The LFG Show
Talking with movers and shakers who grew up with nothing and worked their asses off to achieve success. Let's 🤬 Go!!!!
The LFG Show
DON'T SELL LEADS!!! DO THIS 💥 ft. "The Godfather of Facebook Ads" Tim Burd
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THE GODFATHER OF META HAS ENTERED THE CHAT. 🔥
The LFG Show got the opportunity to sit down with an absolute legend in performance marketing — Tim Burd, widely known as “The Godfather of Facebook Ads.”
We caught up with Tim in Barcelona at ATO, where he was also a featured speaker, to talk about his evolution from Facebook advertising and masterminds to legal lead generation, mass tort, intake centers, call centers, and ultimately owning more of the funnel.
Tim is the co-founder of AdLeaks and has spent years at the highest levels of digital advertising, entrepreneurship, consulting, and performance marketing.
And this episode goes way beyond Meta ads.
Selling leads is getting harder.
Meta changes.
Acquisition costs rise.
Buyers tighten caps.
Margins get squeezed.
Tim explains why some of the smartest operators are moving beyond simply generating leads and starting to control more of the transaction.
Instead of just getting paid for a form fill, what happens when you control the intake, qualification, follow-up, and signed retainer?
That’s where the conversation gets serious.
🔥 FROM FACEBOOK ADS TO MASS TORT
Tim shares his journey from Facebook Ad Virus, consulting, and high-level masterminds into SSDI and mass tort marketing.
He breaks down why mass tort can create massive opportunity, but also comes with volatile budgets, strict quality expectations, compliance challenges, and a small group of major buyers where reputation matters.
One bad batch can follow you.
One great relationship can change your business.
📞 OWN MORE OF THE FUNNEL
One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is Tim’s move into intake centers and call center operations.
When you control more of the process, you gain something incredibly valuable:
FEEDBACK.
Why didn’t the lead qualify?
Why didn’t they sign?
Was it the ad?
The landing page?
The targeting?
The call handling?
The speed-to-lead?
That feedback helps improve everything upstream.
Better ads.
Better targeting.
Better conversion.
Better margins.
Tim also explains why you should NOT build a massive operation before proving the model.
Test it.
Dial in the economics.
Understand conversion.
Then scale people, technology, and overhead.
Sometimes the advantage isn’t more traffic.
It’s calling faster, following up longer, training better, and executing the fundamentals better than everyone else.
💰 OWN THE OFFER
The evolution is simple:
Run traffic → Generate leads → Control intake → Understand conversion → Own the offer.
The closer you get to the actual revenue event, the more control you have over your economics.
If you’re in Facebook ads, affiliate marketing, lead generation, mass tort, pay-per-call, call centers, or high-ticket performance marketing, this episode is packed with value.
Huge thank you to Tim Burd for sitting down with The LFG Show in Barcelona. 🐐🔥
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Ringba is a call tracking, attribution, and routing platform built for performance marketers, lead generators, agencies, pay-per-call networks, and call-driven businesses.
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Sponsor Tools For Better Conversions
SPEAKER_01Rainbow is the leading inbound call tracking and analytics platform for marketers, brands, and paper call teams. It gives you real-time reporting, intelligent call routing, and fully customizable call flows backed by global telecom access in more than 60 countries. With enterprise-grade reliability, a powerful API, and no contract instead of fees, Rainbow has become a go-to platform for performance marketers worldwide. To learn more and to sign up, check out the link in the description below. Get goaded and let's fucking go. Huge LFG show love to our sponsor, iSell For You. Listen, if you're an e-com or you know anybody running a brand, you already know the dirty little secret of this game. The money isn't lost on cold traffic, it's lost after the click. Abandoned checkouts, miss upsells. Customers who bought once and never speak to ever again. That's not a marketing problem, that's a fucking sales problem. And most brands don't have anyone actually selling. iSell For You is the answer. 700 agents on the phone working your back end. They recover abandoned checkouts, they run your upsells, they run your cross-sells. And the part that no one else does, they actually build a relationship with their customers. Real conversations, real humans, the kind of magic touch that turns that one-time buyer into a lifetime buyer. And here's what makes this a no-brainer. They charge a straight percentage of what they close. No retainer, no set of fees, no monthly minimums. If they don't make you money, you don't fucking pay. That's a pure performance deal. I know that's the kind of shit our LFG audience fucking appreciates. You stay focused on the brand, product, and the offer. ISL4U turns the maybes into closed deals and your buyers into repeat buyers. They only win if you win. So if you're running an econ brand and you don't have a back-in sales engine, you're leaving stupid money on the table. So go to iSell4U.com. Tell me you heard about it on the LFG show. And let's fucking go. Make the fucking e-com money, guys. Boom.
Meeting Tim Bird And His Early Brand
SPEAKER_01All right, guys, listen, we're wrapping up day one of eight here with a motherfucking bang. Bang! Bang! Bang. We got the godfather of Facebook ads. He's now the CEO of Mastor Experts, right? Master of Strategy. Oh, sorry, Mastor Strategy. It's my bad. Not to be confused with Michael Strategy. That's not something getting crushed, but all good. We got Tim Bird. It's really an honor, a pleasure to have you on the show. I've been in Legion since 2016, and we were talking offline. I godfather of Facebook ads, and I feel like you were really one of the first that really started with the personal branding. I remember you were doing you were doing like masterminds on yachts. I almost signed up for one way back in the day, like in 2017, 2018. I don't know if it was five grand. Back then, my industry, I just started, my income was up and down. Yeah, yeah. And I almost pulled the trigger and I wanted to do the next one I said I was gonna do, and then just never happened, man. But uh I I listened to your content, and uh it's really good to have you. So I'm sure everyone's gonna know who you are here. And I really am excited to have you on here because you've been in this industry for a very long time. You've had a lot of ups and downs, and uh you're doing a lot of mass tour right now, and you're a great presentation on stage. The numbers on the master side, especially when you go to the top of the funnel like you have right now, are really, really big. So I don't even know where to begin, man. I mean, let's let's where do you want to begin? I don't even know, man.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, I guess we
Facebook Ad Virus To Yachts Masterminds
SPEAKER_00could start at uh uh Facebook ad virus, actually. Like you said, uh I started that maybe 12 years ago or so. Uh and I didn't even mean to do personal branding, to be really honest. Um, because the group started for the first couple of years, there's only a couple thousand people in there, you know. So I was but I was in there every single day answering questions, answering questions, just helping people uh and learning throughout the process as well. That was the biggest thing for me, also was actually learning more about Facebook ads through other questions and reading other people's answers. You know, it was very great. Uh, and then people started asking me, uh, you know, uh, do you do consulting? Uh and I started doing so many consulting, a little hour here, a couple hours there, whatever. You know, first I think I charged like 500 bucks an hour, and then I got so many, I like, okay, I got to raise the price. This is taking a lot of time. So I'm like, okay, how about 750, then a thousand. I got to like $2,000 an hour. Um, and I was doing so many of them though that I kept going over the same thing over and over and over. I was like, why don't I just do a mastermind where I go over all of it to 30 people or whatever, all at one time, you know? So that's when I started doing those. And uh yeah, I tried to make the masterminds fun though. I've been to others that were, I think most of the masterminds I've been to of other people were pretty good. Uh, but uh a lot of times they kind of I feel like some of some of them skimp on the the fun stuff. So I always had like fun dinners, uh like really nice restaurants, yachts, uh, and then the founder's mastermind that we had, we even had uh we had Gary Vee as a speaker. I don't know what was this? Uh this was a few years ago, just a few years ago, this one uh New York. I was in New York. Yeah, I would have been to that one for sure. I didn't I must have not not seen that one. Yeah, yeah. And then we had uh uh like uh in between performances, we had like acrobat acrobatics like hanging from the ceiling by their hair and doing like just really just fun stuff, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. And we have the LFG show right now, and I was telling you out Star. Yeah, yeah, let's fucking go. So years ago we did this because I had uh we were talking about I was big in solar, right? And uh we when solar started going the other way, we also had other verticals. We were doing stuff in Medicare, yeah, we were doing stuff in home and home improvement, but solar was always our strong, that was like our moat. We had internal media buyers, we had data, like we were just crushing that, right? Yeah, so as it started to go the other way, the end of the revenue started going down, I had to lay people off. It wasn't a fun time. We were like a rocket ship from fucking 2019 through 2022, and like it got to the point where I'm like Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act. I'm like, man, I got another 10-year run with this. This is fucking great. And that was really the peak. That was a peak, and that's when everything started to go the other way. I'm like, you know, we started taking losses and I have to make some tough decisions. But the point is that LFG show started as a way to get more media buyers to help us because we we were just cap. We weren't able to hit caps for foam improvement. There are new verticals we're trying to tap into. So, anyway, LFG started almost as a flywheel to get more media buyers and help support these other uh avenues. But the bottom line is that it started to grow so much, and now we're where we're at. But we've done masterminds. We had uh two masterminds at Columbia, ColumbiaCon one and two. Oh, yeah. Great. We got people in the room there. I couldn't believe it, but the value of a mastermind is amazing when you get you know 30 heavy hitters in a room. It's it's so much better than like, listen, this event is great, don't get me wrong. But when you get people in a room like that, and you've been doing it for so long, man, you know?
SPEAKER_00Well, no, for sure. I I agree 100%, honestly. I love these conferences. I go to I go to a lot of conferences, honestly. But I will say that uh, you know, you don't get very much one-on-one time with people at these conferences. You see them shake their hand, maybe talk for five minutes, uh, you know, then maybe you see them at the one of the events or a dinner or something, and you talk to them for another five or so minutes. If you're only getting
Conferences Versus Masterminds And The Circle
SPEAKER_00like 10 or 15 maybe minutes per person, right? Uh total at the conferences, just because there's so many people, right? Which is good though. You meet a lot of people. But I think the masterminds and the retreat type of things are uh are are really where it's at uh for deep relationships. Yeah. Because then you're with the same 20 or 30 or so people for two or three days straight, uh, and you spend, you know, in some a lot of cases, hours with these people. Um uh so uh uh I I think they both have their place, but I I probably if I had to only choose one, I'd probably pick the masterminds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. And listen, I'm they're they're not they're not cheap. It'd be two grand, five grand, ten grand, but it's you get it all the wine. Everyone I've gone to, we when we did Columbia Con uh two in Medellina a year and a half ago, we had someone there, he never he doesn't go to the events, never goes to the events, but we he we John Castle brought him in. Yeah, yeah. We happened to meet this guy, big big uh he was doing the athletic greens. The guy did a million dollar ad spin in one day, right? And he the guy's not bragging. Somehow we got him to fucking speak. And when he spoke, and you know, some people were on their phone before he spoke, and when he said that number, they put their phones down and listen, and then people are like taking notes, right? So yeah, that's the kind of stuff that'll happen to those. There's gonna be people and coming to shows like this. There's people that can't come to America for whatever reason, right? Yeah, you come here, you find. I found some of my mess the best media buyers in places like Affiliate World, yeah, places like this, you know. So it's it's really important to do that. Yeah, yeah. Don't look at the sticker shock, just how much will that make you?
SPEAKER_00Well, and these days, honestly, conferences in general have gotten a lot more expensive, right? So a lot of these uh a lot of these conferences are $1,500 or whatever, right? Uh so to spend two or three grand, you know, a little bit more for a mastermind is not a bad deal. Uh, and usually a lot of the uh, I want to say the premium information you'll find at the mastermind, not just from the speeches, but it's really like the conversations that you're just randomly having uh with really high-level people, you know, because you meet at the conferences there's a mix of low level, high level, everything in between, right? The masterminds, because of the price, it's all like only high-end people. Weeds and all the yeah. So that you know, if I again, if I had to pick one, I would I would do that.
SPEAKER_01I love it. And then I love what uh ATO's Alex is doing, and you're part of that, the circle, right? Yep. That's in a visa. I would I would normally I can. That's the kind of stuff I relish. I love going to those things. I I can't go, I have to be back in Medellin with my family. I told my wife, my wife and I was talking like, we're gonna go away for a month. Usually we go to Europe, she's from Medellin. She said, Do you want to book a place in Medellin? But please don't travel much. So I'm like, yeah, let's go in July. I fucked that up. There's like five events in July, right? So I I came here to the, I got here this morning. I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Miami back home to another event, and then I'm going back on Saturday. That's how that's yeah, yeah. I'm making it work. But the bottom line, I I love the concept of the circle. You're gonna be speaking there. So, can you tell everyone what is the circle? I'm sure this isn't gonna, this is gonna be the first of many, I imagine.
SPEAKER_00The circle is like uh I think it's I think this might be the first one they're doing. Yeah. Uh and it's uh like a mastermind event. Um, I don't know exactly how many people are attending. I'm assuming about 30 or 40. Um, but I I don't I don't see I haven't seen the roster. Uh but yeah, there's a number of speakers. Uh it's just more intimate. Um, so you know, for example, here the uh the stage is very big. A few people can ask questions at the end. Um, but that's that's kind of it. Uh at the circle, uh, you can stop during the presentation. It's very interactive. You can uh uh talk during it, ask questions. Hey, I don't, you know, can you explain that more? Um uh but then also you you actually spend time, you just you spend time. There's there's a dinner, uh, and uh, you know, all the events and all that, uh, all the the the parties and all that. And it's uh yeah, it's it's really nice. So I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't been to it yet, so I I can't give like a ton of details until I actually was gonna be good. Alex doesn't skip on stuff. No, yeah, Alex is great. These events are honestly very, very high end, so I'm excited to check it out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this the stage, the optics, everything. The Yeah, they didn't cheap out. No, they didn't cheap out with
Why Tim Entered Mass Tort
SPEAKER_01great. So I want to talk about something which I think is very important right now to the audience. Legion has become tougher and tougher. I'm sure you've seen it, right? And the we talked about it offline that the margins are getting tougher and tougher. Meta's new changes all the other time all the time. People are trying to adapt with AI, figure out how to harness that their best abilities. And you are you, I don't, you've probably sold nine figures worth of leads, I I could imagine, or transacting in that amount. So let's talk about now what what prompted you to get into the mass tort space? Like why was the light bulb moment like fuck it? I'm gonna get into this space.
SPEAKER_00Uh so uh it kind of happened randomly, to be honest with you. Um it happened, so first it was Social Security. Uh my SSDI? SSDI, yeah. My business partner now, uh, this was maybe I don't know, 15 years ago or 14, something around there. He went randomly to a meeting with his friend to a law firm that was doing SSDI uh traffic or leads, like, you know, actually working the cases and all that, right? Uh and they're having like a marketing meeting and all that. And then my business halfway through the meeting, my business partner's like, you guys are doing this all wrong, you know? Uh like your cost per lead is way too high, your landing pages are terrible, your ads are terrible. Like, we could do this way better for you, you know. So then uh so then he calls me after and he's like, uh, hey, how much these guys want to buy some SSDI leaves from us? How much do we charge for that? I don't even know what that costs, you know? So I like went on an offer vault. I looked at the prices there, I like doubled that price because that's usually what uh the offer owner takes is 50% margin. Uh and um like, okay, charge him this. So uh uh we turn on the traffic, first couple days we're losing money. Day three, though. I changed a few things on Facebook, crushed it. Uh we were doing uh getting leads for three dollars and selling it for 25. Wow. Massive margin. We were the first run under one day. And they were converting well on the back end for their clients? So good, it's amazing. Yeah. We ran through, they had it because in SSDI, it takes two to three years to get your money back from the government before you actually get paid, right? For the for the law firm. So these law firms, they have very strict budgets, right? So we went through uh uh, like I think it was six months worth of their budget in two weeks. Yeah, they were like, holy crap, guys, like slow down. They're like, we don't even have enough call center for this. We're gonna talk to our money guys, the hedge funds, they get more money. Like, you guys need to pause, you know? We're like, what the hell? We were like, we're nailing this, you know. So then we went and uh uh I uh I poached the top sales guy from one of our competitors, brought him on. He brought on like a lot of the law firms that he was already had a relationship with. So we built out a network of uh, I think we had like 40 or 50 law firms across the United States um uh to keep it going for SSDI. So we did that for a while, uh, and then uh sold that company to one of the law firms that was one of our clients. They wanted to buy the company. Uh so we did that, and then once we had sold it, they they they were also very big in MassTOR. So they said, Hey, have you guys ever done mesothelioma leads? I'm like, what the hell is a mesothelioma? I don't know, you know. So they told us what it is, and they're like, Yeah, if you can do it. I think they were like, Yeah, we can pay you. This has been a long time, but something like $500 a lead or something. I'm like, $500 a lead? Are you kidding me? I'm like, how much are these, you know, how much can you pay us per case or whatever? And they're like, $30,000. Wow. Then I'm like, well, now actually, measo measo cases are worth like $70,000 plus that they'll pay you, you know, if you get one. That's insane. Yeah, it's the highest paid mass tort. But uh, but that that's literally how we got into it was through social security, and then the law firm asked us, can you do this? And we just tried it and we we did it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. I I has I've had some we talked offline. I ran I did some campaigns with my call center in Columbia when I had the call center for uh some sex abuse campaigns. Yeah, I think one of them was like about five thousand dollars was a payout. Yeah, and I had a media buyer that we we know the media buyer was doing the campaign with, but so I got a percentage of that, but it was good. But the issue when we talked offline too about this is uh it seems to be very it's hot and
Budget Cycles And Reputation In Tort
SPEAKER_01cold that that that mass tour space, right? When it's the hot, you gotta fucking go all in, right?
SPEAKER_00But then then it's it's got this dull periods too, right? 100% you're hitting me where it hurts, honestly. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um uh yeah, these lawsuits, because so in Social Security, like I mentioned, it takes two or three years for the law firm to get their money back. Now, in Mass Tore, it takes five to ten years. So they have to they have to be very strict with their budget, um, because they have to budget through the entire process, right? And then if uh you know if they want to go through it early or some new rolling ruling happens, maybe the hedge fund gives them more money. But for the most part, they they have to budget it out during those five years. Uh and uh uh but that's that's exactly the biggest problem is that uh you know you'll be running it, and then the buyer tells you, oh, you know, some other affiliate filled our cap, we're we're pa like pause for the next month or something, you know, uh uh while we get more money, you know? Or maybe they don't get more money, and you know, you got to do a different lawsuit, and it's a whole different, you gotta do all new ads and landing pages and demographics. Yeah, uh so it's it's very up and down. And I talk to my business partner literally about this all the time. I'm like, tort is so annoying. Like it's great, but it's annoying, you know? Because in uh auto insurance and some of these other verticals, the budget's very consistent. You can scale as much as you want for the most part, as long as the quality is good, right? Uh but in tort, we fill pretty much every budget we ever get. It's more of an issue of getting budget, you know, getting cap. Um, that's the hard part in tort, honestly. The campaigns are like easier than other verticals, honestly. Um, but the budget's the hard part. Um, so uh, you know, basically uh, you know, every every four years, you have like one amazing year because some new lawsuit comes out or some new ruling comes out, and everybody wants those cases. So budgets go through the roof. Uh, and then like each year, though, uh, it seems like on average, like we have like three or four really amazing months, three or four like meh months, and then like uh, you know, six months of break-even or something, you know, just with all the expenses, the company expenses, right? Uh, so it's almost like a like a seasonal business, you know? Yeah. Uh but yeah, it's it's that's one of the things that drives me insane about this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what do you do? Uh I guess that makes it hard for staffing. I mean, you I guess you gotta operate lean. Is that the answer? I mean, what do you do?
SPEAKER_00That is the answer. You gotta operate lean, uh, and you gotta uh uh make sure that during those those three or four months uh per year or those one year every four years that are just huge mega years, that you save money, uh save money for a rainy day, yeah, basically, and then run lean so you can at least maybe break even uh during even the bad times, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I got it. And one thing I would say too is that when we were doing tour, like I I would I remember to one of those shows, a mass tour made perfect. Yep. And I saw Jason Atkins if they're massive and mass tour. Yep. And uh he was like shocked to see me. What the hell are you doing? Like this isn't your normal type of show. But I wanted to understand the lay of the land, but it's hard to get in with the attorneys. And I think a lot of Lee Gen guys, they they look kind of like used car salesmen, right? And you really have to know somebody, and someone has a vouch for you. And if you screw, I remember hearing some horror stories like that some guy was in the industry 10 years, like I don't even know who the hell it was, but he did it. He fucked over one guy and boom, done, expelled from the industry. So it's one of those where you gotta make sure you do the right thing. It's hard to get in, but once you do one little mistake, boom, you're fucked.
SPEAKER_00100% reputation is huge there. Uh, because it's a it's it's it's really a small kind of a niche, right? Uh, and uh as far as the number of people, there's probably only, I'd estimate, maybe 20 or so very large buyers, law firms uh that are buying, right? Like the big one. There's a lot of smaller ones and whatever, but the ones with like really, really big budgets are maybe like 20 or so of them, right? Maybe a little more. We probably work with like I'd say like half of them or something. Um the other ones, we know who they are, we've met them, we've maybe even gone to dinner with them. Yeah. But they kind of got their guys, they got their guys they went to college with, and they got the government guys they've been working with for 10 years. And, you know, so uh uh the only time you kind of get a chance to work with some of them is when they get some crazy big lawsuit or uh way more budget than normal, and they have to kind of go out of their normal circle, and then you kind of get a chance, you know. But if you screw that up, you send them bad traffic or like, you know, coach calls or something like that, yeah, you're screwed, and then they tell all their buddies, and then no one wants to work with you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And when you do it right, I mean it's it's it's it's tough, right? Uh, because what I was saying, I know it's a tough vertical. I have a buddy, uh, I don't know, you know, Leo the Nanconia, the and uh what's his porner? Is Pornor uh David Brooke? So they had a company called imbounds.com, and they were I they actually used my call center in South Carolina to do uh they were doing NVA, is what they were doing. So a little different analogous master, but just a whole different thing. Yeah, we do NBA too. We do, yeah. So we were they would give us leads and we would call them, we would do transfers on them. And the the the data ran dry at one point. It was hard for me to staff, so I'm like, I'm gonna stop doing it, but they went up exiting, man. There hasn't been a lot, there haven't been a lot of exits in in in in in Legion and all I feel like it was big in 2021, 2022, yeah. Period. And then after 2023 went down, I was gonna exit 2023. Interest rates. Interest rates were big, absolutely. But they exited and they were a company that really did the right thing. But I remember they were when we worked with us at the false area, they had extra quality assurance, they really emphasized yeah, you can't, there's close calls. I talked to Jason about this too when we ran some other campaign. And we had to be very careful. We I didn't want to get these guys in trouble, so we had to really uh put extra pressure on. But the fact that they exited show that man, they really hats off to them in this environment to do that. But I think I think, yeah, dealing in with those kind of buyers, it's not easy, it's tough. That the calls per leads are through the fucking roof. The the buyers, you know, it could be temperamental, right? But you do the right thing. There's a there's there's there's a peak, there's there's a nice exit waiting for you. If you do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you do it right and and quality and not bad traffic, like not fraud and all that, that's like really the name of the game. Yeah, um, I mean volume as well, also, right? But uh uh, but yeah, there is there is a light at the end of the tunnel for an exit,
Moving Up Funnel With Intake Centers
SPEAKER_00yeah.
SPEAKER_01For sure. So I want to this is what I want to talk about with you too. So when you're on stage, and I think Cass, the very beginning, I caught part of the midport, you were talking about the you the intake centers, right? Yeah, and I think this is important because we're talking about this. When you're selling leads, it's almost you're at the bottom of the totem pole, right? There's so many lead vendors, there's so much competition. Yeah, and for someone like me, one reason I've been able to, I think, to stay ahead is because I'm very good at developing relationships and I train my sales team. I mean, I've been to Disney World with my clients. I mean, people I've been like to their freaking birthday parties for their kids. Yeah, there's a value to that, right? Absolutely. But that's it's become harder and harder. Even that is not as big as a molt. So the point is what I'm trying to say is that you have to go up the funnel and only offer and have more. You got to be more than just a lead vendor. And then what what you're talking about on stage, I don't know when you I want to understand when you realize that and and what you're doing right now from taking more control, it makes you more valuable. You're not just a lead vendor. I not to sound coarse, but like you want to get them like on the like a baby, uh, you want to get them on the nipple. You don't want them off, right? It's far from the come off when they're more dependent on you, when you're more of a partner, right? So that's what I think what you were talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So uh, so yeah, well, my first mass tour company specifically was digitize IQ. Um had that for I think two or three years. Uh, and we were we were just selling leads. So we generate the lead, hang the lead right to the buyer. That was it, our job was done, right? We get paid for a lead. Um, we did that for like six or seven years, or maybe three or four years, something like that. It was a good amount of time. Um, then I sold that company. I had like a three-year non-compete. That's when I started ad leaks and did that whole thing. Then when I sold ad leaks, I was like, okay, let's do tort again, but let's do it right. Let's get the call center, let's have the intake agents. Uh, because now instead of getting paid, let's say, sort of random numbers, but instead of getting paid like 200 bucks for the lead, now you get paid four thousand dollars for a signed contract, a signed retainer, we call it, right? Um, and that's where the the law firm themselves give you, you know, the 20 or 30 page legal document that they need the person to sign. They give that to you, they have to trust you with that. Yep. And then you're actually the one uh with the call center, then uh calling the leads, making sure they qualify, having them uh and then filling out the form for them, making sure they sign it, chasing them around for that. You got a QA and make sure it was filled out properly, and then you can hand off up that package of the uh the the retainer, the HIPAA forms, all the other documents they need. You hand that packet out to the law firm, and now they have a one new client for four thousand dollars or whatever it is, right? Um, but that alone, um, because also a lot of the law firms they don't have good call centers, so they don't call the leads very much. Some of the buyers only call the leads five fucking times or something, you know, and then they give up on the lead. Paid a hundred dollars for that. Yeah, you know what I mean? Uh one of the things that we did was uh our call center, we call on twice a day, forever. I love that. We don't stop after two weeks or whatever, you know. Like we've had multiple, uh it doesn't happen every day, but we've had many, many where uh, you know, it takes six months of calling, bro. Yeah, we get them on the phone, finally after six months, they sign the retainer on the phone. That's amazing. Wow. So it's so not only can you uh uh make more margin because you're doing more of the process, uh, but then the law firm needs you more because a lot of them don't have good call centers or call centers at all. Uh and then on top of that, you can optimize the actual full funnel. Um uh uh you can have a better dialer, more DIDs, a better contact rate. And then you also have a very clear window into why leads are getting disqualified. So you can optimize on the ad side, which is something you don't get to do if you're just running the leads, right? You have to beg the buyer for like dispositions. The dispositions aren't very good. For me, I can like call up my intake manager or whatever and be like, hey, what's going on with this? Why are these leads getting DQ'd? And you know, an hour later, I have a report of like this percentage from that reason, that percentage for that reason. And they say, Oh shit, I'm losing 30% of the leads just because they are not old enough or they're too old or this or that. And then I can go back, change the messaging on the ad side, maybe add a filter on the landing page for whatever that thing might be to kind of weed those people out better, only fire the pixel for the ones that qualify, and boom, we're back in the money, you know? Um, so it really gives you not more control and more margin. It's it's been a game changer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have that constant feedback loop. But that's the we I told you about the sort of client that we had that exited for almost a billion dollars. Yeah. And I went to their call center in New Orleans in 2019. They had 30 agents, and I remember when I went there, I was happy because I'm like, they were eager to listen to me. I had I had the blueprint of what they needed to do, and they started to execute. And before I knew it, they were buying every fucking they were buying Spanish leads, age leads, co-reg leads, exclusive, semi-exclusive. Like I transferred, imbalance. I sold like eight different types of leads, man. And you know, I should have structured a better deal. Oh, yeah, you live and you learn. But they exited years later for 825 million. And I had the CEO on camera saying that my company was a big reason they were able to exit. Yeah, but the point I'm trying to say is that one reason why they were so successful, they listened to me when I talked about speed the lead. They used to call the lead out an hour later, like, no, you gotta call a lead within 10 fucking seconds. Borderline harass them. Yeah, yeah, borderline harass them, man. And then they started. I I would, I would uh, I see to myself, man, they would blow me up, man. It was fucking bad. But that's why they were so good, they were super aggressive, man. And and the point is that they they would give me uh real-time disposition feedback. We had some portal, I think it was Salesforce. I can see by the second, it's excuse me, something turned into an appointment if we're turning to sales, and that's why we were able to grow these people so well, yeah, and other people were as well, because they gave us that, and it's true. When you have your own falls and you have you don't have to wait on them, and it's rare, you know what is. I feel like some of these clients are scared to give you that information. I mean, 90% of them honestly don't know how to give it to you, yeah, they're not capable, and the 10% that can, like half of them are like, uh, they think you're gonna use that against them, but like it's just a scarcity mindset, is what it comes down to, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't really understand the importance of it, honestly.
Scaling Call Centers Without Overcommitting
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they don't, but I I love that you you did that, and you talked about the numbers, and the numbers are are freaking massive. I mean, it it's it's massive on both ends in terms of the cost to to get these call centers up and running now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, you you guys were operating at a SoCal, right? At a SoCal, and uh, yeah, we got up to uh at the largest, uh, over a hundred reps. Wow. Call reps.
SPEAKER_01So and and what's the monthly cost to operate a fall center, 100 reps?
SPEAKER_00Uh about three million bucks all in. Three million bucks. That's excluding the ad spend. I mean, that's like everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, three million a month. I mean, that that that's a lot, you know. But what what was what was the return? What was the the the profit?
SPEAKER_00Uh I think we did about uh nine million profit, uh with and that was with 45 reps. So more we have after 100 reps, it was maybe a lot higher than that, honestly. Yeah. Didn't want to give those. I didn't want to look, you know, too crazy to people. Uh, but uh uh but it was about 20% my net margin um uh from revenue to like net profit.
SPEAKER_01That's great. And you know what? I've been in call centers my whole life, right? And SoCal is obviously one of the most expensive places, made top three in the nation.
SPEAKER_00I I've yeah, Orange County specifically, it is very expensive, but uh it's also like the uh the Mecca for mortgages and uh some other things. There's a lot of call centers. A lot of debt costs. Oh, it is a good place for a call center, but it is expensive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The reason you could absorb those calls, I mean, probably the other the the other flip side is that you get better quality. You're gonna if someone, if if you have to make $150,000 to survive, you're gonna fucking be more motivated, you would think, right? So, you know, that's one thing. I I know a buddy of mine, he's got uh he's got people in New York City that come in every day. I went to the office. What great energy there was there. And New York City obviously is probably number one, number two in terms of uh operating costs. Yeah, but he likes like I love the young energy. I I'd rather have them here than I know I can save a lot of money if they work from home, but I'm getting more output here. The culture is good, and that's what I would imagine was happening over there. But the point I'm trying to say is that sometimes people look at this and they get sticker shocked, like throwing to these masterminds. But it all comes down to ROI. Yeah, three million a month, but you're bringing in nine million, like the fuck is it?
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah. Uh, you know, but yeah, I mean it's hundreds of thousands of dollars on just staff cost. Yeah, um, our office uh now is like seventy thousand dollars a month. 25, just the office, you know, 25,000 square feet, like three bucks a square foot or so. But it's uh uh but but you don't start, yes, you get it like it seems crazy, but you don't start out like that, right? How did you guys start out? Yeah, what was it? So the first bit, the first office we started for mass for strategies was forget the exact square footage, but it was maybe like we had like it was enough for 10 people, like 10 reps, that was it. You know, 10 or reps. What was your rent at the time? So now it's 70,000. What is it enough? Now it's like 70. Uh but what was it back then? Uh maybe, let's see, it was probably like five to guess, maybe 1,500 square feet, so probably like five G's a month. God, okay. Something, you know, and then 10 reps, uh, about five. It was about 50 G's a month for the reps. Okay. Um, but you don't even have to we didn't start with 10 either. Yeah. We we could grew to 10. We started with like four. Four reps, you know what I mean? Uh, and uh uh to really prove the concept, you know, get all the systems down, make sure the CRM was working and everything was flowing through, and then you uh you grow and then you get up to six people, and then you get up to eight, and then uh and then you have to fix a couple things, and then you get up to ten, and then you do ten for a while, and then we were kind of maxed out. We we couldn't take any more calls. So we're like, fuck, okay, we got to get a bigger office. So stayed in the same building, but got you know, moved up to a higher floor with a bigger uh I think the next one was maybe six thousand square feet, something like that. Uh, and that was so that was about maybe 20 grand a month or so for that office. Uh, and then we moved from six or seven thousand square feet one to the twenty five thousand square full floor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I love that you show that. I'm going through this with Miami right now. I'm about to put a fall center up in there, and then so yeah, we get we're entrepreneurs. I mean, we they say you have to be delusional, right? And you have to believe there's nothing you we we envision this thing and then somehow we see it through, right? And uh anyway, I have a good I have a mentor, and I'm looking at spaces and in Woodenwood, which is one of the more expensive places, and I'm looking at the price before for like and but I have an office in Aventura, I can fit four people in there. I go there every day. I'm like, this guy's like, listen, why don't you just for the proof of concept get two or three people, put them in your office? Yeah, I think fucking right. Listen, I should know better. Yeah, I should know better, but sometimes if you forget, because like you know, you're making more like oh fuck it, whatever I'll pay especially with an office, though, because those are like three to five year leases, you know, right?
SPEAKER_00So that definitely prove it out in a small lake. If you already got a plate, yeah, just do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's what I'm gonna do. Pro walk run, right? But yeah, I always say that. Yeah, even I forget, man. And you think I would fucking know this, but we get we get well, you just want to let's fucking go, yeah. This LG show for a reason. But but the other point I was gonna say too that the reason you can sustain that is because it's a high ticket, it's fucking this really you high ticket sales is your all these info product, but this is a high ticket. You're talking about $70,000 misophelioma case. When I was doing that sex abuse, it was about $5,000.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah, the more the average I'd say is like four to six thousand. Yeah, it's just mesophyllama is like an outlier. But yeah, four to six thousand a case, kind of the more the normal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so one of the issues I had, so I I've run call centers many for for many years. Now, what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna only offer for a particular product, right? Because I was doing solar transfers, roofing transfers. I was getting like a hundred, $150 a transfer. But at the end of the day, you're getting fucking crumbs. And we were doing the we had we're top two in the nation in solar transfers at one point in South Carolina. I had people on board with the $30,000, $40,000 days, right? Uh, but the point of what I'm trying to say is that the the net margin wasn't that high. I don't know how much we're in netting, maybe 20% tops, right? But you get a TCP issue, even when you're not in the wrong, they'll still tie you up, you gotta
Own The Offer And Nail Speed
SPEAKER_01settle. It goes to shit, right? Yeah, yeah. So the point is like if you're gonna get into something, get into something where the meat, there's meat on the bone, and that's what I'm trying to say to the audience. When you start off at as a lead generator, yeah, maybe you're at the bottom, but just work your way higher. And I think you've been doing this for so long, you've seen all that. And yeah, even me, I've been doing it so long. It hit me the other day. I had a client sending me tons of money per week. Then the meta has some issues. We have to raise prices. He starts acting fucking crazy. I'm like, fuck this shit, man. I'm gonna own the offer. I don't have to worry about this shit in the uh bed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, owning the offer is uh definitely the way to go. I've been preaching that for a long time, but there's also like uh only so high up you can go. Like, let's say it's an insurance company, it's very expensive to start an insurance, like an actual insurance company, right? Um, so you can uh you can be the call center, you could be the uh the generating the leads, but actually the you know that's almost as high as you can go unless you go find a bunch of investors. Or maybe you start you work with a smaller insurance company and you ask for equity, uh, if you deliver at costs or something like that, uh the leads, right? Um, so there there is ways you can kind of get in. Uh like for example, right now in MassTort, I'm not a lawyer, my business partner's not a lawyer. So it's hard for us to do that piece and be the law firm, right? Yeah. But what we can do is the next best thing. Um we're looking for uh uh hedge funds and private equity firms uh that uh basically already work with a law firm. My business partner has a Washington, D.C. law firm that he owns as well, not a lawyer, but you can own one in DC. Uh and then you can uh uh you can refer the cases out to the actual litigating attorney who actually does the actual trials, basically. Um so we can be like the next best thing without actually being an uh a real law firm that's actually going to court, right? Um, but you want to try to get as high up that chain as you can. And if you think you can't get all the way, find the one that's just a smidge below it and get as as high as you can. But you always want to try it, it makes a huge difference. Not only like this of the feedback loop, but the margins.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and also because there, I I mean, I I've been in call center since fucking 2005, man. First call center, I was at well, I was I was series seven license where we're kind of like we're dialing, outbound dialing, dollar for dollar. Yeah, kind of like, but that gave me an edge when I got into a real we I got into student loan consolidation in 2005. Order, the guy exited that for like several hundred million dollars. I'm so close to the guy. They were securitizing the student loan, selling it off to Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers. I didn't even know that shit existed then. Yeah, and he sold near the peak right before the government got involved and started changing shit. Yeah, yeah. But the the point I'm trying to say is that we were taught to call the lead within seven seconds, speed a lead, and that gave it. Yeah, that gave me an edge when I started selling leads, like, because I understood that. And and and and what it comes down to is that I I can't believe how bad call centers aren't getting better.
SPEAKER_00The operating, it's it's getting worse and technology's gotten better, so it is easier now, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're not harnessing it. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I I I it it drives me insane because as someone that's selling leads, you can have the best lead in the world. But if they're not following those basic principles, it doesn't matter. You're not gonna convert, they're gonna bitch about the leads when it's really on them.
SPEAKER_00And not even just speed the lead, that matters a lot, but also just how often you call the lead and for how long. Exactly. That was one of the biggest things. I think I mentioned this earlier, but some of the law firms we work with, they would literally call our leads like five times, and that was it. Yeah. Uh five times, once per day for five days. I was like, what the fuck, guys? Fuck, you know. Uh uh, so do it, just it makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, it really does.
SPEAKER_01No, it does, and that's why I want the audience to hear this. I'm going to just I've sold so much freak, I've sold nine figures in freaking leads, right? Yeah, yeah. But even at work stage I'm at, I'm like, what the hell, man? Like these headaches are worth it. Like, I you know, we'll still sell leads, don't get me wrong, but we're working on these things. We're and I'm I'm getting all these opportunities right now. Like I'm there's one or two I'm gonna hunker down on, like you did with Mass Torch, and I'm uh I'm freaking excited. So seeing what you talk about, seeing those numbers, like you said, you're not at the at the top, but you're right, you smidge right below, but they need to high up as you can kind of be on. Exactly. And and and and that's great because it it's a necessary thing. And these these lawyers, they're they're not calls, they don't know how to run calls, or they don't need how to get the operators for the call centers. You get it.
SPEAKER_00But you know what's funny actually is that all the biggest law firms that we work with, I don't think a single one of them has a call center, or if they do, it's like eight people for just a little bit of internal stuff they do, but yeah, they still rely on us for actually doing the uh uh the calling, the intake, and so on. Because they're just not they're not built for that. They have a lot of money to buy the cases, but they just they don't do call centers on their thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, at the end of it it comes up people they're lawyers, they're not marketers, they gotta stay in their fucking lane. Everyone's gotta stay in their lane. Exactly, exactly. It's what it comes up. But this was great, man. I'm really glad you're on here, and this was great for the audience. I know you got a great following, man. Is there anything we didn't touch upon you want to touch upon before we wrap up here? No, honestly, I think a lot, yeah. That was great. Guys, check out Tim Burke, follow him online. We'll put all your socials on here. He's gonna be at the circle. I know uh we'll we'll we'll publicize the circle. I'll be at the next one for sure. And when you do the are you still doing Masterminds? All right, I I can tell something you're not okay. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00It was taking too much time on us. Yeah, it's tough.
SPEAKER_01I we do some, it's even for me. Like we did ColumbiaCon two last year, and I I thought we're gonna do another one six months later. It's like it's tough, man. We'll do one before the end of the year, man.
SPEAKER_00If you're available, a lot of work goes into those, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Dude, it's a lot, man. And then you put a lot of pressure on stuff. You want to deliver a good product, right? But you mentioned the Gary V one. I would have loved to have gone through that one. But yeah, I I'm gonna I follow you online, man. If you ever do anything like that, I'll definitely be at the next one, man. I I would have definitely been at the circle, it's just extenuated circumstances. But guys, spend you gotta spend money to make money. You invest in yourself. And when you're with guys like Tim that have been doing this forever, they call him the godfather of Facebook guys for a reason. You follow, you listen, and try to be in his circle, he's got a great circle. It's a good name for the group, by the way. Good shit. Tim Bird, motherfuckers. Let's go, baby. Let's fucking go. Your network is your net worth. We got a fucking crazy network of people. I'm not telling me you're average motherfucker, I'm talking about people doing $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 a day in ad spend. People have made billions of dollars in sales, people that exit their companies for about a billion dollars. We hit 100 episodes. Guess what? We're about to take shit to the next level. So you want to be part of it? Subscribe right now. Remember, no money, no money.