The Foureva Podcast
Welcome to The Foureva Podcast, where we break barriers and redefine success!
Join host Jamar Jones, a dynamic entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of "Change Your Circle, Change Your Life," as he takes you on an extraordinary journey of inspiration and motivation.
In each episode, we bring you an impressive lineup of star-studded guests, each with a unique voice and a wealth of insights to share. From industry leaders to renowned experts, we uncover their secrets to success in personal, business, and marketing domains. Prepare to be captivated by their stories, strategies, and experiences that will empower you to reach new heights.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a marketing professional, or simply seeking fresh perspectives on life and business, The Foureva Podcast is your ultimate destination. Discover the transformative power of changing your circle and unlocking your full potential. With each episode, we delve into the minds of the most influential voices in the industry, providing you with the tools and inspiration you need to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness.
Don't miss out on this dynamic podcast that will fuel your ambition, challenge your limits, and propel you toward success. Tune in to The Foureva Podcast and join a community of driven individuals who are ready to make an impact. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and 'foureva' transformed!
The Foureva Podcast
From Cold Emails to SaaS Exits: Building Businesses That Scale
In this episode, we sit down with Christian Bonnier — entrepreneur, co-founder of ListKit, and creator of Client Ascension. Christian shares his journey of building multiple businesses, growing on TikTok, and mastering cold email strategies that help agencies and entrepreneurs land high-quality clients. From scaling companies to networking hacks and running live events, this conversation is packed with practical advice and inspiring stories.
Here’s what you’ll take away:
✅ How to use cold email to land your next 10 clients
✅ Why clarity in messaging beats long sales pitches
✅ Building predictable lead flow beyond referrals
✅ Growing a personal brand through TikTok & Twitter
✅ Balancing multiple businesses without burning out
✅ The power of networking and hosting events
This is one you don’t want to miss if you’re looking to grow your business and brand with real, proven strategies.
Number one you're going to get way more responses to your emails if you're sending over value. Hey, mind, if I share a quick video explaining how I can help you blow up your podcast. Sure, why not? Oh, this is a really, really good video. Let me hop on the phone with this person because they know what they're doing. Number one you get more responses. Number two the calls that you get on are going to be much higher quality because people are going to show up like I loved your video, dude. How do I start? Like, what is this called for? I don't really remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're live again with another amazing guest. What's going on, christian? What's going on, what's new and going on Like what, what's, what's what's new and hot right now, in your head, right now.
Speaker 1:Man, honestly, just focus on growing my software company list kit. We've been really. I mean, it's a B2B database company and we've just been spending weeks trying to figure out what else we can be doing to sign more customers. But outside that, um, tiktok content just doing everything, bro. Tiktok twitter, building the business, building my hat company.
Speaker 2:So it's been busy yeah, you say you got a hat company. Yeah, this is my brand. Okay, hold on, let me see it. Let me see it, let me see. Uh, is that fragile.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, you'll go to the shipping box like Handle With Care.
Speaker 2:Ah, dope, dope. I'm a hack guy, man, I'm totally a hack guy. I may need to scoop one up, man, we got some flavors, bro. Okay, oh, I like the black one, I like the black one. Dude, I need that. Actually, I got a. Um, I got a, uh, a hoodie that's got like a heart on it. It's like a game like a uh, the minecraft heart. Yeah, like right here, and it's super dope, man, and so that that would be perfect, the perfect match. Man, you need it. Definitely gotta scoot one up. Uh, where can people find that at?
Speaker 1:uh, it's at. I'll just drop the link in my in the chat real quick. It's called fragile collective. It should come up on google. It's pretty unique spelling, but amen okay, that's the trucker happy collective okay that's the side.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna drop it in the chat too and, uh, on instagram. If you guys look, go ahead and go ahead and shop. I'm endorsing. All right, man, uh, this is super cool to talk to you about this stuff, um, so, first of all, just let everybody know you let a little bit of of who you are and what you do, but just give it by a little bit of insight, just like what, what does your day-to-day look like? And tell about the couple of companies that you run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I run a company called Client Ascension. It's a coaching program similar to, you know, any kind of. We teach cold email, basically, right. So if you're an agency owner, if you do software or consulting and you want to grow with cold email and sales and operations, you join our program and we teach you how to sign your next 10 clients with outreach and sales. That's a coaching program. I'm also a co-founder at ListKit, which is a data company similar to Apollo, similar to Zoom Info, and that's basically you come on, you want a list of 10,000 CEOs email addresses so you can reach out to them. That's what. What we sell self-serve data platform, um, and the coaching and the email, obviously, or the software, overlap because it's the same. It's all cold email, um. So we kind of have an ecosystem of products and services and businesses all in that and that's like my full-time gig and then I make tiktoks for the fun of it on the side and then I have a hat company. So it's pretty, uh pretty wide portfolio of stuff dope.
Speaker 2:And what's, what's your, what's your tiktok followers at right now I'm at 88 000, nice, nice, I was just asking because last time we talked I think you were at like, I think you're at either 80 or 79 or something like that, so I you've been growing man. We'll get into that conversation here in a second. So it's very interesting. I was going to ask you why did you separate the two businesses from ListKit and Client Ascension? Why are they separate and why didn't you just add more onto Client Ascension?
Speaker 1:I mean ListKit is. You know, it's a software Like we're trying to exit that software business one day. So they kind of exist on their own because ListKit, we're trying to exit for a lot of money one day, don't really care about cash flow and profit too much, whereas the coaching program, you know, cash flow, heavy, funds our lifestyle, that's how we make our income while we try to build a unicorn SAS company. Um, we kind of do coexist because anyone that signs up for coaching signs up for our software. So they kind of feed into each other. But that's why I asked that.
Speaker 2:That's exactly why I asked because a lot of a lot of us, we, we, we run the business right, we grow it. And then we're also thinking about, like, once we get it stable and get it going, we're like, okay, what could be a nice add on piece? Yeah, instead of starting a brand new, you know branding and like I mean, you got to do the whole shebang again when you launch another company. So that's just. That's just why I asked, because a lot of us are trying to do a bunch of add ons, but they're very particular, unique, targeted niche businesses, but they also serve each other at the same time, exactly, so that's cool. That's cool. So let's first talk about Client Ascension real quick, because I know the biggest thing that every single like we, our audience, is a lot of six and seven figure entrepreneurs, so like consultants, coaches, authors, speakers, people that are trying to get clients right, Um, it, does email marketing work? And what is the one of the most common mistakes that you see with people when they're when they're doing email marketing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, cold email works a thousand percent If you do it right. There's a lot of ways you can not do it right. I see people mess up with their messaging. They try to send an essay of an email and no one reads it. They focus too much on themselves. I'm a bestselling author. I'm this. I'm that. A stranger over email only cares about what you can do for them. So you want to just get right to the point, and then a lot of people aren't really sure who their ideal customer is. Yeah, so they go really broad and their messaging doesn't really relate to anybody, which hurts your results. That's like on the strategy side and then on a technical side, people mess up all the time with how much volume they're sending out, because they'll just bombard people and wind up in spam, and that's a surefire way to not get results. So it definitely does work. It's harder than ever to get results this year, in 2024, but it still does work. So, yeah, I mean, if you do it properly and follow best practices, it definitely does work.
Speaker 2:And what is the? And I've heard multiple different ways and approaches of this. But when do you go and ask for the sale? Is it on the first email? Is it on the third? Is it on the seventh?
Speaker 1:It's actually on the ninth so, yeah, we never ask for the sale. You never ask for the sale. Yeah, so the only goal of the first email is to get somebody to say yes to what you're asking. Only goal of the first email is to get somebody to say yes to what you're asking, and the ask is typically more information, a video explaining further, a one-pager case studies, portfolio of work.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, yeah so you're kind of you're not asking for the sale, the sale, but you're you're selling yourself a little bit more, where you're explaining what the results are or who you are and why you're qualified to even talk about it. Right, and then and then after that. So let's say, people are are getting the, they got the case studies, they got they got all the, the answers that they needed. Is then the goal to just get them on the phone?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So basically, whatever we ask them, you them, once someone says yes to whatever we're sending over maybe it's a video? Hey, here's the video. Once you get a chance to check it out, how does tomorrow work for a call? So the goal is still to get on a call and sell them, but we put a buffer in between the email and the call just to build authority, build trust and get people to buy into what's going on. Because, number one, you're going to get way more responses to your emails if you're sending over value. Hey, mind if I share a quick video explaining how I can help you blow up your podcast. Sure, why not? Oh, this is a really, really good video. Let me hop on the phone with this person, because they know what they're doing. Number one, you get more responses. Number two, the calls that you get on are going to be much higher quality because people are going to show up like I loved your video, dude, how do I start? Like, what is this call for? I don't really remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, that's dope man.
Speaker 1:That's dope. And then who's your ideal customer? That you guys. That usually goes on to client ascension, yeah, so typically it's B2B agencies, like they do TikTok content for e-commerce brands or they do email marketing for software companies and they do marketing themselves, but they're not really the best at finding more clients. They can get great results for their clients, but they're like I don't know how to sign my next client. They come to us. We give them, you know, training on cold email.
Speaker 2:That's how they scale okay okay, gotcha, gotcha, and then is there. Is there a particular software that we should all be using, like I know, there's, there's tons, man, there's, there's too many to count um the softwares they should be using.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we use list kit, obviously for the leads, because it's our company and then smart lead is how you send the emails. So that's where you throw your leads into, get your inboxes linked up to and that is how you send 5,000, 10,000 emails a month hands-free, because the manual outreach is very time consuming and you don't want to be outreach is very time consuming and you don't want to be wasting time like literally sending manual emails.
Speaker 2:So yeah, okay, okay, cool, and then so it sounds like we just got done. Talking this on the last podcast was, uh, just being a human. It seems like to be the approach as far as copy goes, as far as on emails?
Speaker 2:yeah, because you're just hey, could I do this for you? Would that benefit you? Yes, okay, you send it. Did you like it? Did you want a little bit more? Do you want to schedule a call? Like? It sounds like just being a human, instead of trying to be this sales robot that we all try to turn it, we all turn into when we're doing emails, when we're trying to do our email marketing.
Speaker 1:That seems to be the approach yep, I mean, yeah, it's like so many people. Just what I always like to say is like read your email over. Um, as if you're talking to someone at a bar. Like you wouldn't say like hope this finds you well, no, just be like hey, I noticed you're the founder at client ascension. Like we can help you sign your next 10 clients. Not like hey, really inspired by the growth trajectory of come like, say something in your email that you would say to a person and not come up as a weirdo, I mean yeah, yeah, and what was that?
Speaker 2:um, how did you come up with with that? For client ascension, like where you guys are so targeted, like that, like, hey, let me help you find your next 10 clients, do you feel like you're not speaking to certain other people that are like I don't want 10, I want 20, I want 100, I want, you know, massive, massive growth versus 10. Why did you feel like that was so needed? As far as just to have that kind of statement on your website, yeah, uh, what was the statement? What? As far as the your first 10 clients, like, why, why, why, why only 10? And why why did you just put that statement on there?
Speaker 1:because I, I think a lot of us on our website we're trying to figure out how to, how to convert, yeah, and so just real curious on that um I mean we operate under the assumption that you need like a tangible benefit, like achieve X, sign your next 10 clients, generate your next 50K, you know, whatever the case may be. As opposed to saying like supercharge your marketing right, like something tangible and then five 10 clients, is just like a very easy way to understand. Like, oh, I'm going to join this program and I'm going to get my next 10 clients. As opposed to like I'm going to, you know, hit X, y and Z result like that. It's just a little bit of a. It's a really simplified way to understand what we do and it's realistic. It's not like, oh, you're going to get your next a hundred thousand dollars in income from this.
Speaker 2:Like right, yeah, right Okay. And then did that happen through trial and error, like, talk to us a little bit of like how you came, came to just that clarity error, like talk to us a little bit of like how you came, came to just that clarity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean my partner daniel's like our funnels guy and he'll just test new copy like every couple weeks and see what converts and our that main messaging of 10 clients was like what really helped us take off. So we've just kind of stuck with it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and how do you? How are you guys uh being able to actually get clients uh through here, like what's a channel that's working for your leads?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, on our side, we use a lot of organic for the coaching program. We've used cold email for the program. We've used ads for the program, we post on YouTube, we go on podcasts, we host events. We had our event this past weekend in Tampa.
Speaker 2:Oh dope yeah.
Speaker 1:And then on the software side, cold email, ads, referrals, content, so like we kind of use every Avenue out there. Um, but yeah, I mean cold email got us from zero to 100 K with our software business and now we use pretty high volume ads to kind of pour gas on the fire, because you know cold emails like the best beginner to go from zero to one. I would say it's like the cheapest, most predictable way to get a business off the ground. But then if you really want to go high scale it's got to be ads, just because the amount of volume with cold email it would take to replicate what we're seeing with ads right now would be like a team of five or 10 full-time sales reps be like a team of five or 10 full-time like sales reps.
Speaker 2:Ah, gotcha, gotcha. And the ads is that, after they see the emails, that you're doing some kind of retargeting or for them to actually like get to see you in more places than just in their inbox.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do retargeting, but I'd say our main ad strategy is just like here's what we do. We can build you a cold email system. Here's our results. Let's hop on the phone, right. So it's just like very direct response get them on a sales call. But yeah, anytime someone enters our funnel they're retargeted with new ads for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, don't. And you say you did organic. What do you doing for organic, like what's what's working?
Speaker 1:I would say organic is YouTube videos I post once or twice a week. I try to. My business partner, daniel, has a bigger YouTube channel than me that he posts on once a week. Ok, and then just Twitter.
Speaker 2:Just Twitter, just just Twitter, are you? So I've talked to some people that like can't like stay on Twitter, and I've talked to some other people like my good friend Junaid Iqbal he's. He's built up a pretty good Twitter following. What are you posted on Twitter? Is it literally just just quick little like hey, here's here's case study kind of kind of content on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, mean I would say like valuable threads, like hey, I generated, you know, 10 clients in two months from cold email. Here's my strategy. I'll. We'll also put out, like you know, social proof and case studies from clients, screenshots from our slack, testimonial videos. Okay, and then we'll just be you know, show our personality and talk about you know sports, whatever you might have it so yeah, yeah, is it.
Speaker 2:Is it? Um? Is it pretty organic as far as the search still on on twitter? Like can people find you just organically by you posting that type of content? Um?
Speaker 1:organic reach on twitter used to be a lot better. It's a lot shittier now. I don't know if I can cuss on here, but oh, it's all right. Yeah, no, it's definitely not as good as it used to be. Uh, I think if you're posting that's also a cope, because I posted a thread recently about tiktok content that went like super, super viral, which was like my best video of all time. Okay, um, so I would say, like it. The organic reach is possible if you put out really good stuff. If not, twitter's best for like the existing audience that you have.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha, cause I honestly I, I I don't really use Twitter like LinkedIn, um, instagram are kind of like my main two platforms and we're getting into obviously more youtube content, um, but yeah, twitter, I've just never way back in the day man, I'm talking like eight years ago, probably longer I was using twitter and actually that's how I gained my first few clients when I, when I launched my business about 10 years ago, um was actually through Twitter. I used to just do searches and it was awesome, like I could just talk to people directly, shoot them a DM and then, you know, just get the conversation started.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. People don't like. Most people don't really know that. There's like a pocket of Twitter that's online businesses, software company owners, agency owners. So I mean there's a good little pocket of the Internet on there that's still using.
Speaker 2:OK, ok, cool, cool, cool. What's been one of the toughest things for you to kind of figure out, or challenges that you face as far as with either of your businesses that you've had to face as you guys are growing and scaling?
Speaker 1:Some of the issues I would definitely say just time management, like the businesses, exist completely on their own and they both require a lot of input. So, yeah, just finding the time to, you know, give our students the proper help and support and attention, while also, you know, supporting 2 000 plus customers and a full-time team over at the software. So we have a, we have four co-founders, so it's, you know, very it's super clutch that we have as many guys as we do work in full time. But it's like man, you really got to like be uh you know what's the word deliberate with your time and make sure that everything's getting checked off every day and there's like no days off. So, are you working? Is it seven days a week? Uh, no, I don't really work on weekends, but during the week it's just like it's nonstop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Wow, I mean that. That it that is just the truth of entrepreneurship. Um, until you build it, until you get it to a certain point, it always just needs your time and attention. Uh, no matter what, and um, it's interesting. So, on the coaching side, I know a lot of us are doing either group coaching, we do one-on-ones, we do masterminds. What is the best strategy as far as, like, on the coaching side that you've been able to scale for Client Ascension?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say group coaching. So people join the program, they get access to a one-on-one student success coach which is a full-time support member from our team to hold them accountable.
Speaker 1:And then the way that it works for our model is we have fractional coaches, I guess you could say, where we pay experts in there. Like we pay a sales coach, we pay a leadership coach, we pay an operations coach. Like these guys that run their own successful businesses come into our program and have one live call a week. So like we're not you know, the co-founders aren't the ones spending all the time with the students Like students are getting results and they still have access to us as co-founders, but you know our time isn't necessary for them to get results. So I think group coaching is a really powerful way to kind of grow a business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what? What kind of uh? What kind of uh pricing models have you guys seen? Have you tested a bunch of different pricing models? I know I've talked with a lot of different uh coaches uh in my lifetime and I feel like there's so many different models right To do like a membership or or group coaching I mean, I think the best model is like a six-month agreement charge, a flat, like, let's say you're paid in full is 10k.
Speaker 1:Have a two pay for five and a half. Have a three pay for 3.4k each. Yeah, like we've experimented with, like pay up front and then monthly. We've done yearly like six-month agreement, paid in full is this much. You can split up the payments if you want.
Speaker 2:This is what it is yeah, and then you do, you do monthly. Have you, have you uh seen success with that with six months?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, six months is probably our bread and butter okay, okay, that's interesting, yeah, because I I talked with another guy that runs a pretty large community, um group coaching, and he swears by just the the yearly, like just getting the year up front, don't have to chase, don't have to, you know, figure out halfway through if payment's gonna, if it's gonna hit or if it's gonna go through. Um, he like swears by just getting the year up front. But he also said that that actually, unfortunately it also repels back a lot of people that just aren't quite there yet. But then if they, if your thing does what it says it can do, then they should be able to pay what halfway through the six months, or you know right, if you're getting the results, they should be growing their revenue and then they should be able to, you know, be able to consistently pay.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the battle you have to face. It's like some people are going to default on payments and it's going to be a mess, but that's the game you play, I don't know. That's just how it is, man, because not everyone can pay up front and it's going to cost you clients if you can't accept payment plans.
Speaker 2:So it's going to cost you clients if you can't accept payment plans. So it's just like the back and forth act, yeah, yeah. And then do you guys typically only work with uh clients that you know are making a certain amount of revenue at least each year, like, do you have kind of a filter or uh?
Speaker 1:um, I mean we don't have like a set guideline, but we typically only go for people that already have a few clients. In some rare cases, if someone wants to start from scratch in our program, they can. Um, but we typically opt for. You know someone that has their first three or four clients already. They have the foundation built and then they use us to kind of pour gas on the fire. Okay, but in some scenarios if we you know there's a good culture fit and a person's going to work hard, then we'll hire them on as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, okay, cool. Yeah, I want to. I want to switch over to ListKit real quick. How, how important is it for us to have like a database of of contacts or potential buyers, um, for our business? Um, cause I know a lot of us, uh, I know, when I talk to people I'm like, hey, how do you get clients? Referrals is always the number one answer I get every single time, unless we talk to a couple particular off off ones. It's like I get clients through referrals cause I I'm dope at what I do. Why is it important to have that database of potential buyers and to consistently build on that and be communicating out with them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's. Well, it depends on who you ask, because some people are like I'm referrals, you know they keep me happy, I have all the clients I need. So I'm not going to say that you need cold outreach for any business. But, um, from what I've seen, like referrals aren't. You can't wake up on a Friday and say I'm going to get a referral today, like you just don't know.
Speaker 1:If you want consistent, predictable lead flow, that isn't like feast or famine with people referring you new business, I think cold outreach is extremely necessary for any B2B business. And it's not it's if you're doing it right and you're not paying an agency an arm and a leg. It's really not that expensive to run. So you're paying like maybe a thousand bucks a month to have, you know, three, four, five calls, 10 calls a month come in Like the. The return on investment is very much worth it. And it's just like. I don't think any business should rely on one acquisition channel Like oh, I use ads. Okay, what if your ads account gets shut down? What if your referral pipeline dries up? Like you're not going to have anywhere to look? That's why we do ads, we do referrals, we do content, I host webinars, we do cold email, we do cold calling, like we all. You just have to have so many different acquisition channels, because if one of them gets pulled out, your business isn't going down, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, 100%, 100%. I've heard personally with a few influencers that we've worked with in the past and also ones that I know uh, get their info, get their uh, instagram shut down, yeah, like it dries up everything. And they're like dude, how do I make money? Basically, because they got all their leads through dms. Um, yeah, and that was like their whole thing. They didn't even really have a crm. They just they just did it through dms and it's like all right, brand deal here. All right, go out to speak at this event. All right, do this here. And they there's like no structure, like whatsoever. Yeah, um, and this happens a lot. So I think, having different, different channels, I think you're 100 spot on about doing that. Have you? Have you seen that too, where people are just like they don't have any structure in in their business?
Speaker 1:I've seen it where people yeah, they don't have like intention with their marketing.
Speaker 2:It's like oh.
Speaker 1:I just get you know. I'll get a referral every couple of days Like I'll just have an Instagram reel go viral. Like it's not. There's no like. Marketing is a math equation at the end of the day. Yeah, you know, if you spend this much on cold email, you'll get this many calls. You close this many deals. You invested x, you made y. Scale it up. You know what I mean. It's like a very predictable equation but a lot of people just willy-nilly it. I'll get a referral tomorrow. I'll go viral on instagram. I'll pay for a promo like people don't like. You can grow a business with without a really predictable marketing channel, but you can't scale it to millions or eight figures unless you have like a very um dialed in marketing strategy yeah, yeah, yeah, or or, unless you're the hawk to a girl yeah, you get a bag you're set for life off of, like you just, yeah, you just get a bag and you're set for life from one video.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but once again. Once again, that's completely random, right, it's completely like she didn't. She wasn't on that path of like, hey, this is what I'm going to do, it just happened to her. And to your point, we can't base our success off of luck, and a lot of us are basing everything that we've ever done, our investments, everything that we have, off of luck, and a lot of us are basing everything that we've ever done, our investments, everything that we have off of luck, of like and yeah, is it? Is it a little percentage of luck to be successful? Of course, of course it has to happen. I'm sure you've had some, some luck that you're like, oh shoot, I didn't even think that was going to happen. That's, that's kind of dope, um, and it happens, but that's. But that's also through the consistency and also when you have that engine turned on, the luck it's also cause.
Speaker 2:I've also seen where people get the little quick one minute of fame. I come from a music background, so some people get a quick minute of fame. They get a one hit. They're called one hit wonders for a reason. Um, but there's no, there's no infrastructure, there's no back end, there's nothing. They don't even got another song cooking, they have nothing else. So they're known for I. What is that one song? Uh, panda, by designer.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say like trinidad james or something trinidad james.
Speaker 2:that guy blew up with that song, and where is that? I've seen them here and there on some features, but not not another. Just mega hit Right Because you don't have the infrastructure. So apply that also to your business, guys, as you're looking at this have the infrastructure, have a few channels, have some stuff cooking and don't rely 100 percent on luck. I think that's that's excellent advice, man. I think that's that's excellent advice, man. Um, so I want to. I want to switch gears real quick and talk about, uh, uh, your social media content. So why, why did you? I know you say you do kind of tick tocks for fun, but did it literally just turn into? Did you plan to grow a channel or did you literally just like start posting video?
Speaker 1:um, I mean I started because I wanted to get leads for our front end, like marketing, training, right? Yeah, oh, I'll just use tiktok to get a bunch of people interested in online business. And then that morphed into just more baseline content. Yeah, like just posting about whatever the hell I want because, um, I was going viral with like the most high level topics like dating, traveling, you know, life advice, whatever I'm like. Okay, this is a better use of my time on tiktok. And then I still get people like I had a a call today with someone that found me through my tiktok who wanted cold email help okay yeah and and that.
Speaker 2:So how many? Um? So is it really becoming like a lead source for you as far as tiktok?
Speaker 1:um, I mean, yeah, like people will find me, like I said, I'll get a ton of views. A certain small fraction of those people will watch my business videos that are pinned on my page. Yeah, and they'll, you know, work or seek me out through there. I've also had, like, people approach me for content deals. I've had, you know, people say, oh, I live in tampa, would love to connect, invite, invite me to a part like a networking event. So, like I've, every spectrum of my life has benefited from tiktok across, you know, business relationships, networking, dating, all nice yeah, nice, and for everybody, just uh, so they know what's.
Speaker 2:What's your handle on tiktok?
Speaker 1:uh, cb writes copy. I'll put it in the chat and make sure you you follow the one with the blue check mark, because there's a lot of bots of me and they'll try to sell you crypt. Okay, hold on.
Speaker 2:Let me just drop this in the chat for everybody. Guys, go ahead and follow Christian on here on tick tock. Do the blue check Mark, blue check Mark. Guys, the bots. The bots are out there every, every time. People are just leeches, man, they're leeches. So, just just so everybody has a little bit of um of what his content looks like. I'm just gonna just show this on the screen for people when they, uh, when they watch the replay.
Speaker 2:So it's literally him just talking to the camera. Guys, it's not when we talk about content like you don't have to over produce it, right? Yeah, it's just, it's. He put a title, he talks to the camera, it's, it's not, it's not rocket science. Guys like, just start creating, start creating and just put it out there. Most people like most people, just they get stunned, they get frozen when it comes down to creating content, even with successful businesses, and they just won't take a little bit of time to do it. So what, what's your framework that you follow, that you've seen that to be successful, just for everybody knows. So hey, I want to take, I want to do some talking videos on tick tock. What is there a time limit? Is there um like, what's the framework that you kind of follow for your videos uh, the hook is the most important.
Speaker 1:Like you have the first two seconds has to be like very attention grabbing and compelling, otherwise people just aren't gonna. They're gonna keep scrolling. Like you have one to two seconds, like if someone's doing this on their phone, oh, this isn't good. Next, like you have fractions of a second to make somebody say what and stop their scroll. Um, so I use hooks. Like the best place to live in your 20s is tampa. Um, the biggest green flag in a girl is that they go to pilates, like just funny. But it's like all speaking in like absolutes and get like certainties, not like oh, I think this. It's like don't ever say I think in your hook it's not gonna work, because right away they're like I don't care about this guy, why does his opinion matter to me?
Speaker 2:um, and then so they have to be absolutes is what you're saying, like yeah statements like the easiest way to get rich is with a boring business.
Speaker 1:It's not like oh, I think boring businesses are a good way to get rich. Like, no, the best way to get rich. Right, yeah, and then the video has to be interesting. I use a lot of storytelling. Oh, I had a. I had a friend's uncle growing up who ran a gravel company and he had a lake house and a Ferrari. Okay, that's a good story. That's interesting. Right, people can relate to that. And what's a good example? Like the best oyster spot in Tampa is at this restaurant. It's like the best restaurant in Tampa is here. You don't want to like, you want. If anybody sees your video, they shouldn't be alienated away from it, like some people are. Like, why isn't my video about email going viral? It's like cause, 1% of the people on this app can even relate to what you're saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to ask you that. It's getting you business and other opportunities, brand deals, etc. But it's also not all about what you do. Yep, do you feel like that's counterproductive?
Speaker 1:I think any press is good. Amassing a following is never going to hurt. Amassing a following is never going to hurt. Yeah, and then down the line, if I'm like, oh, I you know this video about email, like some, some portion of my audience is going to relate to it and I would rather just build a personal brand that's based on, like just amassing followers. Like I have my youtube and my twitter, which is very business heavy content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't, yeah I just well, it's also searchable too. Right, that's very searchable. People are trying to find solutions to things. I, yeah, yeah, totally agree with that. Yeah, no, that's, that's cool, man. So and then, how do how does the lead happen then? So you're putting out this kind of general um base content and then how do they book a call? Is there something in in your bio? Is there a link that people are clicking? Like, is it only DMS? Like, how are people knowing that you at least do the email and you have this database business?
Speaker 1:Um, how do people know that I have a business like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like if you're doing the general content, how do they know that you have the business?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, all my pin videos on my Tikiktok are about email. Um, I link my youtube and my other social medias. It's all business stuff. And then I also run the ads for our software company. So some people have cross-pollinated like oh, what are these ads you're on? Oh, that's my business. Right, we're finding you in other places. Yeah, yeah, like my. I mean, in my opinion, just becoming a recognizable face will translate well to your main business, because it's like oh, I know that kid, let's see what his business is all about, you know? I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, ok, ok, cool. No, I think you drop some gems as far as just how to grow on TikTok and do you do the same kind of strategy on other platforms, or is it just really worked on TikTok? Does it work on Instagram as well?
Speaker 1:I mean, I posted my reels on Instagram but for whatever reason they just don't pop like they do on TikTok. I don't know what the deal is there. I've seen that for the most part the unedited stuff does well on TikTok, like just me talking to the camera, no edits, no captions, and then on Instagram the highly edited stuff does better. That's just what I've noticed.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Interesting, yeah, I've, um, we've had a couple viral videos on Instagram, um, and it seems to be a little bit like slightly produced, but not not overly produced, though. Um, so just to keep that attention, like a little bit of transitions, you know, just just to keep people really engaged to it. Also, I have seen like also it seems like and I don't know, I know this happens on tiktok but also on instagram just like the crazy videos for some reason, just do really well, like, if somebody's just doing somebody something nuts on there, um, those always seem to do well because they're interesting, right, they're they're interesting, or you're like why, why is this person doing this? Yeah, and those are those seem to perform pretty well, but I think overall it sounds like go general. But I have seen people that laser in on a particular topic on on Tik TOK, and they're they're able to get some traction. Like some people are just like they talk about sales and that's all they talk about and they give you hooks on sales. They give you um, how tos, how to have you know how to get leads, and so they're just focused in on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I, I've seen a little bit of both, but also they don't. They're probably don't grow as fast though, so they're. They're so niched down. Yeah, they don't grow as fast, so they may have a targeted 5,000 followers, but they're got a couple of good videos versus. Yours is more general. You got more followers, but maybe not everybody knows that Kristen is talking about. You know that of what you do from the business side of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, on the contrary, like you can have an audience of 5,000 that all know exactly what you do and that'll generate you more money than a page with a million followers, right, yeah, like you don't need a big audience to monetize a following, if that makes sense yeah, yeah for sure, especially if it's targeted like back to your back to uh, to list kid.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you are speaking to your ideal clients, um, versus everybody, and having an email list, that's like a bunch of junk. Yeah, I mean it. Just, it works way better when you're talking directly to the people that you need to talk to, but you might be missing out on potential opportunities when it comes down to content If you go very wide, like I mean, what's the most craziest brand deal that you've gotten so far?
Speaker 1:Honestly, people don't what I'm trying to think like. I haven't gotten the true sense of like hey, make this video for two grand for my econ brand, okay, um, it's more so like what's a good example, like this bar in downtown tampa that I always post about. They like invited me out as like a featured person of the night and they hooked it up with like for me and my friends to come in cover the tab. That was really fun. And then I've also had this platform called WAP. They're like a learning platform, like discord, and they process payments. It's like an all in one stuff. For course, creators they're like hey, make a YouTube video for us. So an all-in-one stuff. For course, creators they're like hey, make a youtube video for us.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, I mean it's been like all across the board okay, so just different, different companies are. I think that's kind of dope with the, with the bar, restaurant place, because like, if you're just doing it with your friends, like it's kind of dope you know, yeah, it was super fun, but like here's where your tab would have been and it was like like $1 what you paid, I was like okay, cool. Yeah, that's awesome, man, and you have a book out, right? Yeah, yeah, talk to us a little bit about your book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's called One Connection Away. I don't even have a copy on me, which is pretty sad, but it's a book about networking. Basically, when I was in college, during COVID, I met somebody who inspired me to write a book. He's like listen, if you want to impress people during your job interviews, if you hand them a book that you wrote, you're going to get the job. That was before I was in business. So I was like that's very true. I'm going to write a book. Covid hits. I'm like you know what? I'll just do it and it's just all about how to network in person, how to meet, like make connections online. Case studies from a few people that I met at the time, basically having them write their story of networking. Like one guy became like at the nhl's biggest jeweler from his connections he made.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, it was just. I mean, looking back on it, it's like a very tactical. It's not like the most entertaining book, it's just tactical advice on how to make connections, go, go on podcasts, meet people, have good etiquette with your networking, provide value to other people. So I wrote that back in 2021, 2020, just as like a legacy thing, ego thing too. I'm like no one else at 20 has a book written. That was kind of my reasoning for it. But yeah, I mean, now it's just something I'll have forever and maybe I'll once I hit way more success in my business. I'll write a part two Like here's what I've learned since that first one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I feel like people if anybody's grabbed my book. Change your Circle, change your Life. Definitely grab Christian's book. Can we get it on Amazon?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's called One Connection Away by Christian Bonnier, one Connection Away on Amazon. Okay, I'm just telling people in the chat here real quick Okay, that's dope man. I mean I highly believe in networking. I wrote a whole book on it. I mean it's dope man. I mean I highly believe in networking, I wrote a whole book on it, you know, I mean it's just so powerful Because, honestly, the thing that could change your life, somebody else has.
Speaker 2:Somebody else has maybe the avenue or the path of how to get there. Maybe you listen to this podcast and you actually dropped a certain gym that changed the trajectory of somebody's business. Like, hey, they were struggling to get clients. I now adopted a few things that I learned on this podcast and now, all of a sudden, I got five clients. I got 10 clients. Oh, I'm able to do things now. Okay, this works and so you can. Guys, you can see how the connections are truly only one away, which is absolutely incredible. I want to talk real quick, man, about your events. Why do you throw these events and then also talk to us a little bit about the structure, like like, uh, what are these? What do these events look like?
Speaker 1:yeah. So we host yearly events for our coaching and client ascension, our coaching program, um, and the only goal is to, number one, treat our team to a fun weekend. Number two, have our clients come in and, you know, build that sense of community and have people meet face to face. And then then, number three, have people that are not our clients yet come in and see how great our community is and want to join lunch, dinner, um workshops like q a. It's like really valuable but also really fun because we at the end of the day, party out, like rent a big yacht and party and have dinner and have a good time. So it's a good mix of, you know, work and play and it's a lot of fun yeah, is it one day?
Speaker 1:one day event. Uh, the main event is one day, yeah, but we also have a vip day the day before, okay, so anybody that buys the the vip ticket can come out on friday and is that?
Speaker 2:is that also on a yacht? I mean like no, the vip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the vip day is. Uh, the vip day is just similar to the main event, but it's a smaller group, so they get more one-on-one time with us, gotcha gotcha okay, that's dope, that's dope and so, and you have it at ticketed.
Speaker 2:So this is also separate than what your clients are currently paying. This is like a separate experience, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean like we'll go to our clients and say, hey, you can come to the event for a discounted rate. General public has to pay this price. You can come in for this much. And then we have a higher ticket offer which is more of a one like a small mastermind, and those people come to the event for free. So it's like a selling proposition for our higher mastermind, because you come for free, and then for anyone in the program it's like a here as a thank you, you can come for a discount because you're already in here.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and then it's also really good, like a really good client acquisition strategy, because people that come from a community that aren't in the program yet end up leaving like, wow, I need to join these guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And how many people, roughly do you get going out to these events we had?
Speaker 1:100 on Saturday. I want to say Okay, so yeah, pretty, stellar Dope, dope, so yeah, pretty solid.
Speaker 2:Dope, dope. That's really dope. And the reason why I'm asking two of these questions is because you know I'm a really big believer in experience. So we literally just did a personal branding retreat in New York City Times Square for three days and I featured everybody on a billboard in Times Square. We had people podcasting One of our partners at Pod billboard in Times Square. We had people podcasting One of our partners at Podstream Studios in Times Square.
Speaker 2:We did workshops. I brought in experts. We had one guy that actually worked with Alex Ramosi and Gary Vee and helped build up their channels, so he talked all about content and how to grow on social. So it was. It was an awesome experience. So I'm I'm a big believer in the experiential thing because, like it's especially if you have more of an online business it's just great to get people in person to further the connection and the relationships and also so that way they can actually feel truly a part of something, because online you can only get so much. I mean, I remember one lady that came up. You're not on a screen anymore, you know. Like you're not just flat, you know 2D, you know. So what have you seen? Like, what was been some of the really positive, like transformation or outcomes of you running these events over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think the coolest thing is I don't know if it happened this year, but every year previously there's been a partnership that's formed at our event. So two people come that are running their own business and they end up partnering up on a business with each other at the end. So 2022, these two guys teamed up on a video content agency. They're crushing it now. Last year we had two accountants team up to make like a joint financial firm. Um, so I would definitely just say the in-person connections and the partnerships that are sparked as a result.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's, that's super dope, and you do that once a year. You said, yeah, we do them every October. Okay, every October, dope, dope. And do you change up the venue or do you keep it the same venue? We change it up.
Speaker 1:We'll try to outdo ourselves, but we're kind of hitting a point now. That's not going to be possible in Tampa at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was another thing I was wondering. I mean it's Tampa or Tampa's convenient for you, but obviously people it's kind of a destination place, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I mean it's like I would say that most people that come treated as a vacation. Obviously they're here to learn from us, but you know they're not working, they're enjoying themselves going out at night. So, like I said, it's a really good mix of purposeful business stuff while also having a fun time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that's cool man, that's cool. Well, I know we all learned a ton from this episode. Just one last question is what because you're all about like the client acquisition of being able to get leads in your business On average, how much does somebody spend to be able to get leads in their business? I know that might vary per industry, service, what the company's doing, but maybe start from like what a starting point for people and like what they really should be spending when it comes down to getting clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I always say cold email is the starting point because, like I said, you could have a cold email system up and running for a thousand dollars and pay 600 bucks a month to, you know, prospect thousands of people. 600 bucks a month to prospect thousands of people. So I'm not even being biased. Cold email is easily the best way to start any marketing for any business, any B2B business, that is. And then, while you're running, automated cold email because you can automate the entire thing with software and sending tools we call it the dream 100 strategy, where you find a list of a hundred people that you would consider your dream clients and send them very personalized outreach Like hey, christian, you know, love what you did on the forever podcast.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I really liked the tidbit about your Tik TOK journey. Right away, I'm like Whoa, this person did their research right. Yeah, I can convert all of your podcast content into short form clips for Instagram, youtube, tiktok, right. I actually clipped up the first. I actually made and edited the first clip for you already to show. You. Give you a feel for my work, mind, if I send it over. So, while you're doing the mass outreach with cold email, you can also do this one-to-one stuff and make a goal of five emails a day and I guarantee you, between the outreach, mass outreach, cold email and the one-to-one stuff, you're going to find a client or two in the first month for sure.
Speaker 2:I love that. I've heard of this dream 100 strategy too before, but I don't think it's ever been said on the podcast. So this is super dope. It works, guys. It does work. But you have to just be lasered in on who that ideal target client that you really want to work with, that you know that you can serve, so I think that's fantastic advice. Like fantastic advice. And is there any base level thing that we need to have when it comes to our email markets? So we're doing cold email right Do? Do we need to have a website built up? Like, do we need to make sure we're showing up on social? Do we cause.
Speaker 2:I know people will they like to search? Right? They're like who in the world is messaging me right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the? You don't need those. They're like ancillary things. You don't need them, but they're going to help because, like you just said, people will look your name up on Google. They'll go to your website. So the more assets you have in your corner, the better your emails are going to convert. If someone gets an email from you and they like what they see and they go to your website and they see a video, sales letter and your case studies and everything that you have, and then they go on your YouTube and they see good stuff, you're going to get a much higher response rate than if you're a ghost online, right?
Speaker 2:right. It's about having that foundation. That always helps, but it's not to say that you can't get business. It's just it definitely helps because I think people are more aware than ever as far as, like, just doing a little bit of research and doing a quick Google search or you know, if you get the email, like what is what's in the signature, let me just click on it real quick just to see, like what's going on. So, yeah, I think that having that base level and that's why, when you have a brand out there, make sure that you see your website and your social media and you have just something, some presence of what you do, or that you're just a chill person too, that you're not like some creep, like getting past some of those things I think is so important.
Speaker 2:Christian, thank you so much for being on this podcast, man. This has been absolutely fantastic. I think a lot of people have learned some stuff. I know I asked a lot of laser questions, but I wanted people to get value like really get a lot of value out of this episode. So how can people get connected to you? How can they, um, uh, be able to find out more about what you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would say the easiest ways are follow me on Instagram. I'll drop, I'll have all the links in over to you, but, yeah, follow me on Instagram. Follow me on Twitter, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'll drop my email address below as well. Reach out on any social platform or over email and I'll happily, you know, give you feedback, connect with you, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:Cool and I always tell everybody this make sure, guys, that you guys are following every guest that I have on. So, christian, make sure you guys are following his content and reach out to him. Everybody that I have on this podcast is reachable. Just shoot them a message. You never know where it's going to end up as far as if you don't shoot your shot. So definitely shoot them a message and please like, comment, subscribe to this podcast. We are streaming everywhere that you can get podcasts and don't forget everybody. If you can change your circle, you can change your life. So thank you so much, christian, for being on the pod and we'll catch everybody on the next one. Thank you, don't forget to like, comment and subscribe, and don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget you can change your circle to change your life. Thank, you.
