Joe: (02:20)
Hey, what’s up guys? It’s Joe Troyer here with another episode. And today we have on a very special guest, somebody that I’ve been dying to have on the show here, Billy Willson. So for those of you guys that don’t know Billy, he’s the owner of the social media marketing agency called Willson Media. And he also has a training program where he teaches people how to build a social media agency program. So, Billy has quite the list of accomplishments, but the one that I really want to highlight right, is he went from a college dropout just like yours, truly, right? Just like me, to building a six figure agency at the age of 20. Right? Billy, man, congratulations. Like that is an amazing feat in a very short amount of time.
Billy: (03:02)
Thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to have me on here today.
Joe: (03:06)
100% man. So it’s been great following you on your youtube channel and for anybody that wants to follow you, definitely go check out Billy’s youtube channel and seeing how much you’ve been able to accomplish in your career. And in your quick career already, but thinking back when you were still fighting your way to the top, was there a point or a turning point that you can think of that made you realize just how much of an impact that you could have on this industry?
Billy: (03:34)
Yeah, as far as the impact, there’s like a lot of turning points. But as far as the first turning point that I would say about I would have is I actually started with this generic social media marketing agency, like doing the posting, helping with them with their website and doing like every service for them, running like a little bit of Facebook ads. And then when I came to find was with my first couple of clients, I was doing all those things. And then I realized every time I would do the Facebook ads, I would bring them like amazing results in their business, but what they would get like a huge amount of customers in a short amount of time that we were running the Facebook ads. So when I figured out is that just cut everything else out and then I focused on specifically to Facebook ads because that was kind of the 80/20 rule, like the 80% that was working, even though it’s more like the 99% of everything that was getting all the results. So I focused on my social media marketing agencies specifically on Facebook ads and worked really hard to become one of the best ad generating leads for local businesses with Facebook ads.
Joe: (04:29)
Okay, cool. So what do you think is the difference between you and everybody out there trying to run and grow and build a social media marketing agency, right? Like when a lot of other people have failed, right? You’ve been able to grow a six figure agency, not to mention obviously at the age of 20. So what do you think the key differentiators are that helped you actually be able to do that?
Billy: (04:52)
Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s like a lot of different parts to it. I mean, obviously I could say the same normal stuff. It’s like being consistent. It’s probably the biggest one because most people just end up giving up and it’s just like having that grit of having like, once you fail and you like do terrible in a sales meeting, like having the grit to actually get back up and go at it again and go onto the next business. But I think the thing that’s really separated me for most people is actually focusing on the client’s results and actually getting them the best results possible. Cause I feel like I’ve gotten really, really good at that side, even though I wouldn’t consider myself like the best salesman in the world. That side of it has really helped me take it to the next level, as far as scaling my agency. So I think the thing that’s really separated me is focusing, actually, on the clients. It’s like the best results possible, on that side of things.
Joe: (05:37)
Definitely. So you kind of rely on your social proof in your case studies, right? Your testimonials to kind of get the sales?
Billy: (05:44)
Yes. Well yeah, that is part of it. But the sale, like obviously I had to learn the sales side too. I struggled to my agency until I actually got good at sales because I always thought that, I always had this mindset in my head that I would never be good at sales. And then once I flipped the switch in my mind to change my mind that I can be good at sales and I’m going to get good at it. And I use my own personality in my sales, which was being like completely honest with people and rather than, cause I always hated the stigma of like trying to force someone to buy something from me. So once I changed that switch in my head, just like be honest with them and let them know that I’m actually going to be a help to them.
Billy: (06:17)
And after I got some like results of clients under my belt, I became a lot more confident. So that is what made me more confident. But it’s kind of a, I guess of a golden nugget that I figured out. What gives you guys with the social media marketing side of it and Facebook ads specifically. The thing that really has separated me with as far as getting the results for the clients, is focusing on making the Facebook ads things that people actually want to watch. So like with normal advertisements, like on youtube or TV, everybody makes their advertisements like they look like ads instantly. Like you know that instantly like, oh just another ad and your subconscious brain just ignores it. But the thing that’s really allowed me to get my clients great results is by making my ads. It’s not seem like ads more so seemed like a regular thing that they’re going to see on Facebook. For example, like one of my best performing ads ever is like an MTV cribs tour of this gym. And it just like gets people’s attention and it doesn’t look like a normal ad. But then at the end of the video, then I have the person make whatever the offer of the ad is. Like for example, like a free seven day pass to the gym or first 30 days free or whatever. So that’s just like, I think the main thing that hasn’t allowed me to separate my ads and my results from anybody else’s.
Joe: (07:27)
Nice man. That’s awesome. So the key takeaways that I took there is you probably have more of a consultative approach, right? Like you’re genuinely trying to help your prospect and help, you know, your potential future customers and you’re teaching them almost the process and what they need to watch out for versus just coming in as like a slick used cars salesman, right? Trying to sell them something, right?
Billy: (07:49)
Yep. Exactly.
Joe: (07:50)
Okay, cool. And then the second thing is you’re running video ads, but they’re almost like native ads, right? Like they essentially like you can’t tell that they’re an ad.
Billy: (08:02)
Yes. Well the only way you can really tell, I mean I’m not running so they’re still be like most of the time I’ll still run and they’ll still be like the bar at the bottom. Most of the time for local businesses I will do lead generation ads. That’s like a Facebook built-in landing page. So there will still be like that. The thing at the bottom that like shows it’s an ad but it’s more so like the video. It doesn’t have to be a video either guys. It can be an image. And I actually put together like a giveaway to go with this podcast. I got four successful ad campaigns for you guys that I’ll share with you. So you can see like the images, some of the video examples and like some of the ad copy. And you’ll notice that with some of them especially like you can’t even tell it’s an ad until you get to like the very end of reading it. And then they’re like, oh, now it’s not. And they’ve already invested the time and they’re actually sold on doing it by the time they realize it’s even in that.
Joe: (08:49)
I love that man. To be frank, I’ve never heard anybody talking about that. Right. That’s absolutely genius. Great. Great share. They’re great little nugget for everybody watching the show. All right, awesome man. So, I know that you obviously teach people how to build successful agencies as well. You’ve built your own successful agency. When somebody comes to you, right? And they ask you to help them build out a successful social media marketing agency right in to go from zero to six figures. Like what kind of step by step process would you give them? Can we kind of dive into this and kind of give everybody kind of a roadmap of how you kind of teach people to go out and build a six figure social media marketing agency?
Billy: (09:29)
Yeah, so in my training program actually have like a six step formula. And I guess the first step is just setting your foundations like getting your mindset right. Just like I was talking about with my mindset at first with the sales part of it, I had this mindset of like on selling these people, I’m trying to get the money from them compared to having the mindset of like we’re trying to create a mutually beneficial relationship and also like setting the foundations as far as understanding the business model as a whole. Just making sure you understand how everything works. So like understanding how the Facebook ads process works. They see the Facebook ad, they put their information in and then the information of the person gets sent to the business, the business calls them up on the phone, and then they get booked in for an appointment.
Billy: (10:05)
Then that’s how they make the sale. So understanding how the business model works. Then the second step is actually finding high potential clients to work with, finding a, and that’s the trick here. So, a lot of points are like qualifying. If you’ve ever been in meeting with clients, a lot of times there’ll be like qualifying like why should I work with you? I’ve been talking to all these other marketing agencies or whatever and why should I work with you specifically? Well it’s actually the same way around. You should also be thinking the same way around. Like you also want to be the person that you should be qualifying your clients. Cause I’ve noticed after working with lots of clients and losing a lots of clients of course, luckily I’ve not been, I haven’t lost like four out of my last five clients just because I’ve gotten a lot better at this.
Billy: (10:45)
But the qualifying the clients part is super key to the second step is making sure your client is an amazing client to work with. Is it really the key and not someone that’s going to bug you every hour or this just can be like super emotional. They’re going to like worry about everything if something goes wrong for one day and things like that and making sure they have a high quality business in place that they can close the leads effectively and everything like that. And then the third step is actually getting the meetings. So actually having a strategy to outreach and get like a specific, like there’s lots of different ways to do outreach and I let people decide on their own terms what’s going to be best for them. But there’s like cold calls going in person. Cold outreach, building a personal brand.
Billy: (11:28)
I’m sending messages through Facebook and linkedin and cold email, all those different methods. So in my program I go over those different methods specifically and like give scripts for each of those. But that’s kind of like the general outline. And once again, with doing that outreach to focus on, think about how you can be different from everybody else that’s contacting them and how you can stand out from the crowd. So, and how you can position yourself in a way that when they read your message or talk to you on a phone, you’re like a sigh of relief, when they do that. So think about how you can stand out from everybody else, all the other marketing agencies contacting them, and how you can be a sigh of relief when they actually talked to you. And then the fourth step is actually closing the clients.
Billy: (12:10)
And that’s when you actually got in the meeting, you’re in the meeting. And from there, it’s kind of back to that thing once again. Taking more of a consultative approach. First off, diagnosing what their problem is. And then from there, if what you’re offering solves their problem, then you go ahead and make their, make your offers, show them how it works and then you can pretty much tell them the price and I work out how much they can expect to make working with you, kind of the workout, the numbers and closing rates from there. And then from there if it seems like a good fit, then you close the deal obviously. Then the fifth step is actually setting up the Facebook ads and kind of the way that I just mentioned to you guys in a way that makes them not really look like ads and making an offer or setting up the targeting, everything like that.
Billy: (12:49)
And then the last step. Step six is helping your clients close the leads and making sure that the closing leads and that’s setting up like a automatic text message when the lead comes in and goes to their phone and then you’re making sure that your client calls them up, they follow like a certain script and they are actually closing the leads and getting results. And then from there, once you, if you master all those six steps, then that’s pretty much how you can scale your agency. Just repeat that process over and over and set up a system where it’s much, much better if you pick a specific industry that you’re going to work with because then you don’t have to redo everything. Like you can use the same case studies when you’re meeting with the clients and you don’t have to make a brand new ads every time.
Billy: (13:29)
You can literally reuse the ads. Like if you work with a chiropractor for your first client and then you do good with them, you can use the same exact ad on another chiropractor. Just change the names and everything like that. And the pictures or whatever, and you can scale your agency up that way. And then you’ve also got the case studies. So when you’re in the meeting it’s like, here’s this results for a chiropractor. I can do the same thing for you. So it’s so much of an easier sell and so if you focus on that way, you focus it on like small industry of clients, then you can scale up pretty quickly that way.
Joe: (13:58)
Yup. 100%. I definitely always teach people and recommend that they stay in a niche that they pick one or two, they run with those. Obviously once you figure it out, that’s 99% of the battle is gone. And most of the work is done. So all right. Great stuff. So thinking through this, you know, the first step is foundation and mindset, understanding the business model and I was taking notes here. Step two then is finding clients and amazing clients. I agree. You talked a little bit about what I call like turning the table, right? Where I’d like to interview them as well and make sure that we’re the right fit. And I teach our customers to do that as well. And you got to, that’s a great, great tip. Otherwise, people are going to come, as fast as people come in and you make the sales, they’re going to fall out at that same rate if you’re not exactly, really prescreening them. So. Okay, cool. So then it comes to like the perfect client, right? When somebody asks you what niche do I go after, what kind of criteria should I be looking for? Who is the right type of customer to sell, right? Like, you don’t have to give me a niche, but like what are some criteria that you like to go after?
Billy: (15:08)
No, I got it. That’s actually a good question because that’s something that I like to specifically cover in my program as well. But to answer that question, like as far as industry, like that doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really apply to industry because the industry really depends on what you personally prefer. Or if you’d like worked in a specific industry before so you have the inside knowledge of how it works, then you could relate to the client a lot more. That’s probably a better way for you to go. The more you can relate with the client and actually speak the same language, that’s kind of the industry that I would go with. And like whatever you prefer. For example, for me personally, I really enjoy fitness and like the gym and stuff. So whenever I meet with like a gym owner, I could speak the same language as them.
Billy: (15:45)
And so that’s one key thing. Now as far as looking for high quality clients, here’s a couple of key things that I look at. One, do they have a high quality website? Like is it a website that looks like it’s made in the 1980s even though they probably didn’t even have websites back then. I don’t know if they did or not. But if they have like a old super old looking website, that’s my first sign that this is probably not going to be a good client. Secondly, they should be already, at least, this is like the bare minimum. Most of my clients have are making way more than this, but like bare minimum they need to be doing like at least $10,000 per month revenue like no startups, nothing like that. They need to already have a proven sales process in place. 10K is like the minimum and that’s still pretty pushing it.
Billy: (16:24)
10k profit would be like preferable because then they have the extra income that they can be able to spend. They’ve already proven their business is successful. You just want to take businesses that are successful already and help them scale up. That’s the type of business you’re looking for. And then also by their organization skills and like do they show up to the meeting on time? Do they show up 10 minutes late? Do you have to follow up with them 10 times or do they make the decision on the first call? Obviously those are things that show whether they’re a good client or not as well. And then I have like a question list that I asked them every single meeting. Like, do you guys have a process? And that’s not really a question related to that, but I also look at like their reviews on Google and stuff like that.
Billy: (17:03)
Do they have high quality reviews? So they have like a two star review on Google or I only work with businesses with 4.5 stars or above on Google just as like an example. So those are the kinds of the main key things that I’m looking for as far as a good quality business to work with. And also I like to make sure they have a sales process in place as well. And it’s preferred that they’ve already handled online leads before they’re getting leads from somewhere because then they already understand how that process works. But if they don’t, it’s not a huge deal breaker if they have all the other traits as well.
Joe: (17:33)
Yup. So, having the sales process is such a huge key. Right? We find, right, when we’re running like Google search campaigns in Google maps and things like that, like people are calling, right? And a lot of businesses are set up to handle phone call leads. Right? But I know that a lot of my customers handling phone call leads aren’t set up to handle like web forum leads right. They’re not set up to handle leads coming in from Facebook, so to speak. So for me, I think that would definitely be a criteria too. And, you kinda hit on it, but for my people that are watching this and you’re selling like, you know, phone calls and that’s kind of the lead generation mechanism. I would be very careful that they have, again, like Billy talked about that they have a sales process to follow up with web form leads or texts leads. Right. Because it’s very different, obviously.
Billy: (18:21)
Yeah, exactly. And one thing I do as well because I tried to like on the thank you page of the ads or the thank you page of the form, I try to give them something extra or an incentive, extra incentive to call the business now like call the business on their own. So you might give them like a small extra or like extra deal or you might even, a lot of the times I’ll just say like this offer will only be available for this amount of time, like 24 hours. If you want to like move to the front of the line or whatever, then you can click the call button below or something like that. Or we only have a limited number available. Something along those lines that actually gets them to call the business themselves. But of course, even still, even with that, most people people won’t.
Billy: (18:59)
So the biggest thing that I try to tell people to like avoid. This is a really big problem that comes up if you don’t solve it at the beginning is your clients know that your clients will lie to you. They’re probably going to say that. And I always set the expectation that every lead during regular business hours at least should be called within five minutes. And so that’s kind of like the expectation and making sure they actually do it because they will lie to you. There’s like softwares that you can use. I think one’s called like Lead Out is a software you can use to see how long it took your clients to call the leads for example and having some kind of system in place so you can see what your clients are saying. It’s also good if you have your clients like record the calls too, if possible.
Billy: (19:38)
And I also provide my clients with scripts as well if necessary to close the leads as well. And that’s something that I have in my training program too as I just give them like a script to call the clients with. And then also like text message follow up too. So I also have them, I have them call within five minutes, then leave a voicemail if they don’t answer and then send them a text message all at the same time. So they’re bound to reply to one of those three things. So I have them do that every time and also make sure they follow up like the next three days at least as well.
Joe: (20:08)
Okay, cool. So a big part of it is obviously making that initial contact, you know, asap. So tracking that is critical. Right? We do the same thing. We have call tracking. We can see how many of the calls were missed, right? If we’re sending a business, you know, 10 calls a week and they’re missing seven or eight of the 10 calls, you know, we know that there’s an issue. So when it comes to kind of that consultative side, are you helping then kind of on what happens after the lead comes in? Or are you just kind of saying like as a bonus I’ll give you these scripts because you need them, this is what works and kind of drawing the line there or are you trying to, you know, do whatever you can to make sure that they’re successful, so to speak, in the long term.
Billy: (20:49)
Yeah, good question. So it really depends on where you’re at with your agency and what you personally want to do. For me, I know some agencies they charge extra just like have someone close the leads for the businesses actually. So that’s actually the one option. You can charge your client extra value to do that for them too. For me personally, I only work with like really high quality since I pretty deny like 95 to 99% of the clients that actually likes fill out an application with us because I just only want to work with the best of the best. So I don’t really have that problem with the closing leads. But for somebody that’s just starting out, like you might have to coach your clients on that a little bit and make sure they’re actually doing it or like implement some kind of tracking in place to show that they actually are doing it and they actually are calling the leads on time and stuff like that. Figuring out a way that you can actually put some kind of tracking in place, like have them record every call and also see or use like a software so you can see how long it takes them to make the call. So putting something in place like that so that you can actually.
Billy: (21:51)
Don’t believe your client’s word for it is all I have to say. Just have like recorded calls and see how long the calls are and that’s the surefire way to tell whether they’re actually doing the work or not. And then if they’re not doing the work, that’s pretty simple to tell them like why their ads aren’t working. If they’re just not simply calling the leads. And also like if you record their calls and they’re just not doing very good on the phone, then you can coach them on helping them be able to close those leads better.
Joe: (22:15)
100%. Okay, cool. So then in step number three in the getting the meetings and alright, I guess it would be more in closing step number four. What are you doing as an offer? Are you trying to sell something as a foot in the door? Are you selling a trial? I know so many people obviously in the social media marketing world do selling trials. Are you selling like a 12 month program and then breaking it down in a monthly installments or how do you kind of structure your offers and how do you teach people to structure their offer?
Billy: (22:45)
Yeah, good question. So there is pretty much like infinite amounts of offers. There’s like different types. So there’s like free stuff is what I’d consider one. There is like a free consultation is another type of offer, but you can word it in a way that it’s not like a free consultation. And sounds really boring. It’s like maybe like, it’s like a free info session or a free strategy session or free discovery session. Like something that sounds more interesting or like a free strategy call or something like that. That sounds more interesting, as one option. Those are the ones that are a little bit more hard to sell, but the offers that are the easiest to sell are like the free stuff and maybe like discount offers like the $21 examine for a chiropractor, like a free seven day pass with the gym or like a six week challenge, they get their money back if they have to pay like $200 up front and then they get their money back if they come to a certain amount of sessions.
Billy: (23:39)
There’s like pretty much unlimited amounts of offers and like as far as getting off your ideas, lots of methods to do it. You can look at what people are running for Google ads. You can search like your niche and then facebook ads and get some ideas there. Check out some of the youtube videos. You can see what the competition is doing, see what people are running on Groupon as an ad and an offer. You can see what people are running on TV and radio and newspaper ads too. Like there’s lots of ways to come up with offers.
Joe: (24:09)
I like the one with Starbucks or a coffee shop and picking up like the little Freebie magazines, right? If I’ve got to help a client with an offer in five minutes, I’ve got 10 ideas. So yeah. Yeah, that’s, those are some other good places to look as well. Okay, cool. So when, those are all really good places to look for offers that you can use for your client to run ads too. But when you go in and you’re pitching that local gym owner, that local business, right? On your services and on Facebook ads and what you can do, we’re talking about, you know, it’s a consultative type of sales process, but what’s your actual pitch? Are you selling like, let me run it for free for a month and then, you know, upsell and from there, right? As the consultant, are you selling a 12 month package and breaking it down into monthly installments? Like what do you teach people to use as their offer? Right. Once they have that meeting with the local business owner?
Billy: (25:03)
Yeah, great question. So what I think I would recommend for most people and what I pretty much do for the most part is I have them pay, I just do a month to month. I don’t do any contracts. And like, contracts is optional. Like you can totally do a contract if he wants to. There’s nothing against contract. Obviously you would want like a contract is a better situation to get. But for me personally, I feel like I am strong enough with Facebook ads that I can get them results within the first two weeks every time. So it’s pretty simple. And I set their expectations really low as well. So I set their expectation with the first month, we’re only looking to like get you your return on investment back. So let’s say it’s a gym for example, in their membership it’s like a hundred dollars a month. That’s over 12 months.
Billy: (25:43)
That’s $1,200 so let’s say their average client worth for a year’s time as $1,200 cause they might have like a year contract or whatever. So then each client’s worth $1,200. Maybe I’m charging $2,000 plus $1,000 ad spend. So our goal is to just going to be the first month. Just bring you three clients that you know directly came from the Facebook ads and I set that as like the expectation for the first month and we’re going to build up from that. Usually I blow that out of the water to be honest, but I set their expectation low so that when they actually get the amazing results, they’re like super excited and they just want to keep working with us. But I let them know like I mainly word it as like the first month is just like to test this out and like what do they really have?
Billy: (26:25)
There’s not really too much they can lose as far as us doing work with the business. We’re not going to do work with a business unless we know for sure we’re going to get them results because of the fact that it’s pretty much almost like the hardest part with this business model is just setting up the ads for the first time and then once you get upset for the first time, you can almost do like the same thing for months and months on end. The initial setup is the longest part, which isn’t really honestly too bad. It’s still worth the money.
Billy: (26:55)
But since it’s month to month, they don’t really have any commitments so we’re forced to provide them the results. So we let the results do the talking. So like the most money they possibly risk is spending $2,000 on us and they don’t get any results, which is highly unlikely. But before I even do that, I asked him like, I show them how the process works and how we’re going to bring them new customers. And, I asked them then I tell them like I tell them how many new members we can expect to bring them or how many new customers. And then I literally asked them the question based on the method that I showed you, do you like, do you feel it would be reasonable that we would actually bring you these number of new members? And then they’ll tell you yes or no. If there’s no, then you just work it through the objection with them to figure out what, why they don’t think it will work.
Billy: (27:38)
But then if it’s yes, then they’ve already told you, they literally believe you that you’re going to bring this many people. So at that point, like you’re pretty much just asking, okay, just test me out for one month and then you’ll see if it works or not. And really realistically, if you’re working with like a successful business, $2,000 in comparison to setting up a system that will generate them consistent new customers every single month and provide them like a 4x return over time, is well worth a $2,000 test one time. If you show them like how it actually works and how it will benefit them in the long term. And the thing after that, it’s just actually providing them to deliver results in the first month. So then they just keep working with you and at that point it’s really, really easy.
Joe: (28:24)
Awesome man. Yeah, there was, there was some really, really good nuggets that you dropped there. And so if I put my head down, it’s because I’m taking notes furiously. So, one thing that you said is you talked about $2,000 a month. Is that kind of a benchmark for you personally? Is that kind of, you don’t go under two grand or that’s kind of what you recommend or tell me a little bit more about that number.
Billy: (28:43)
Yeah, that’s my bare minimum. I charge just based on, well, I don’t charge based on how much work we’re doing. I charge based on how much of a return we can expect to make the clients. So $2,000 is my minimum at the moment. But typically I prefer more than that, like three to 5,000 per month per client. And I think that’s an easier. So starting out, I started out at like $1000, $1,500 per month. I’d probably recommend most people start out with just $1,500 a month. I feel like that’s a good starting point. And then once you gain your skills, you can increase the price. So pretty much whatever you want and scale your agency. I think it’s actually a lot of times better to scale your agency in a way that you’re actually just charging more instead of adding on more clients. I think that’s a good way to scale your agency as well. So you can maybe have like three clients at $3,000 for $9,000 versus having six at 1500 so it’s half the amount of clients. So probably half the amount of work as well, or you’re getting double the amount of money. So that’s a good way to scale your agency. That makes it pretty like very easily scaleable because you have less amount of clients and each paying more. So that’s a great way to scale your agency as well.
Joe: (29:47)
Yeah, 100% and by the time you have six of them at 1500, you’re going to have the whole process figured out, right? Like you’re going to know what works, what doesn’t work. You’re going to know the ads, you’re going to know the copy, you’re going to know the offer that you need to know, right? You’re going to know the targeting and now it’s just like rinse and repeat. And because of all the case studies and results that you’ve gotten so far, right now, you can command more money. So yeah, man, I think that’s brilliant. That’s great. Go ahead man. Sorry for the interruption.
Billy: (30:14)
Okay, so I was just gonna mention real quick. So with that thing, like obviously when I’m like with a client test me out for a month, I have like a full script like word for word scripts in my training program, like walking through exact questions I asked and everything like that. But the thing that I wanted to mention real quickly is if you don’t have case studies and you don’t yet feel confident, what I would maybe recommend is just do it for free for like one to three businesses, just to actually get them results and get your confidence down. And then you just have a case study at that point you can share with whoever you’re meeting with. Now obviously if you feel confident already, I wouldn’t really recommend doing a free trial. Free trial’s only for somebody that doesn’t feel confident yet in themselves yet, that just wants to gain some confidence and then you can walk and see your first paid meeting with like a case study. And of course with the trial as well, you still want to make your client agree. If we get this amount of results, you’re going to work with me afterwards. So that’s so easy. It really, really, really easy way to get your foot in the door to any business is if you’re just starting out and you’re struggling a little bit, you can maybe offer a trial of businesses and there’s really nothing they can lose. But one thing I wanted to mention with that, the business does pay the ads spend. So I usually recommend like $20 per day ad spend for seven days. So about $140 so they just pay the ad spend, but you actually set up the ads for them and everything like that.
Joe: (31:26)
Wonderful. Yeah, that’s really good stuff. One thing else that I kind of caught as you said, month one, the goal is break even, which is brilliant. And I think that most people don’t even talk about that in the sales process, right? They try to set expectations if they’ve been in this business for a while, but nobody’s setting an expectation that they’re going to break even in 12 months. Right. Like that doesn’t happen in this space. So I love that you included that as the expectation and then, you know, you talked about how over time then the goal is a 4x return.
Billy: (31:59)
Yep. So it’s actually, so with the first month it’s to break even, even though I usually get them on honestly, I usually get them in the 4x return, nowhere more in the first month. Like the client, my most recent client, they’ve gotten like a 20x return in the first month. They’re like the first two weeks or something like that. But I didn’t set that as the expectation and I do it in a way that first month our goal is to just break, it gets you like your money back basically. And then the third month, that’s when we’re really trying to go for the 4x. And then by month six we might be trying to go out, keep that steady or just scaling up just a little bit more. I usually just do it that way. So it’s the third month that we actually get to that 4x return is what I tell them at the beginning. But even though, it normally is sooner.
Joe: (32:50)
You’re setting the right expectation from the get go and you’re downplaying the results. So worst case scenario, you know in the back of your head, you’re still going to do what you said you were going to do, which makes, which takes off all the pressure of the entire campaign. Right. And it changes their expectations. So when you blow away those numbers, they’re like, holy shit. Like Billy is a genius. Like we can’t let him go. Right. Like it subtly, it’s critical and I think nobody’s really doing this.
Billy: (33:19)
Yeah, exactly. One thing I do as well, what was it? Okay. I just lost it and maybe it’ll come back later.
Joe: (33:31)
No worries. So one other thing that I thought of when you were talking about the goal is a 4x return on adspend basically is what you said. Right?
Billy: (33:37)
Uh, sorry, not 4x return on ad spend. On our cost and the ad spend together.
Joe: (33:43)
Okay. So really on their investment, right?
Billy: (33:45)
Yes.
Joe: (33:46)
So, that really means though you gotta be a little bit more picky on the type of customer that you’re going after to sell as an agency owner, right. Going to a roofer and getting a roofer a 4x return on investment, like their cost is so high, their margins are so small, that’s probably not gonna work real well.
Billy: (34:09)
Yeah, good question. So that’s actually a good point as well. So like with 4x talking about, yeah, I usually, I mean like, yeah, it depends on industry, definitely. You’re definitely right. So 4x doesn’t apply to everything. You might even just a 2x on profit because like for example, like a roofing company, if they’re going to do the project right away, they don’t have to wait 12 months. So with 4x, I guess I was meaning more so like the fitness industry because you usually have, I usually just go based of how much their membership value is over the course of 12 months or how much their average client worth is over the course of 12 months. So they’re not going to get the money back, like instantly. It’s going to take them like a year before they actually get the full amount of money back on their investment. So it’s like investing in the stock market. They were to invest $3,000 per month with me. They’re going to get $12,000 back 12 months from now or whatever. That’s kind of how I explain it to them
Joe: (35:03)
And I love the positioning. I think it’s brilliant. I think that a lot of people I see in this space running agencies aren’t making that investment, right type of conversation and they’re not having that in their sales pitch. So a customer’s expecting that they’re going to break even or make money month one. Like, and it’s just the completely wrong expectation to make. So dude, I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways for people in this interview. Thank you.
Billy: (35:32)
Yeah, of course. And I mean, that’s like mean if you’re gonna. I explained to them that if going to get a 400% return on the stock market in one year, that’s like you’d be the best investor in the world. So that’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re really helped the business owners be able to do. And back to the 2x. So back to the roofers situation, for example. For a client like as far as profit, if they’re actually getting like a 2x return on profit, like that’s amazing. It’s like if you can get a two x return with profit, that’s amazing results. So it really just depends. You have to work out with your client. And actually an even better thing you can do is you can just ask your client at the end of the meeting, what kind of results would you want to get out of us working together? And then they’ll give you the answer instead of you giving it. Now of course, if their expectation is too ridiculous, then you’ve got to put them back in their place. But sometimes they might even give you a lower answer, then you are going to tell them. So, that’s what I would do. If you’re a little bit worried about like what kind of results should I tell them to expect? Just ask them what results they would want to get.
Joe: (36:32)
Yup. Yeah. I think you gotta be careful there because I think, setting expectations is like your job as the marketer, right? And I feel like nobody really does it very well, at least not newer people to the space. So I think asking a client that can be a little dangerous because you’re letting go, you’re right, they kind of own expectations. But if you’re new, like you’re running a consultative sales process, like go for it, ask it and see what they say. Just don’t take that as, as Gold or Gospel writer as the truth. Ask a bunch of them that question. But yeah, that’s awesome stuff. Alright, so then step four, close to five. Set up the campaign. Step six, help the client close the leads. So, in step five, in terms of campaigns set up, like how crazy are you going with the campaigns, right?
Joe: (37:18)
Like what’s targeting look like? Are you building landing pages? Is that included? Do you not build landing pages and just do lead ads? Or kind of where do you draw the line or suggest people do because you can have a deliverable that’s like very simple and that set up, you know, probably by some VAs or members on your team, right? That’s like copy and paste and done in an hour or two that is going to work, right? It’s not like you’re not going to be able to deliver a return or you can have something that takes a week for them to set up. Where do you kind of draw the line?
Billy: (37:51)
Yeah, good question. So I always say the simple, the simpler, the better obviously. And so you think about how can I get them the best result in the simplest way. So for me personally, it’s just setting up Facebook lead Gen ads so you don’t even have to create landing pages. And I’ve known, I’ve tested lead Gen ads versus landing pages and lead Gen ads work just as good, if not better than the landing pages. So I might as well, even if they work the same, I was still using a lead gen ads because they’re way faster to set up. You don’t have to get an outside software and build a landing page out every single time. So you can, everything’s within Facebook and actually the only software you really need is this thing called Zapier, which will take the Facebook leads and send them to your client’s phone if you want that.
Billy: (38:36)
Or you can send the leads to a Google spreadsheet where they can mark like which ones have been booked and stuff like that. So I think about, okay, how can I get them the most return with the least amount of work possible? So that’s what I usually recommend. And so I just set up basic lead gen ad. I might set up like a couple of small split tests, maybe like two or three split tests. Like for example, one might be, nice thing about local businesses with Facebook ads is the targeting is super easy because it’s locally small, so your audience is already refined to that local area. So compared to if you’re running ads to the whole United States, you’re gonna want to choose some interests and stuff like that. But if you’re already running ads in a local area, your audience is already defined to that local area.
Billy: (39:22)
So a lot of times you can get your clients better results with not even putting any targeting at all. So it’s really, really simple in a lot of cases and the most complicated I get, there’s three audiences that I will typically split tests. One, a customer look alike of their previous clients. Two, just like broad, everybody in the area between certain age ranges that their typical customers are in. And then the third one is just, interests related to their business. So let’s say they’re a counseling business, maybe I just put some interests on like anxiety, depression and things related to those interests that might be interesting in counseling. And then I’ll just split test those three different audiences. And then as far as split testing ads, I mean if I already know an ad’s going to work, sometimes I wouldn’t even split test anything. But, I might do like one or one to three splits house on different ads as well.
Billy: (40:08)
Potentially if you want. And honestly you can set up your ads in a way. Like if you make three different ads at the beginning and, or if you’re working with the clients like at the same industry over and over again and you have like the same three ads that you know works, you put the three ads at the beginning and now you can set that campaign up in a way that the ads are literally gonna last for months and you don’t have to even touch the campaign for like three months at a time and not even, you’re still getting paid every single month from your client. So just focused on making your process, systemize it and simple as possible is the best way to go about it. Definitely. Cause then you make it too complicated than you’re spending all your time doing the work rather than getting new clients.
Joe: (40:46)
Yep. 100% so do you believe that you should run the campaigns kind of longterm and do sales or kind of, how do you suggest your members like get to six figures then bring somebody on to help run kind of the management or what do you suggest when people kind of ask about building out a team or when should I or, what advice would you give somebody in that kind of situation?
Billy: (41:08)
Good question. I would say build a team as soon as you financially can and by a team, I mean keep it really, really simple. Like just hire one person to do everything for your clients. Like you can just hire one person to do, it’d be as for your client to do the emails back and forth with your client. Do literally and send them like a monthly report. If you want to do that too. You don’t have to do a monthly report. But, I do personally and just have them create that series. Then it’s your client every month. So literally, and because you’re keeping your process so simple. And, like with my training for example, I, I haven’t told my students this yet, but I’ll probably tell them like if you get a training on how to do Facebook ads or something that does it, you can literally just give the training to your employee. Maybe you don’t want to give him the videos on how to sell and stuff like that if you don’t want him to start their own agency. But you could give them the videos on how to do the Facebook ads and they can just watch them and learn how to do it.
Billy: (42:05)
So it’s really that simple. Or you can just record videos of yourself, like set up the client ads for one client for yourself, record videos of that, and then just give it to a VA. And then even if they don’t do a good job, you just get rid of him and onto the next person and see if they do a good job. And you just set the like expectations with them. You just give them, you don’t pay them hourly or anything like that. I usually just pay mine weekly or you can pay them monthly or biweekly or pay them like let’s say you’re charging $2,000 per client and you give them $500 per client. So that’s how I would typically recommend people do it. And so you’re getting three-fourths of the money without doing any work and there’s people, trust me, there’s people, because it’s a little work, people are willing to do the $500 per month. To just do the Facebook ads for them. So you just have to simplify your process. And I would just hire someone as soon as you’re financially able to use, to answer to the question. And so like even if you have one client, you can still hire someone for $500 to do it.
Joe: (43:00)
As you look at your customers, as you look at your students, as you look at, like the more, I want to say, educated or advanced social media marketing agency owners that you’ve worked with and that you’ve trained, what do you think are the top three kind of mistakes that those more advanced agency owners are making?
Billy: (43:22)
Good question. So what would you want to like, um, like people already passed six figures or maybe there to have like three clients in there at like 5,000 to $6,000 per month, but they’re struggling to get to like six figures or which, which kind of person would you want me to give the mistakes out?
Joe: (00:00)
All right. Cool. So when you look at like kind of your more advanced customers, your more advanced students, the more advanced people, even just in the social media marketing kind of agency world, when you look at the owners there, right? What three big mistakes or two big mistakes do you think that they’re making right now in the marketplace?
Billy: (00:21)
Yeah, good question. So would you say people that are earning, making like over six figures trying to scale up, or would you say those people just before six figures and trying to get to that point?
Joe: (00:31)
Yeah. So let’s say that they’re like advanced there at the six figure mark, and now they’re trying to scale, what are the big issues and land mines that they’re running into, that you would, you know, tell them to watch out for?
Billy: (00:45)
Yeah, good question. So I would say the main thing, it’s your systemization and honestly, you probably don’t even need three mistakes. I would say the number one thing and the hardest one, that’s all of this is the systematization of their business. And I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I actually hear feedback of, I can hear my own voice a little bit through your mic. But I’ll keep going, if that’s okay. Okay, cool. So, yeah, the biggest mistake is systemizing their business, taking yourself out of the process of providing your clients results. And the way that you can systemize your business is you can write down for a week, every hour, which you do every day. So every hour of your workday or every 30 minutes of your workday, you can put a timer or like look at your clock, write down what you did in the last 30 minutes or the last hour, every single thing you did, and then see where all your time is going.
Billy: (01:38)
And then you see where most of your time is going. And then you or you see where the different place that your time is going and you think about who can I hire for this part? Or who can I hire for this part? Or what system can I put in place that I can automate this part or can I eliminate this, which is actually the best thing a lot of times. So really systemizing everything. This is at the point when you get to actually six figures that you have, like it’s an absolute necessity that you simplify your business and you actually niche down because you won’t be able to scale if you’re doing tons and tons of different clients. And you’re trying to, you’re setting up like a brand new campaign every single time. Like it’s just not going to work as far as scaling it up if you want to go farther than that.
Billy: (02:17)
So that’s actually one route to go is systemizing your process. And I say like as far as employees go, some people say to hire an employee for like every task. But me personally, I think the most effective way is hire as few people as possible because then you have someone talking to your clients, they’re doing the monthly reports or they’re able to like combine. They’re actually doing the ads too. So then they can combine all that knowledge together in the head rather than, versus someone have to communicate each of those different parts, which makes it a lot more difficult. So I would say hire as few people as you can to systemize those process and take yourself completely out of the providing clients results side. You’d have to take your self out of that completely. And then the other trick of course is automating the sales side as well.
Billy: (03:02)
So you have to do that same thing that you did for the getting results sides here, getting clients side as well. So now you have to think about how can I make a system simple as possible and to bring us new clients. So that might be like a vsl case study funnel where people book an appointment with you to do your consultation call. So they watched the video first and then they fill out a questionnaire. So they’re more qualified. Now they already understand how your service works. They’re already like presold and now you get on the call or your salesperson even gets on the call. You have the script for your sales person. Like it just gets all down to the systems in place as the number one mistake. So the thing you have to do with getting the six, getting like multiple six figures is really systemizing your agency.
Billy: (03:43)
Getting rid of everything that’s not necessary. Taking out all of the extra parts. It’s just like a normal car versus taking it to like a drag race. You’re gonna take everything out of the car to make it as fast as possible. That’s what you have to really do in order to scale your agency. Now another kind of cool way that some people scale their agency. Well, one way is obviously taking on more high tech clients because you can have the same number of clients and do it that way. But another way that I’ve seen people scale their agency recently, like a Alex Hormozi, I believe, for example, he owns Gym Launch. And the way that he’s done it is he’s made some more, it’s more so teaching, I don’t know if he actually is doing this, but I think this is the way that a lot of people are doing it, is coming more of like a training approach.
Billy: (04:25)
And so having a way that you can infinitely scale. So instead of actually doing the ads for your clients, you give the training to your clients of how to do the ads themselves and you can still sell it for the same amount of money. And maybe like for example, you can still charge them a monthly retainer and you’ll give them new ads every single month. So they’re still paying you a monthly retainer and you simply give them the training on how to run the, instead of the ad themselves and the sales scripts and everything like that. So you’re not no longer doing the, actual results side at all. You don’t even have to hire someone to do it. So that’s another option as well. You can create more so of a training program for your specific industry where the clients do it themselves. And you can still have like twice weekly consulting calls for example, group consulting calls where your, if your clients are having trouble, they jump on the consulting call with you, they ask you whatever questions and they can get it solved that way. If you, if any of you guys are familiar with like Sam Ovens, Uplevel Consulting, kind of what he recommends that people do as far as scaling their consulting business. So that’s kind of a good idea that you guys can take away from as well.
Joe: (05:29)
Yeah, I didn’t know Sam recommended that. But I have seen like guys like Gym Launch and others that I know for sure. I was trying to think of another example where they’ve moved out of the services business almost and now they kind of just give their clients everything, right? They’ll help, you know, jump into their ads account and give them some tips and tricks, right. But it’s almost like a training program or an info product would be, right, except they’re paying every single month for it and they’re, you know, just adding value and adding deliverable. So I love that tip. Actually, recently I had a guest on that’s like an expert in just creating info products and training products and kind of we just talked about just that and how our market of agencies could essentially do just that. So that’s absolutely brilliant. I’m glad that you brought that up.
Billy: (06:17)
Yeah, of course. And I actually know a guy as well that runs a chiropractic consulting agency. And basically he does that exact thing now. He does all of the parts of their business, not just like getting new clients side. He teaches them how to like, I guess to close the clients, how to structure there. I mean he probably teaches them how to do everything. I don’t know the ins and out of the business model, but I know he charges like $2,000 a month and he makes them pay like 26 grand up front to work with them over the course of two years. Which is actually, no, he doesn’t make them pay up front, but it makes them pay per month. But he makes them do a contract. They’re going to work for them for two years because the value of what he’s providing is actually $2,000 or $26,000 up front. But what he’s really doing is he’s just spreading out the, he’s pretty much giving them like a payment plan of doing it, you know what I mean? So he’s justifying the cost of $26,000 by just explaining it as like, look, it’s $26,000 but this is going to change your life and your chiropractic business forever because you’re gonna be able to scale up your business.
Billy: (07:15)
And he’s really like systemize the process of building a successful chiropractic practice. And he pretty much sells it for 26 grand except they just pay it a $2,000 per month.
Joe: (07:29)
Yeah. In the medical space. I think there’s a lot of people doing things kind of like that, but I think it’s kind of foreign in other markets. So like practice management for example is basically that, I mean it’s like practice management or business consulting. But then a lot of them have gotten really smart now they’ve put it into training courses and they’re doing one to many with it instead of, you know, the whole one on one type of deal.
Billy: (07:51)
Yeah, exactly. It’s totally up to you guys. Like whatever you decide is right for your agency, whatever you personally prefer as well and whatever you think will help your clients the most of course. And actually it’s funny because a lot of people think that by you doing the services for them, it’ll help their clients more. But actually a lot of times it doesn’t because when you’re doing the work for them, they expect you to get all the results like wave a magic wand to fix their business, but when they’re doing it themselves, they see like the problems and they see like if they’re not calling the leads, they’re not closing, then they know that it’s their own fault for not closing the leads versus your fault for bringing like low quality leads or whatever. So they take more of the responsibility themselves when they’re doing it on their own.
Joe: (08:32)
Yeah, definitely believe that there’s a huge, huge opportunity there for people that are willing to take the jump 100%. Um, so dude, this has been absolutely amazing, Billy. I really appreciate you coming on. I got one more question. But before we jump into that question, man, where can people find you? Right? If they want to, you know, they’ll listen to those podcasts. They watched the video on youtube, however they watch it or consume it, right? Where can they follow you? Where should they follow you? Um, and then I’ll ask you the one last question.
Billy: (09:00)
Yeah, great question. So probably the best place to follow me is on Youtube. So it’s just Billy Willson, my last name, Willson, it was with two L’s. So that’s the only thing you have to look at as far as spelling it. So you can just type in Youtube Billy Wilson or find a link like near this video. And you can add me on Instagram as well. It’s the same name, but youtube is like, I would say where my most valuable content is.
Joe: (09:21)
Okay, cool. Yeah, we’ll definitely put that in the show notes. And again, guys, he did say it, but there’s two L’s in Wilson. I couldn’t find him for the longest time and then I’m like, Oh dude, I’m subscribed to this guy. Yeah. So, so yeah, definitely click the link in the show notes or just know that there’s two L’s. So last question here, man. Billy, thanks so much for joining us here today. So I’ve learned that you’re not so much into reading books, so we’re going to make our last question a little different than normal. So I want to ask you, who’s the one person that’s made the biggest impact on the way that you do business? Right? And why?
Billy: (09:55)
Yeah. Good question. So the biggest person, I would have to say is Sam Ovens just because I joined his Uplevel Consulting program. Just like I talked about. I was already at my agency with six figures at that point, but he was really the person that helped me systemize everything and systemize my life, not only my business, but also my life in a way that allowed me to take my business from like 10, 20,000 all the way up to now $100,000 per month. So I would say he’s the one that has the biggest effect. And also there’s nothing wrong with the books or anything like that. Like I just personally believe It’s just not my personal strength as far as my, the thing that works best in my brain, I think I’ve found that videos actually works a lot better for my brain as far as retention. I feel like my reading retention isn’t the greatest and it’s always been like that since I was young.
Billy: (10:45)
And of course, yeah, I can approve it, but I think I would rather focus on my natural strength. And from there, I’m still open to like reading books and everything. And most of the time I try to think about how can I get the most information with the least amount of time investment as well. And so a lot of times I might even like pay someone that has read all these books and ask them the same questions or what they’ve learned from the books so then I can save the time than reading them myself. It’s kind of a funny way to think about it, but of course there’s benefits to reading them as well yourself.
Joe: (11:13)
100% man. I agree with that. I know that for me, like making myself sit down to read a book doesn’t really happen. Right? I can schedule it in my calendar and I’m like, yeah, nope, that’s not gonna happen. So you got to have a way that you can consume it, right. Otherwise it’s just not gonna work something that works for you. So for me, I’m in the gym every day, right? So for me it just goes on audible. I’m listening to it. At 1.5 and I can retain it, I can get through it. And while I’m at the gym, like after like 15 or 20 minutes, I’m done with the music anyway. Like I need something else. Or my brain’s just often Lala land. So, I completely agree. You got to find something, you know, a way to learn that, that resonates with you so that you actually do it.
Billy: (11:55)
Yep. Exactly.
Joe: (11:57)
All right, Billy, thanks so much, man for coming on. We’re looking forward to seeing big, big things from you. So thanks so much guys, everybody. And, if you would just comment down below, let us know what you thought about this podcast. We’ll see you guys in the next episode.
Billy: (12:08)
Awesome. Thanks so much for having me on and great questions.
Speaker 2: (12:14)
All right, brother. Thanks for coming on, man. You did a great job. Um, I know people are going to get a lot of value out of this one.
