Joe: 00:04 Hey everybody. Joe Troyer here from digital triggers and show me the nuggets. And man, I am super excited for today's podcast episode. We have Danny Barrera here on the podcast with us who has built a successful concrete marketing agency. And man, Danny, without further ado, welcome, welcome officially to the show.
Danny: 00:23 Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited and I'm very humbled to be here by the way. You know, I, I've watched you, I followed you for years and now I get to be in the show, so, so really, really means a lot to me, so thank you for inviting me over.
Joe: 00:36 That's awesome man. So I met you at Josh Nelson's event. I
know that you also got a little award from Josh, so you got the 2018 rookie of the year award from Josh Nelson, my good friend. And and we met briefly at , his event and we didn't get to chat as much as I wanted to, so I was like, man, let's, let's bring Danny on the call. So could you start out, Danny, just real quick, giving us a little background on your story, how you got started, how you ended up picking concrete marketing and then kind of where you're at today and how you ended up winning that award.
Danny: 01:09 Yeah, well it, it's you know, it started a long time ago. It wasn't
like two years ago really where it started. So I used to work at a Fox news channel. I'm sure you guys know the Fox news network, Fox business network. So I was there when they were launching the Fox business network and you know, I always used to see all these, you know, the celebrities and the CEO is high profile individuals walking in and out of that building every single day. And I, I used to ask myself, man, what am I going to do with my life? Am I just going to stay here? The it department, right. Just, you know, dealing with all this tech problems or all the long and. And there was this one time when this young guy came to the show just literally just a tee shirt, you know, jeans and he was talking about how he made millions of dollars on eCommerce store running it from, from his house.
Danny: 02:01 And, and you know, that kind of sparked my interest. So I went down to the green room and he looked like a normal guy that I could ask a question or two. And, and really that was my first my, when my eyes just opened up and said, wow, there's something on the internet. You know, I got this tech skill sets, but I, I want to be able to provide more for my family. Obviously. for my mother retired, my mother and my father, I have always had those goals. One thing led to another. I ended
up opening up my first eCommerce store and that was selling adult toys out of all things. Cause I said, man, you know what? People want to be discrete about these things, right? So it didn't go as easy as, as you know, as, as, as I thought.
Danny: 02:44 Back then there was no Shopify, you know, integrating in a car,t getting permits, you know, finding the wholesalers that was just a whole a few months just to put that whole thing together. But you made a few bucks here and there. I ended up losing money as well. One thing led to another where I looked, I had to learn how to not rely on, on, on paid ads, right on the 30th search networks and Google PaperClick because that was just costing a lot. You know, I'm buying an item for 19 bucks, selling for 26, and it's costing me $24 to sell the item. You do the math. It just doesn't make sense. So after, after doing it you know, I did that one store, then I partner up with a local wholesaler or fragrances. I ended up given that business over to him.
Danny: 03:31 He bought, he bought me out basically. So I walk out with a little
bit of cash and I realized, man, you know what? People need help with the SEO or the pay per clicks. So I knew how to do those things. That was right around 2010 or something like that, somewhere around there. And I was still working at Fox news, you know, so I always knew, I wanted to go on my own and make the jump, but at that time, you know, I was married two young kids the benefits and all that good stuff, you know, a very, very healthy salary very good benefits and all the good stuff. But I never made that, that, that, that I never took that risk, you know, of going out on my own. And until a few years ago that that's when I pretty much had, had, had it, of working for someone else.
Danny: 04:17 You know, I saw myself going in, you know, taking the train an
hour and a half each way to the city from long Island to New York city coming back and just saw myself very like consumed by all of this. And right over by around that time I had a couple of clients enough so that I, I made the calculation enough to pay the rent and put some food on the table, put it that way. So I ended up, you know, quitting Fox, moving, moving myself and the family over to Florida. And it did not go as planned. My brother, it did not go as planned. I went from like paid, you know, getting paid nice every, every weekend, whether I was sick or I was showing up, taking vacations to like, you know, all cut out. And all of the sudden, you know, clients leaving me and, you know, nothing.
Danny: 05:06 I mean, it, it really turned out to be a very frustrating situation
for me. And even for my wife at that time that, you know, to the
point that she left me because of those financial strains and, you know it was not an easy situation from that point. So, so until about three years ago, I found myself probably the darkest place in my life. And I'll tell you, you know, to the point where my bank accounts, you know, Wells Fargo, right? Sending me the letter, Hey, we cannot have you as a customer. Shut down my account, you know, chase, can I have an account with us? You may even, you know, so it was very depressing, you know, and me having to you know, come up with the child support money and I couldn't get enough clients to really stabilize myself.
Danny: 05:55 I said to myself, man, I, I moved here with, with the right
intentions, you know, to be able to provide for my family. I know how to do, you know, SEO the right way. I know how to get leads for our clients, but something is not clicking. And one of the problems is I was just a generalist. You know, I was trying to get everyone else, like door knocking. I don't know if you've tried a door knocking door to door. Nowadays here, everyone's got someone, you know, someone doing their SEO, everyone's got someone doing their web design and then, you know, it's, it's one of those things where yes, you can make it happen. I'm not saying that it's not possible. I'm just saying when you're starting out and you have low self confidence and nothing is working, when you sell out of desperation, you attract desperate people.
Danny: 06:38 And that's exactly what happened to you. I was working with
desperate clients and, and yet you know, until about three years ago, you know, I kept seeing the, the Josh Nelson ads and Josh Nelson and you know, seven figure agency. And it's funny because he was, he was, I was living in Durand with, with a couple of friends at that time. And he was not too far from me. He was not too far from me. So you know about a year before then I was you know, with my friends and I said, Hey, look, I, this guy is running like SEO for contractors and plumber SEO and I want to do something like that. So, so I ended up getting a contractor, SEO, that agency has the domain. I ranked it for SEO for contractors, and then boom, I was in business, right?
Danny: 07:25 I was how I thought I was niched down and, and tried to model Josh Nelson and, and you know, just seeing this guy all over the place. And yeah, so, so that, you know, that got me a few clients in the construction industry you know, in the contractor space. So, so later on about a year after, right, I came across Josh Nelson's ads and and yeah, we talk about how to build a seven figure business. And it was really a, at a time where I, I really couldn't even really afford that, you know. It was one of those
things where I said, man, this is the last thing I'm going to try other than this. I'm like, gonna go back and get a job. Like that was my next step. That was out of desperation. And I didn't even go to, to to an interview and the guy running it was for, for for a company.
Danny: 08:19 This guys were, you know, they had a board and investors and
all that stuff, but the, the main guy there told me, Hey, look, his name was Nico. He's like, you know, you, you have something in you that even if I give you a job and your, you look like a nice guy, if I give you a job inside, you're gonna, you're gonna want to be out there, you know? And, and for that reason, he didn't give me that job. And that was kind of like a sign for me, like to keep going and keep trying. And anyways, I landed in the Josh Nelson seven figure agency world, and, and it was really the one missing piece in my life that gave me direction because up to that point I'm sure you probably have heard the, the Bible story of the people in Egypt, right?
Danny: 08:59 Going around circles and circles and circles, and you don't know
because you're lacking direction. So I do believe you know, when you lack direction, don't matter how much work you're doing, how much you're exhausting yourself, how much, you know, if you don't have a proven process or a proven path that you're going to go and follow. It's, it's just just a long journey. And, you know, I paid paid a, a huge price by trying to do it on my own and tried to take the shortcuts and trying to download all the information from the, the, the, the $25 a month, a WSO get whatever. You know, I did that stuff. And I, you know, I, I own up to, and I tell you right now that guy versus who I am right now, a completely different mindset. But once I got plugged into Josh Nelson I was in a call with a Wednesday called with Jeff Fisher, one of the coaches there.
Danny: 09:51 Amazing guy. And and yeah, one of the things, he's like, what's
your niche? You know, what's your problem? And I said, I, I, you know, I, I have this contractor SEO agency thing, you know, and I got a couple of clients and we started, you know, bouncing around different ideas. I, I knew I did not want to work with attorneys or, or doctors I knew, you know, just for me, I just not my type of crowd. I love, I love them. You know, I, I have a lot of attorney friends nowadays, but it's just not what I, who I like to do business with. So anyways, contractors and we ended up narrowing down, he helped me narrow it down to two, the concrete industry, the residential concrete contractors and the decorative concrete contractors, which is kind of like their, you know, hand in hand, sort of. It's like HVAC and plumber. Right? It's sort of like that. And I, I just,
Joe: 10:43 No, that vertical, when you guys pick that, did you have clients
in that vertical or was that a completely brand new kind of niche or vertical for you?
Danny: 10:50 So I did have, he did ask me if I had experience working with
with contractors in that space. And I did have luckily i did have, I did have results as well for someone in that space. So, so it was easier for me to understand, but I didn't know everything about that space. Yeah.
Joe: 11:07 Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. So good stuff man we both bit a bit into
e-com, so to speak, that's where we both got started. That's, that's definitely interesting. Definitely had challenges with e- com, so that's really interesting. I actually started doing the agency model because I was having such crappy results with e- com. So for me, the agency model was just like, it was a means to an end. It was how do I take money from Peter and pay Paul? And I just was always looking for a way to earn money with clients and then invest it in something else. And I'll tell you, man, until, until I really changed my priorities to building an actual agency. Like nothing really worked for me. Right? Like my agency never blew up. My e-com stuff never really blew up. By all means. It was successful at one point but I never really took off. So very interesting for sure. So you said something very interesting that you, you knew that one of the issues that you had was the generalist versus the specialist. So if, if you were talking to somebody today, Danny, and they didn't have a niche, what, what would you say to them?
Danny: 12:15 I mean, I would say to them in the beginning, if you have
absolutely no experience whatsoever in anything that has to do with this online world and you just want to go out, you know, I, I understand that there are certain programs that do give you that one. You know, that one, Hey here, here are the campaigns for this niche. Go, go out there. And that gives you the confidence. It almost gives you like the results to go out there and do it. But if you don't even have that, maybe in the beginning you probably will test out the waters and see, you know, the different niches and maybe go to a BNI and all that stuff. But I'll tell you, you know, after I knew, kind of knew what I was doing when I decided to go all in, in one niche, it's almost like it just, I just went direct man.
Danny: 12:58 I, you know, I started picking up momentum and you know,
three clients turned into 12 and then 12 third turn. And now I'm looking at it, you know two years about two years later, we're, we're at 39, we're 39 clients, you know, niche focused. And it's a no brainer looking at it because it made my life a whole lot
easier. You know, building the SOP is building the, you know, the framework for our team to be able to deliver all that stuff. It, it, it, it gets to a point where you're almost not guessing or not not scratching your head, man, is this campaign going to work. No, you already know what's gonna happen. So from the standpoint of delivery, it takes care of that. Now from the standpoint of client acquisition, learning, the client, the language of the marketplace, learning how they do business, learning how their clients hired them to do their business or how did land better projects.
Danny: 13:50 I mean, I can talk to any decorative concrete guy or residential
concrete guy and I'll tell you, I'll connect with them right now like that because I'll know exactly how to talk to them. When I, when I was as a general generalist I was leads, I was getting you more leads, more jobs, and I thought that was their language. But it comes down to that. And not everyone wants more leads, I'll tell you that right now. Not every concrete contractor wants more leads. So you're sending that email out, Hey, you know, I can get to 20, 30 leads, you know, and I did, I did that. And that's what got me started, you know, but at to look in, look in, you know, from now to where I began in the niche, it being in the niche, it definitely gives me the confidence to just be an authority in the place. And when you're in authority, I mean, if people, you know, your, your prospective client, your marketplace really looks up to you and they come to you and then they compare you to what whoever else is coming to them, selling them services, you know, it's a big difference. That makes, yeah. Yeah,
Joe: 14:52 Yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It's I know that I, I
thought that I was smart, like you you know, building a contractor focused agency. And I built it very quickly to seven figures in just under four months that just over 84 grand a month recurring. And man, I hated the business. I hated the business that I had built, you know, from sales was difficult. Churn was difficult. And it's for me, the takeaway after building that agency, hating it, and then ultimately exiting because I just hated the business that I built. It was like, man, I gotta get serious about picking a niche and I got to niche down and I got to focus on, you know, putting the blinders on. And when I tell people and when I coach people that like you gotta pick a niche man. Sometimes it's hard for me to get a point a across how, how important I really think that that is. So yeah, man, I think you did a great job talking about, you know, the rubber met the road ultimately in your agency took off when that happened and how fulfillment and sales and everything is so much easier if you'll just pick a niche and stay in your own lane, I say.
Danny: 15:56 And deciding to be an authority in that niche, that niche, like
that. That's the end goal. I tell. I tell you right now, like people get on the phone nowadays with me and you can hear their, their voice shaking because they think I'm something else. I'm not, I'm not, I just put myself out there like seriously. You know, they, they're like, I watched your videos, I watch webinars. Yeah, I got your CDs cause I send out CDs you know, but anyways, you know, yeah. It's a different conversation. It's you no longer selling a, you know, or trying yeah. It's, it's just discovering you know, their needs and how you can help them. Yeah. [inaudible]
Joe: 16:32 You said when somebody gets started that it doesn't really
matter, like go to the BNI, get in a couple of clients. I agree. I think that it's kind of a slippery slope though, right? To not picking a client. So what would your advice be to somebody that's maybe, I heard this the other day at an event that I was throwing last week somebody said that they were dating niches. And I'm like, yeah, I get it and I've been there. I've given myself that excuse. Right. Like I'm just dating. Once I find the right one right then, then I'll switch. And for me, I don't think it's really the right one. Right. I think it's just about committing to one and sticking with one course. Of course. Yeah. At what point would you tell somebody if they were just getting started? Like when should you pick a niche or how would you tell them to go from a generalist to a specialist?
Danny: 17:17 I mean, I, I, I do think, you know, as, as, as the ones that are out there selling the service or giving services to our clients, it's our duty, our obligation. It's, it's our moral obligation to understand what, what the heck we're doing. Cause I see a lot of people just, you know, watching the course and barely and maybe getting a wholesaler or whatever, they don't understand that it's, they go and they misinform the clients or the prospects on information completely erroneous, right? And they sell them, and then they burn that niche. They give that, that niche, you know, our, our world a bad rap because you don't know. So in the beginning, yes, you want to get to know, you know, how things work in the marketing world. You want to know the process of getting someone in the maps and all that stuff.
Danny: 17:58 But as soon as you're confident to know the difference
between, you know, what it is that, that, you know, what, what a generated a lead from pay-per-click is or how it works or you've seen it first place and you got that piece of confidence. It's, it's, it's, it's more of a self assessment where you want to see, you know, what you're willing to commit to. And you, you don't want to go wandering around because you're going to
waste time. I'm telling you right now, in, in three months, I'm telling you right now, I'm a different person that in three months that I was last three months or six months or a year from now. And time flies. So if you're just dancing around with different people, you're gonna burn through a year, not going to have momentum. You're going to look back, hate yourself, and be like, man, this thing doesn't work.
Danny: 18:43 Right? You're going to go back into real estate or whatever
other things, you know, another shiny object because you never decided to be a student of, of, okay, I know what I can do with this skill sets. Where am I willing to apply it based on my background, based on situations that I've had in the past, people that I worked with, industries that I'm interested in. You know, what fascinates me? Like, I, I'm fascinated by construction that that's something I'm fascinated by it, you know, decorative concrete, purely fascinated by it. You know, I have a lot of friends in that space now, but I'm fascinated by it. You know, I want to be around these people. So yeah. So as soon as you can, you're confident in you knowing the delivery system and then see what you can mostly commit to.
Danny: 19:29 You know, I know, you know there's going to be reinventions of
every entrepreneur at some point, right? You gotta reinvent yourself but be willing to commit to something and say, okay, I'm going to go down this path in. And even through the trials that it brings, trying to discover how this works, stick to it no matter what. Cause I, I've definitely had, you know, situations that I, I didn't know everything about the industry, but you know, I stuck with it no matter what, no matter what. So it's a matter of commitment, self-assess, assessment and self commitment. Yeah. Two things I'd say.
Joe: 20:04 Cool man. So basically what you said, Danny, if I had to recap would be like get in some verticals tested out and make sure that you can get the results. Once you feel like you understand what you're doing, that then in there is when you should start really when, when you know that you have the confidence, you can deliver leads, you know, with SEO or maps or you said PPC when you got, when you got the blinders on, you know that you can deliver results. Then ultimately that's the transition point where you should start probably looking into picking a vertical.
Danny: 20:31 Yeah. And, and if you worked with that vertical and you don't like how, you know, certain people treat you or how you are, cause I know concrete can be very rough. Like if you go straight up to the residential, concrete guys try to call them up see, sell them some marketing services, they're going to hang up, right?
They're not even gonna let you spit out three words. So got to know you gotta know those, those little situations. So you know, what's it going to be dealing with the individuals in that market. So that's important to how comfortable are you going to feel dealing with them on an everyday basis? Yeah, definitely.
Joe: 21:04 Yeah. I mean you brought up like attorneys and and like white
collar verticals. That's not me. I've been always a blue collar guy. So you definitely got to figure out what, what works best for you. Definitely agree though. So you said you have, I think you said 34 clients right now, Danny, roughly 39, 39 clients. Can you talk about packaging? What's worked for you in terms of packaging? What hasn't worked for you in terms of packaging? What are your thoughts on, in terms of packaging?
Danny: 21:31 Yeah. Packaging, you know, so the decorative for the decorative concrete side because not every service area has search volume it, you know, number one is I can rank them any day of the week like this in one, two weeks you do that, everyone can do that. That's not the problem. The problem is that no one is searching for those terms in every service area. In the United States, decorative concrete is still fairly, very, very new industry. And just getting, getting this guys to understand, you know how we can utilize social media campaigns can, you know, can be the, the, the entryway that way in for example, right? So, so for those guys, we tend to lean over to the social campaigns, social campaigns Facebook ads, Pinterest ads in a YouTube ad for them. And you know, we tried to tap into anything that has to do with, with the outdoor living, you know, people looking for ideas, et cetera, and just throw them into an awareness campaign, get some nice videos of before and afters and then get that going.
Danny: 22:32 So we're not, we're really at this guys do understand that we're
not looking for leads. Almost immediately. Yes, we can. Yes we can, but the lead conversion that happens usually happens at three months or six months for some of these guys. So we'll look at it as, you know, six months out or so for those guys. The packaging is the social campaigns right? We, we go for the social campaigns are more in the awareness building that awareness. And for the rest of the actual concrete contractors, Google search, you know, Google search maps optimization with the the Google ads just in the beginning, if they don't have any presses whatsoever, we want to get some leads through the doors. So that package the lowest one there is at 12, at $1,200. Right? It is the bare minimum and it goes up to 2,500 per month in current for those guys. And it all depends on the market. Texas is extremely competitive. You know, California is
competitive. Florida is competitive. South Florida is competitive. But you go, you start going up North, you know, it gets cheaper and cheaper. So, so yeah. That's pretty much a how we've come up with the packages. In the beginning I would sell in, sorry, go ahead.
Joe: 23:46 I w I just wanted to say what I loved about what you said is you
broke down the two different verticals or the sub niches and then you have different packages because you know what works for them. You didn't try to pick a package first, then randomly pick a niche and then try to shove it together and make it work. When I'm helping people through this process and engineering packaging and their deliverable and picking a niche, a lot of times they don't think like that. Right? It's not about what works for the client and they're just leaning on, you know, what they know works and then picking a random niche and then it doesn't work. So I just wanted to make a little point of observation there. I loved how you broke down the packages.
Danny: 24:24 Yup. Yup. And that's why it's important to be niche down is you
will not know that data, that information other than this video you probably people are selling. I got messages from people just like, Hey, I noticed you're in decorative. Can you give me some tips on what to sell? I'll tell you right now, you're selling SEO to them. You, you're not going to get much results and they're gonna throw you out the window in three months. You know, that's the bottom line. That is the bottom line, you know? Yeah.
Joe: 24:48 Fantastic man. In terms of packaging then, what's what's your
goal in terms of profit margin?
Danny: 24:56 Yeah. Minimum 30% at a minimum. Yeah. Yeah. And you know,
I'm 12 full time employees right now six part time. So, you know, I tried to keep it at a minimum of 30%. We can go higher. That's fine. You know, but that's, that's kind of like what I'm looking for.
Joe: 25:15 Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I find a lot of times people that are
building agencies don't have a ton of like accounting experience or business experience. And so they build the agency and they don't know what their profit margin should be. And so because they don't have a baseline or any idea, oftentimes when I'm looking at in the agency's books, like they're frankly just spending way too much money on fulfillment. And with a couple of tweaks, I mean, we can make a whole world of a difference in terms of cashflow that they see at the end of the day. So always a a point of reference for me. I'm looking at, you
know, different successful agencies and what's their cashflow model look like?
Danny: 25:53 Yeah. And I'm glad that Josh, Josh Nelson pointed me to the
Profit First. That was when I started making a little bit of money. He's like, Hey, you've got to get this book, you know, so, so that's a very, very good starting point, having those different bank accounts open, you know, and, and just the way you funnel your money and see, assess your money, it makes a big difference versus just managing from one and then just, you don't even know what's going on, you know, a lot of times. Yeah, for sure.
Joe: 26:19 When you look at the concrete space, what's a good qualified
prospect for you? Like who, who aren't you going to talk to and who will you talk to? What's your filter look like?
Danny: 26:30 It's an agency or for, you know, for me, yeah. Your agency.
Yeah. Yeah. They, they're, they're definitely established. They have over five employees at a minimum of $1 million in a gross revenue. So when, when, you know, there are about a million dollars, they can definitely afford you a, if they're under that, you're really just, you know, yeah. You can get the guys who just starting out and you gotta keep in mind, some of these projects might be 50 $20,000 for this guys, a 100,000, $250,000. But if you don't understand their sales process, sometimes it takes them two years to, to land or finish up a project, you know, because of permits and all this stuff. So for me, it's someone that's already at seven figures. I know that if they've done that the prior years, in the prior years, they've got some cashflow or some money, you know, that they can up front, for advertising because it's not something that they're going to see tomorrow in most cases.
Danny: 27:31 So, so that's something that I look at in minimum seven figures. For the decorative guys, half a million K, it's a little bit different. So a half a million for those guys. And for the decorative guys, some of these guys are almost like artists. I'm not sure if you've seen the, the type of work that they do. They stain, you know, they, they, they can make whatever, whatever you can think of out of concrete. Some of these guys carve out concrete and, and there's not that many of them in the United States. So, so for this guys, you know, half a million dollars, they usually have two or three guys working for them and they travel across the United States to get their type of jobs. So, so that's the main criteria. If they invest in, in in, in any type of online marketing before that would be an ideal client.
Danny: 28:20 What I found out is that the industry right now is it's, it's an
interesting situation because the majority of establish concrete company owners, they're in the older demographic. They're way older. Then they built a name, a reputation, they've got the trucks, the cat equipment. Those are the big assets that architects and construction companies look for when they hire a company. So, you know what, by default, they almost get all the jobs. So they don't really think about online marketing as much as other companies, like plumbers for example. Right? Yeah. Do they gotta be on the maps? This guys, you see them, you know, you'd be like, how are they making all this money if they are, they're not even looking at maps. Well, it's connection. So I look at them differently. So, so one of the main references, I guess it would be the revenue in like how long they've been in business and all that stuff. So, so yeah,
Joe: 29:11 Man, this is great. I think I think people are gonna love how you
talk about the niche and they can really tell that people are going to be able to tell that you really care about the results, that you can bring the niche. And ultimately that you are a specialist and hopefully this gives them motivation as well to, to go out and to be a specialist versus a generalist. So, absolutely love it, man. So when it comes to expectations, the client signs on the dotted line today, Danny, how do you set expectations? I see that so many agencies, a man, like so many just set no expectations. So many agencies set just horrible expectations that they can't even live up to. And then it's no wonder why in three months or six months, right. They get the Boot So I'm really curious, man, when, when it comes to setting expectations, how do you do it? And what are your thoughts on setting expectations?
Danny: 29:59 Yeah. Yeah. It's it's all relative. And I know that's a broad
answer, but man, I, I've done it myself too. You know, I've, I've over promised and under delivered, I've shot myself in the foot and it's only through experience. You get to a certain point, but I'm going to give you the shortcut. So you gotta know, you know when it, when it's okay, so, so expectations for the residential concrete guys, those guys, we know SEO takes a couple of months, at least three months. I tell them right off the gate, you know, we understand this industry better than anyone else you could possibly hire out there. Here are the clients results. Here are the leads that we've generated for them. Here's what's possible, but I am not magician, right? I am not a magician. I'm not going to, you know, just go like this and you're going to have a flood of leads.
Danny: 30:41 That's not how it works. This is the process. This is the game
plan we're gonna roll out for you. So in the first 90 days is when we start dialing in the campaign. So I give them that 90 day Mark, right? And I tell them right off the gate is, is we look at this for the first six months. That's how we judge the success of your campaign. Give us six months and you will see a diff, you know, just a night and day difference in where you are online and in the type of jobs that you're generating, the opportunities coming to you. As we're growing your reputation, your reviews and all that stuff, you're going to notice that the amount of time that it takes you to close a deal, it's going to be way less because people know you reputable, they know, you know.
Danny: 31:21 So I start talking about that. So that's how I frame that one
conversation for the for the decorative guys, it's different because, you know, we can flood them with Facebook leads, but all those leads, they, they're just in the awareness mode. They're not ready to make a deal, you know, if they quote them for $8,000 to just, you know, do a concrete coating. Most people are not ready for that commitment right now. Yup. You know, so, so it's in nurturing that and tell them, Hey, look it, you know, we have a probability of getting you at a minimum of 1520 leads in the first month. And that may very well happen, but you've got to look at, you know, these are leads that we can nurture so that we can, you know, start converting in a couple of months. And we'll use high level as nurturing platform.
Danny: 32:04 And through that system we're able to nurture those leads for
them. Which also helps out, you know, in, in bringing value to this, to this individuals. So I, I let them know, Hey, look, the first month yeah, you know, they do, they usually do land a couple of, of, of, you know, pretty decent like estimates that they'd give out, but put yourself in their shoes. Troyer like we work out of an office. This guy says they're out in the road and they got to manage two or three jobs a day. They don't want to drive 50 miles out to just go and talk to someone that's going to say no. So they don't want to waste their time. So job is to provide them the best possible results. You know. And that means is if the awareness campaign, we tried to let people know that this is not a cheap, you know, a widget, right? If it's going to be, you know, starting at $2,500 for a two car garage you know, concrete epoxy, flooring, whatever, you know, $500 discount, they already know, Hey, this is going to be 2000 and at a minimum or whatever. Right? So those, those little things, that's how I set the expectations there.
Joe: 33:06 I love it, man. And again, I think your, your niche expertise, just
show them through, right? It's not so much about, you know,
the, the leads, right? But it's actually getting them business and if you just stop at getting them leads, they're never going to last.
Joe: 33:19 So, so that's, that's well said for sure. Yeah, you've talked a lot
Joe: 33:24 So far, Danny, about being an expert or viewed as an authority
in your niche. What do you think are kind of the top things that you've done and where's your head go and what are the things you're thinking about doing in the vertical to become even more of an expert?
Danny: 33:38 I mean, what made my life easier in the beginning was, was
getting that, that the cheat sheet, the checklist out of by Josh Nelson seven figure agency program. He literally gave me like everything like the book, the webinars, you know, and everything. And yeah, you know, you that makes that shortcuts a process. So I have no excuses, but there's still a little bit of work to be done, you know, because you've got to plug in the data and all the information and all the book and all that stuff. So starting with that checklist, that checklist gets me a ton of leads every single month that that's one of the first things. And there are a couple of people that are using it in my space, you know, so, so the one thing is yet you have those assets like the checklist. If you have an ebook that's industry related, definitely have it.
Danny: 34:25 I am, I am in the middle of, of editing our book, the internet
marketing book for us so that we can publish it. I did take a little bit more time than, than I should have just because I want to make sure it's a good, you know, it's, it's good quality, you know and webinars, right? Webinars targeted specifically to the industry. For my industry. I've noticed that in my webinar attendance down to the floor, I'm talking about like three, four guys. That's my record webinar attendance. But that's because these guys are on the road every day, you know, and I still have a little bit more discovery to doing the best times and all that stuff. But when I send them the CD, I sent them a, that's something that Josh told me. He tried send them a, an MP3 CD.
Danny: 35:11 You see what happens, mail goes out, man got responses next
month with the same thing, got more responses next month I did the same thing. So for my industry doing , you know, hard assets, like printed material that they can feel and they can read, you know, that branded. And if you follow up with a phone call that opens up the door right out of the gate. And this is positioning, you know, they see every marketing crew, the marketing magazine, they look at it, you know, concrete
marketing help and you know, it's a call to action. It tells them what to do even if they open it up, you know, and then they see my name and you know, these are things I help out. So webinars printed material if you can send direct mail letters, make yourself tangible in some way, shape or form.
Danny: 36:02 Let me see what else is working very well. Instagram has helped
us very, very like 30% of my business comes from Instagram right now. Wow. It's from the material that we're posting out there. You know, it's just little, you know, the is you formula three by three right there. Who, why, what that's the type of content we create. So, you know, just making the commitment to record ourselves, get, get myself on camera and record that and then republish it and keep pushing that that's working very well. And that's a positioning tool that actually helped me get a speaking engagement recently. So I just came from Dallas, from the Concrete, decor show of 2019 and, and, and God has been good man, that, that show really something that, that the guy that put together the event told me, it's like I checked out your Instagram and you know, I wanted you to talk about Instagram for that matter.
Danny: 36:57 So you just never know. You just never know what people are
clicking on. But it did help out, you know that that I came from the seven figure agency group and, you know, I have all the resources available there, but that's, that's a position. And if you can get yourself on stage, that's the ultimate positioning, then get yourself in published books you know, in the checklist. And then get yourself out there on video. Not be afraid. You know, I, I don't, I don't look like the prettiest guy out there, you know, I'm not seven foot tall, you know, blue eyes. I don't look like a Joe. There you know, Joe Troyer. But but you know, a lot of times even we question ourselves, Oh, am I saying this right? You know I have an accent. Right. but I've told you, Instagram has definitely opened up a lot of doors and it's, it's all organic. It's like, you know, I, I don't use any bots now. That stuff is just, yeah.
Joe: 37:49 Cool man. Well, thank you for kind of a cheat sheet, so to speak,
and saying, helping us understand what's working for you. I'm curious these days, man. Danny, what's your day to day look like? You got a lot going on. You built a successful agency talking to us about you know, just going and speaking at this show. What's, what's the day to day look for look like for you?
Danny: 38:08 Yeah. So, so the every morning, every single day we have a, the
daily huddle call with the, the team that the, the the project managers, each, each department like the SEO has their project
manager, the, you know, the web design has everyone, you know, so I meet with the team leaders so, you know, and that's about a 15 minute call and it's basically what they worked on. Day before where are they working today and what problems do they need help with? And it's just a quick going around the room and, you know, just trouble shooting, delegating. From there. We use teamwork as well as our backend. So that gives us a lot of accountability, a lot of automation, like really cool things we do there. After then it's a sales course, you know, sales calls until about about 2:00 PM or so. And then I get back into, into seeing what else I need to do for our client delivery. Maybe give a couple of clients a call. And and yeah, at the end of the day I wrap it up, see if I could do any more outreach prospecting. But I tell you right now, it's probably 60% of the days in sales activities, it's just be procactive there. And then the other 40% is optimizing the processes or whatever I can help with in the daily delivery,
Joe: 39:27 Yeah. Beautiful. And what do you think the future day to day
looks like? You think you're going to stay in the sales side of things and yeah,
Danny: 39:35 You know, I, you, you see that desk there I gotta fill that one
out. This one right next to me, so, so definitely I need to get a couple of salespeople here because, yeah. Yeah. I have more leads than I can handle right now. Like, that's a good thing to say, you know, I don't say it bragging,ubut it's, it's a good problem to have. You know, it's not, not being able to get back to people. Sometimes I just look at them and I'm like, I don't think I want to give this person a call. But you know, it's, I, I definitely have an overflow in a lot of opportunities coming up. So, so that's something that I'm looking for right now.
Joe: 40:08 Awesome, man. Yeah, it's a, it's great to be in that position, but
I know myself being in that position it almost feels like you're squandering or losing opportunity, right? So it's like, man, I gotta I gotta make sure we take full advantage while we can. Right? Like when, while it's sunny, we gotta be out there taking advantage of, of the sunshine. So cool man. I'm, I'm interested in, in one big last question for you and we'll start wrapping this up. When it comes to the 80 20 and building a niche market agency, what are the fundamentals that you think you've got to really work on, right? And in order to build that agency,
Danny: 40:46 Yeah, I mean, you, you gotta be crystal clear who your market is
and who they serve. If you're not clear on like say one. One thing is saying I help residential concrete contractors. Another thing is understanding who they sell to and how is their sales
process. Because if you understand that now you become, you become like an authority. Like you, they really look at you as a consultant rather than just an internet market in SEO guy, when you can talk to them at that level of understanding their language niching down, it's, it's extremely crucial to understand their, their language. Eben Pagan, I learned this from him, is his words are the currency of the mind. Words are the currency of the mind. Everyday internet, marketers and sales people are using penny words thinking that their $100 words in their client, in the prospect's minds, and that's how they're talking to their prospects and they're complaining, Hey Troy, that email didn't work.
Danny: 41:46 Hey Troy, that you know, I did that sales presentation. It didn't
work. I didn't build rapport. W well, you know, you're using penny words. Like, if you're using five pennies versus telling, you know, talking to someone in $100 words changes the game. So understanding your market at that level, understanding their lives and like how they go about doing business every day what their day looks like. And being able to talk to them at that though, that level that changes the conversation. You build rapport like this and when you build rapport your sales process, man, you can build value. And when value is clear, decisions are easy. So people are able to just, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh wow, this guy knows me. Oh wow. Yeah, you're different. You know, it, you know, you can close deals way easier than just forcing yourself to it.
Joe: 42:34 I love that. Beautiful man. Very well said. Very, very well said.
All right. So one last question, Danny, and I'll let you go. So instead of asking you to recommend three books, like most people do on a podcast, what's one book, right? That when you look at your business, you can tell who has made the biggest impact on the way that you do business and why?
Danny: 42:54 Eh, that's a, that's a tough question, man. You got me there. You
know, I, I loved the think and grow rich. I love the 10 X mentality. 10 X, you see that little flag up there. But the one book that's been with me when I was in the car alone you know, I was literally, I slept on my car for a couple of weeks, you know, trying to figure out where I was going to do with my life. It was this one right here. Augment the, you know, the greatest salesman in the world. When you read it, you start out with, let me read this here. I will persist until I succeed. I was not delivered into this world, into the feet, nor nor does failure curse in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I'm a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I will
persist until I succeed. And that's it, man. You know, and you go through a couple of these chapters, very powerful. Definitely helped me. Really, you know, when I was at my lowest, just kind of like, you know, stay with that mindset not giving up. Cause if you're a business, you're gonna have challenges. So you know, getting this prime, this is very important.
Joe: 44:05 Getting your head right is the biggest thing, man, and being
accountable for your actions. So love that. And that's not the type of book that's typically shared. So really thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. So Danny, man, thank you for spending the last 45 minutes or so with me. It's been fricking amazing. Thanks for sharing for the heart. I love what you're up to and if there's anything ever, man that I can do to help support you, don't, don't don't hesitate to give me a shout. I'll make sure to link up your website and and your Instagram as well. Anything else man, that we should put in the show notes for you?
Danny: 44:37 No, a normal man. Follow Joe Troyer. I mean, it's, his here , he's
putting out content. That's, that's very valuable. And I'm telling you right now, you know, if you're just starting out, if you've been in the business for some time you listen to individuals are making it happen in, are connecting to other individuals. It just, it's just expanding your world. So definitely to need to human. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate you.
Joe: 44:57 Yeah, man, my pleasure. All right, everybody, Joe Troyer here
from digital triggers signing out. Sayonara.
