a year or two years or three years, and they're still out there.

Moving to a low ticket model

SPEAKER_00 36:21

But part of my process going into 2026 is um don't tell anyone, but we're actually building a low-ticket funnel uh now as well. And that's gonna be kind of the main offer moving forward, and it will replace literally everything that I have out there, will now all be funneled to um this one low-ticket offer. And when they get in the low-ticket offer, then the sales process will go to work.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

So yes, all the tripwires and the upsells and kind of finessing and nurturing your.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

So for us, it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be as much uh a tripwire style of funnel. It's gonna be more so just a low-ticket funnel with one offer, and then part of it is like, hey, you get a like the traditional low-ticket funnel that comes with a bonus coaching call on the back end. And we're gonna give them direction, clarity on how to get started quickly, and then introduce them to our done for you services. So, although a lot of people, you know, they want to do the tripwire and make more money on the front end, which it works clearly. So many people have done it successfully. What I have found for my audience personally, they get buyer fatigue when they see all that stuff, and then they get so turned off sometimes from all that stuff that they'll be like, hey, you know, just give me a refund. I don't want to go down this path. So I've tested stuff like that before. And what I found for me is one offer, we're gonna price it at about $39, and we're just gonna deliver so much value that they feel stupid not getting on the call. Like that's that's that's kind of our plan.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

So, what how big is your uh sales team or for your calls?

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, so I actually manage a team of seven right now, including me, which is crazy to think about. Starting as an affiliate who didn't want to do sales calls, who didn't want to manage a team, didn't want to do any of that, and now here we are. I'm responsible for seven people's paychecks. And I feel like the crazy part is it's like just the beginning of what we are doing. So it's it's mind blowing.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

So are they part-time or contract or full-time?

SPEAKER_00 38:41

So they're all they're all 1099 contractors technically. Um like I said, I got I got a tech guy, Frank. He's he's amazing. Um, he's helping out with a lot of you know, our world that is in AI, AI focused everywhere. He's yeah, he's learning a lot of the AI stuff so that I don't have to, and then it makes our process easier to deliver on the back end as well. Um, so there's him, and then I got someone who actually I brought in, oddly enough, the company that I promoted for a long time, I got to speak at an in-person event for them. And this guy came up to me, he's like, Hey, you don't know me, but we've made a lot of money together. He was a high-ticket closer for that company. And when my leads came in, he always knew that it was gonna be like a high quality lead, right? Um, so when I was ready to build my own kind of sales systems on the back end, I reached out to him. I was like, hey man, you wanna, you wanna, you know, you're not working for that company anymore. You want to kind of share some of the secret sauce and how y'all did this on the back end and help me build it out. So he kind of manages everything and he he he hired the sales team and kind of went to work doing all that stuff. Um, and now I I show up to a meeting once a week and I just kind of tell everybody where I'm at with things, with what it's like, and everything else just kind of works in the background right now.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

So wow, that's amazing! So you've built up your sales team and you've set all this up. Like I said, everyone's in their own lanes, but now you've got your lane that you're also trying to balance as a father and a husband. So, how do you balance the work and life with uh this online digital realm? Because I know it never ends. It's it's 24-7. So how do you balance that?

SPEAKER_00 40:31

So, I mean, you could write a whole book on this subject, but I'll kind of give you my they probably do have books on this subject, in fact, but I'll kind of give

The truth about work-life balance

SPEAKER_00 40:40

you my perspective. What I learned early on about work-life balance, and what I truly believe is that it doesn't really exist. And one of the things that I am most grateful for in my entrepreneurial entrepreneurial journey is that uh when you become the person that you want to be, in the kind of person that is making the income that you desire, there there's everything that you do is setting an example, right? So, like for me, one thing that I said early on is I will not sacrifice time with my girls and with my family in order to build a business, right? I don't want to build a business and an amazing income and lose everything that's important to me along the way. So I found a way to make my business part of who I am, right? So now there's lessons to be had and kids like, Daddy, what do you do again? Oh, I make videos on the internet, you know, like it's it's part of who I am, it's part of how people know me. So when you know who you are and where you want to go, there's not necessarily a balance. It all kind of just works together when you have your priority straight. And now I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I'm I make my own rules, right? Like if we got we got a holiday program coming up on Friday, my whole calendar is blocked off. I'll do a little bit of work in the morning, the things that I know I need to do, like posting a short form video on the internet every single day. I'll do that. Maybe I'll post a few stories, send out an email, and then I'll be done for the day. And I'll go, I'll go hang out with them. But I will never miss a moment because of work. But then again, when you know who you are and what you need to do, communication becomes the next thing, right? Well, sometimes I will work more than other times because there's something new that we're building, or there's a kink we're trying to work out. And so just communicate. Hey, there's an issue at work today, or we're working on this, I'm gonna need some extra time. Can you take the kids? Right? Yeah, and and it's not I don't know. I don't know if I necessarily have the best way to explain that, but it it doesn't really seem it's never been an issue to me, I feel like, about the the work-life balance. It's just this is where we want to go. This is how we are going to get here. This is the path that needs to be followed. And you you have your you have your limitations and don't go past those limitations. And that's that's that's the point I try to communicate to you know all of my customers.

Why "working harder" is a lie

SPEAKER_00 43:35

It's like everybody thinks that it's about working harder, but really it's about working smarter. Work hard in that time that you're working, but what the richest people in the world know is they don't spend a lot of time working. Like their money goes to work for them. It's the same thing in the digital world. That's the beautiful part. You can create a digital product one time, you don't have to create it. For every single person that comes in, you could sell it over and over and over and over again. And that's all part of why we live in a new age and the the opportunity is available to everybody. Um, so to me, uh work-life balance, it's not something I've ever really struggled with. I don't know. Maybe you should ask my wife, maybe she has a answer.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Right. Yeah. I yeah. I won't, I don't want to ask my husband what my work life balance is to him, because I'm sure he'd have a different perspective as well. But so with that work-life balance and having that system.io plaque on the wall there, you said 50,000.

Generating $2 million from content

SPEAKER_02 44:39

What kind of revenue goals have you been able to reach to give you this life of freedom and flexibility that you're willing to share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah. So my content, I like to put it this way my content out on social media has been responsible for more than $2 million in online sales the last six years. Showing up, posting a couple times a day on social media and having the right systems installed on the back end. So six years, two million. That's kind of it's it's not that's so simple.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

That it sounds so simple. You're like, I created content, I put it online, I funneled it to this system and made two million dollars. Like that truly is what you said at the very, very beginning, where let's stop exchanging time for money and let's make our time grow exponentially, you know, the income on the other end, having that residual income. So we're gonna land the plane here, closing out our interview. What is the gift that entrepreneur dad or entrepreneurship has given you the freedom to never miss a moment?

SPEAKER_00 45:54

I mean, that's at the end of the day, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna start tearing up here in a minute. Uh, I can never do one of these things without having one of those just like realizations of how blessed and how lucky I am, but also at the same time to see the fruit of all the work that was put in, right? Because although the systems are simple, the process is easy, the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do, right? So, what people don't see is the sacrifice that you make behind the scenes, right? The the like I told you at the beginning, where I woke up for I know three weeks isn't a long time, but I challenge anybody out there to wake up at 2 30 in the morning for three weeks straight and see what they're able to accomplish, right? You can you can accomplish a lot in those hours where nobody's paying attention. Well, you're gonna be you're gonna be tired. You're gonna be really tired and you're gonna not want to do it. You know what I mean? Nobody has seen the struggle of me. Some of it I didn't mention was starting my business behind my wife's back and making my first five-figure month and having to quit my business cold turkey to go to marriage counseling for eight months and then come back and start all over again, right? It there's there's a lot you learn about yourself along the process. And again, I was not a very good person at the start, and I've grown and I've evolved, and just it's it's crazy. It's crazy to think about it, and it's just it's so simple. Like, keep it simple, show up, do the thing, like trust the process, show up and do it because that's that's really what it comes down to. Most people just think they want to do something, and then they get the process and they get the golden ticket, but they don't understand that they still need to show up and do the thing to get to where you want to go. So just because you got software, just because you got a blueprint, yeah, give yourself a pat on the back. You're in the the the 1% now who has access to this information, but you got to be the 1% of the 1% and actually do the work and get out there and make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

So you you you actually answered the next question, which is if someone's sitting on the edge of their seat, like I think I'm ready, like what would you say to them? And you're like, do the thing. Is there anything you'd like to add to that? Like, if they're right there, you know, like I got the system.io, I've got the affiliate market, like

Advice for beginners: "Get comfortable being uncomfortable"

SPEAKER_02 48:27

what do they need to do? What are you banging over their head over and over? Let's go! Like, what is it that you would say?

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Show up every single day. And the thing that feels most uncomfortable, do that. Get comfortable being uncomfortable because you know what? Your most uncomfortable next step is probably the one that you need to take. And even if it's not with system.io, it's the conversation that you're dreading with your spouse, it's the conversation you're dreading with your kid, it's the conversation you're dreading with your boss or your kid's teacher. Don't put it off. Do the thing, get comfortable getting uncomfortable. The more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, the more you learn about yourself, the more you grow as a person, and the more you're going to accomplish. Do the next uncomfortable thing. That's my biggest advice.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

I love it. There is growth and the discomfort. Yep. So all right. If someone wants to work with you, check out this affiliate marketing, you know, get that done for you services. How can they connect with you after this interview?

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Yeah, um, I would say go follow me on social media. You can find me pretty much anywhere, but be careful. I uh there are unfortunately in the world we live in with social media. Um when you have the amount of followers that I have, there are a lot of impersonators out there. People who steal my picture, and you know, it you'll you'll know that you're following the right one if you've you see hundreds of thousands of followers. Um but follow me on social media, or better yet, go to my system.io funnel, www.datrapreneur school.com, and opt in, get on my list, I'll send you some valuable information and no pressure, no strings attached. I'll give you some free stuff so you can learn and you can have a conversation with me or somebody from my team. So that's probably the best way to connect.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

All right. So y'all heard it from Josh Smith, the dadrepreneur school.com. And thank you for joining us and sharing your story and your success story with system.io.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's it's a pleasure, and it's it's been it's been a heck of a ride. I'm just really grateful to be here. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

And hopefully it's just beginning. All right. Thank you again for listening to another success story with system.io. And until next time, keep creating.