 What is up everybody? Welcome back to the channel. Shout out to Raymond. Raymond dropped me a comment a couple hours ago and I just thought it'd be beneficial if I shared it because this is a good question, especially for people that are starting out, freelancers, people building an agency, trying to build an agency and just going after clients, going after business owners and really offering services, marketing services, social media marketing services. So this kind of video is for you guys, since that's what I do full-time. I've been building a social media agency since 2016, here in San Diego, but hundreds of clients later, every single one of them is across the country. Every single one of them has been, and I'm referring to 100%, 100% of them has been through social media, through direct messaging or maybe even my YouTube channel, but really not really, my YouTube channel really isn't for that. My whole strategy around building my agency is all through the DM on social media. So I just want to kind of walk through this comment and kind of just maybe shed some light on my approach and how I do it. And I just truly believe, man, when I started my agency in 2016 and I was learning from the same people that you guys were learning from, there was pretty much one approach and every single person was teaching, every guru was teaching, go out there and get a client for 2,000 a month or 2,500 a month. And so as I started doing that, I noticed that that was a huge responsibility and my knowledge wasn't quite there just yet. Like I didn't master Facebook ads at that point. This was in 2016. You know, I didn't master Instagram ads or YouTube ads at that point. And so I knew that everyone was pitching, every agency out there was going after clients, pitching expensive marketing packages to run their Facebook ads or build their landing pages, right? So as I'm jumping in in 2016, I'm realizing that the majority of my competition, the majority of the market out there was pitching these high price packages, right? And so after analyzing the market, the consumer market, first of all, it started by knowing my niche, okay? After analyzing my niche and really following a lot of them on social media and starting to see how they were marketing their business, I just realized that 99.9% of them were missing the basics and majority of them couldn't even afford 2,500 a month on a monthly retainer. So I knew that the majority of them couldn't afford that. So therefore, but at the same time, there's always a percentage that can, right? You have your wealthy buyers and you have your normal day-to-day average joke consumers, right? Buyers. So there's a market for everything and for everyone, for every price point, there's a market. But at the same time, I knew that I didn't wanna rely on going after high ticket monthly retaining clients. Because if I did, then I was gonna leave a lot of money off on the table and I didn't wanna do that. So I had to figure out different services that I can provide at a lower price point just to get me through the door. Like just to allow me to provide a few basic services, impress them, build a relationship with them, and then eventually gradually grow with them from there and take them higher every month on my retainer, for example. So it started by knowing my niche, right? I truly believe that you have to niche down. I niche down from day one. So in 2016, I started going after one specific client, one niche, and I've been on that niche ever since. So that's something you have to do for sure. And the way I kind of fell into my niche was the fact that I came from that industry. I came from mortgages and real estate. So I knew what a lot of them were lacking. I knew a lot of them were not marketing. I knew a lot of them were not leveraging social media marketing. So I knew the pains and I knew the pros and cons of that entire industry when it came to what I was trying to provide, which was social media marketing services and Facebook advertising. So I truly believe you have to know the niche. You have to know the pain points. And I truly believe also that you have to have some type of experience in it, man. Like you have to have came from that industry or you have to have some type of passion or interest or future interest in that industry because anything you do, man, is going to be hard. Like anything you do is hard. I don't care what it is, man. Anything you do is hard. So one of my favorite quotes from the late great Steve Jobs was the fact that he said, and I quote, you have to love what you do. Because if you don't, you're going to quit because it takes drive, it takes determination, it takes commitment, it takes sweat equity. It takes just hustle and grind until you see it pop off. And it's not gonna pop off overnight. It's gonna take some time to get anything off the ground. And so you better have a passion in it. You better have an interest in it. You better like what you're doing or you're going to quit. And so I just think you have to have a background. You have to have some type of experience or you have to have some type of passion or interest in the niche that you're looking to pursue. Again, this is for you guys that are freelancers or trying to build an agency or going after clients to provide services. That niche matters, man. Because again, if you have no absolute, no interest in dentistry and you're just some random person, but you're going to go after dentists and provide marketing services, it's like, dude, good luck. Like you may get a few clients, but you're not gonna stick around. Like you're not gonna go all in. You're not gonna build a huge company. You're not gonna build a huge income because you're just in it for the wrong reasons. You gotta dive into it. My whole thing is real estate. Like I love real estate. I wanna buy real estate. I wanna own real estate. I wanna have apartments. Like I come from it. Like I spent six years as a mortgage banker, dealing with loan originators and mortgages for homes and real estate agents and open houses and dealing with all that stuff. I came from that. I came from that background. And then I come from marketing prior to mortgages. I've been in marketing since 1999. You know what I mean? So shit. I got some years on you guys. You know what I mean? So I come from that, which gives me leverage when I'm speaking to people, man. When I'm speaking to these clients or these potential clients, when I'm presenting, I got leverage. Like I'm able to talk the lingo. I'm able to bring up different terms and different vocabulary and different verbiage. I'm able to talk like them. I'm able to say different things that they relate to. And they're like, holy shit. And I know for a fact, it works every time, man. Every time I tell a person that I've been in the mortgage industry and that I dealt with real estate agents and bankers for six years. And anytime I bring that up, which is every presentation, I swear, man. I fill it through the phone. Like I use Zoom, first of all. I don't use a telephone to talk to these clients or pitch these clients. I use Zoom just like this so I can visually share them, share my screen and show them what they're missing. But every time I bring it up, man, it's like I can fill it on the call. I can fill them. They're like, okay, damn, cool, okay. Now I know where he's coming from. I swear, man. Every time I bring up the word mortgage and I tell my background and my experience and it's like, dude, that's the same person. They're coming from the same industry. They're in the same industry. They're gonna automatically, they're gonna gravitate to you. Automatically, they're gonna completely believe what you're saying because all of a sudden, you have a different level of authority. You come from your cut from the same cloth as them and now they feel they can relate to you. Super, super powerful, man. But again, if I was telling people all my background in mortgages and real estate, but yet I'm talking to a freaking doctor and talking to him about ads, he's gonna be like, dude, okay, you don't even know what ad to run. Like they're gonna be thinking like that I'm weird, right? And it is weird. It is weird. So long story short, man, shot to Raymond. This is what he's saying, but I kind of went on a tangent there because I truly believe it's important. You have to know the niche first. You have to know the niche. You have to be fired up about the niche and you have to be all in with that niche, in my opinion, in my experience and you need to know their pain points because that right there is gonna answer this question. He's asking, I was wondering if you have some material or are planning on making a video about how to handle initial meetings. Do you have a certain go-to tips and how-tos, okay? Or do you check out all their stuff and decide the best route? Let's start with that. Let's start with that. That's a really good, a really good couple of questions there. Do you have a certain go-to tips and how-tos? Or do you check out all their stuff and decide the best route? Here's how I used to, here's how I started it. So when I started my agency in 2016, I was offering website services. This is at the very end of 2016. Very end of 2016 into 2017, I was going after the same niche but offering them website services, okay? Because I knew the pain points. Again, I knew that their website sucked. I knew that their website was not controlled by them. It was controlled by the company that they worked for. I knew all these things, right? Which gave me leverage to be able to pitch it to them and say, hey, man, this is why you need this website because your website doesn't belong to you. So I started that in 2016 into 2017 and then into 2020 towards the end of 2017. In fact, I have a video on my YouTube channel. It was at the end of 2017, well, September to be exact. It's on my YouTube channel. September of 2017 is when I switched it up. I switched out my service and I started offering social media marketing services and Facebook advertising because that's when I started realizing that's when the light bulb went off. That's when another light bulb went off and I'm like, dude, they don't need a website. They need this. And so I completely shifted gears and I started pitching landing pages versus a website and I started pitching social media services instead of a website. And so it was in 2017 when I relaunched and still same industry, same niche and I started offering them a completely different service. And both times when I was pitching website services and when I was pitching landing pages and social media services, I was using a PowerPoint. So my PowerPoint, in fact, let me pull it up. I don't use it anymore. I don't use it anymore only because I'd gotten so good and this is not just me being cocky. I'm not trying to be cocky but I got so good at the pitch where I don't even need, in fact, I don't even have it in my downloads anymore. I got so good at the pitch where I didn't even need it anymore and that was a PowerPoint. So when I first started, I had a PowerPoint. I would bring up my PowerPoint. I would share screen just like this. I use Zoom for this screen share and this is a free app, zoom.us. You guys can go to this site over here and install Zoom. This right here is what I'm using to make every single YouTube video and it's what I use to schedule my appointments. So I use Zoom. When you come in here, you have your own link and you can, in fact, let me just, let me just log in and show you. This is my link right here. So this is literally the link that I'm on right now. Okay, that's the link that I share when I go to schedule appointments, which I'll get into. But I use Zoom to share my screen and walk them through and I would share my PowerPoint, right? I would share my PowerPoint with them and I would go over certain steps. So again, in my particular case with me, man, back to your question. My tips and how to's were, it all started by me analyzing the market and knowing what they were missing. That's another thing, man. You have to go all in with that market because you wanna analyze the market. You wanna analyze that niche and you wanna see what they're missing, what can they improve on? And here's the thing, man, here's a tip for you guys is that my whole strategy has been the DM. My whole strategy has been direct messaging my niche people on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Those three platforms and Twitter, you can even do it on Twitter. But on Twitter too, what I teach and what I've done since 2016 is I say, okay, go get rid of every single person on Instagram that you're following and only follow your niche. Get rid of every single random person on your LinkedIn and only connect with people in your niche and do it by the thousands. Connect with thousands of people in your niche. If you're going after plumbers, go connect with every single plumber on LinkedIn. I'm talking by the thousands. If you're on Facebook, your personal Facebook page, not your business page, your personal Facebook page, unfriend or block or takeoff, every single random person that you don't know on there and even every family and friend, unfriend every single one of them, move them all to your Instagram and fill up your 5,000 friend list with everyone in that niche. So if you're going after attorneys or if you're going after chiropractors or dentists, you're not looking for the assistant. You're not looking for the employee. You're not looking for the random person that works there. You're looking for the real person and you can find them on LinkedIn and Facebook for sure. Like you can search for it for sure and fill up your 5,000 friends with that niche. That's where it starts, man. That's where it starts. That's what I teach. That's what I've done. That's what I still continue to do and I close multiple clients every single week as a result of it and that's since 2016. That's been since 2016. So when you follow that many people, man, here's what happened to me. Because I'm following thousands of people on the same niche, I started seeing patterns. I started seeing habits. I started seeing what everybody was doing and how everybody's doing the same damn thing. It's so freaking bizarre, man. It's so bizarre. When you're following thousands of people that are in the same field, okay? When it comes to either put it this way, it could apply to anything, a parent. If you're following thousands of people that are parents, if you're following thousands of football fans, if you're following thousands of freaking people who love yoga, same thing, man. People start to post the same stuff, right? And so same thing with Facebook. As you fill up your friend list, you have 5,000 spots. I literally filled up every single one of them with people in my niche and I unfriend and add more. I keep that 5,000 list fresh at all times, man. And so what happened to me is that in 2018, I started realizing, I'm like, dang, all these people are doing the same thing and they all suck and they're all missing the basics. They're all missing this. They're all missing that. And so I already knew as I started to build and as I started to reach out and as I started to message, first of all, that messaging, man, I would tweak my approach and tweak my message every week. Like, okay, this message didn't get that many people to reply to my direct message. Let me twist a few words and tweak it a little bit and send out another one. And so that has been a constant improvement. And now at the making of this video, which is freaking what are we in November of 2019, I have literally, literally perfected my message from the message I send them to when I reply to when they reply to the next message I send them to when they reply to how I get them to schedule an appointment with me on Zoom. Like I have mastered that part, man. I do it like clockwork. I can message in my freaking sleep and get people to schedule an appointment with me. Now, I stuff to go through my numbers. It's not like a magic message where I send it to one person and all of a sudden they're like, yeah, let's talk tomorrow. No, I stuff to go through my numbers like anything, but my percentages are freaking high. My close rate is 90%. Like when I get you on Zoom like this and we talk and I'm getting ready to show you what you're missing, 90% closure rate, man. I close nine out of every 10 and it's been like that since 2016. So it all starts, Raymond. It all starts. You're asking, do you have a certain go-to tips and how-tos or do you just check out their stuff and decide the best route? This right here is from me analyzing and me doing my research and me doing my due diligence and me following thousands of people to see what thousands of people are doing and to see what thousands of people are not doing. Again, this could be on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter. You could be doing this approach on all these four platforms, those top four for sure because you can follow that niche and you can direct message that person. That's why it works. So I started knowing what they were lacking and I started using that to my advantage. And so yes, man, I do know what... First of all, I don't go look at all the... If anything, I'll glance at their stuff. But again, man, at this point, I have already realized what 99% of my niche lacks. Like, I already know it. And I already know what they all want. Every single business owner, man, every business owner. So if you're a freelancer or if you're building an agency and you're going after clients, 100%, it does not matter what business it is. Man, it could be any business. 100% of them are looking for a lead or a sell. Bottom line, there's nothing out to business, man. You're either selling something or you're not. Bottom line. And so I just developed like a simple five step system that teaches people the basic steps. Like here's step one, implement all this on your social media. Here's step two, run this Facebook ad. Here's step three, run this Facebook ad. Here's step four, drive them to a landing page. Here's step five, take them to an email audit responder. These five basic steps apply to any freaking business on the planet and they're basic steps that I truly believe my niche miss. And so when I break it down, I already know what they're looking for. And so therefore it makes it very easy for me to explain what I'm offering. And what I'm offering are these five basic steps. You're looking for step three, Mrs. Johnson. You're looking for step three, Stacey. Let me show you step one and two as well. Like let me show you step four, let me show you step five. And all this applies to social media marketing, which is what I'm teaching, right? So whatever the heck you're teaching, find a way to put it into a simple system that makes sense to the consumer, to the business owner. You know, make it, I truly believe, again, man, you hear me talk about basics all the time. I truly believe in explaining shit basic, like explain the basics, like explain it to a second year old, like teach this stuff as you're teaching it to a freaking sec, not second year old, like you're teaching it to a freaking second grader. Like it has to be that basic. In my opinion, man, you can be as complex as you want and you can be as complicated as you want and there's a niche for you guys too. But again, man, what I've experienced and what I realized is that my niche, and I truly believe it's every niche, they all miss the basics. They all miss the basics when it comes to social media marketing and Facebook advertising. And so, yes, I already know of what they're lacking. I already know what their stuff is missing, which gives me leverage to know the best route. And again, my best route, it's the same. It's the same five steps, it's the same route, it's the same thing that I'm teaching every single person. I get onto the call, I get onto the call already knowing what they want, which is a lead or a sell, but then I have to dumb it down and bring them back down and say, hey, man, that's what I call step three. Let me share with you step one and two. Because without step one and two, your step three ain't gonna make much sense. Your step three is not gonna convert as high as you think it would, which is Facebook advertising or Instagram advertising. That's not gonna convert for you as well because step one and two has not been implemented. And so I dumb it down. And then once I show them step one, they're like, dang dude, that makes a lot of sense. And then once I show them step two, they're like, damn, I do need to do that first. So it makes sense to the client because again, I've done my due diligence and I know what they freaking are missing. So yes, I do check out their stuff and decide the best route. But again, I already know the route. Like I already know the route. That's why I have a 90% close rate, man, because I already know the best route. And that's why with you, Raymond, you should know the best route as well. Whatever niche you're going after, know the best route. Know that they're only looking for a sell or lead. So what's the best route to get there? And dumb it down. Dumb it down to an elementary level where you can explain it and get that sell. So what is your strategy there? And most importantly, how do you transition the eventual sells pitch or want a better phrase? Or want a better phrase? Okay, so what is your strategy there? And most importantly, how do you transition the eventual sells pitch? Okay, so here's another really good question, man. Another really good question. It's so crazy that you bring that up because I already know that, like everyone's pitching, everyone has a pitch. And from a consumer's perspective, when you're a business owner, you know that everyone's trying to pitch you. Like it's just what business owners get. Like we're not the only marketers hitting up a business owner about offering services. Like they're getting 10 million calls a day, right? And that's why I truly believe my approach and my whole approach, man, is completely different than what I was learning in 2016 from every guru. I have a completely different approach. And I even tell them in the beginning of the call, like I even tell them, I say, hey, John, let me make this clear. I'm not here to pitch anything. What I'm gonna do is show you these basic steps to implement on your social media to really help you with your branding, help you with your exposure and help you with your overall lead capture. And the only time you'll even need me is if you just simply don't have the time or may not have the knowledge to implement this yourself. I literally make it sound like a consulting call. Like I'm on their side. I'm not here to pitch you. I'm not here to convince you. I'm not here to close you on some overwhelming expensive package. I'm here to show you the basics on what I truly believe your pages are missing and how you can implement them yourself. But if you don't have the time or the knowledge, for sure I'll be here to help you, but let me kind of just walk you through and visually show you what I mean. And again, these are basic steps that I truly believe you're missing. Should you implement them? I just really believe they'll enhance what you're currently doing online and help you attract more clients and help you capture more leads and help you build this overall social media brand, which is what you're trying to do. So that right there is kind of my pitch if you wanna call it, man. I make it sound like a normal call. I make it sound like, hey, man, I'm a consultant. Here's what I wanna share with you. And here's my secret ninja philosophy. Here's my secret ninja philosophy. I go into the call that way, sound like a consultant and sounding like I'm simply showing you what to do. And going into the call thinking that are sounding like I know you're gonna do it yourself. But down inside, I know damn well. This is my ninja strategy, man. This is what makes me a closer. I am a closer. Here's what makes me a closer. Because I already know damn well, you're not gonna do it. I already know you're not gonna have the time and I already know you don't know how. And I already know you don't have the patience to learn it, like I already know. Like so by me teaching them, by me showing them, by me consulting them, by me helping them and by me visually walking them through each step, that really allows the call to open up and make them feel more welcome and make them feel like I'm not pitching them. And then at the end of the call, they always tell me, David, you know what shit, that sounds super freaking awesome, but I'm a professional plumber or I'm a landscaper or I'm a doctor or I'm a physician or I'm a dentist. I don't have time to do any of that stuff. I need you to do it for me. I swear you guys, 100% of the time, man, that's what happens, 100% of the time. Dude, they're a freaking automotive mechanic. Like they're running a business. Like they don't have time to do all the stuff, but they know, here's the thing, man, every business on the planet knows the importance of it. They know how important social media marketing is for their business. They know they need to be running some type of Facebook ad or Instagram ad or YouTube ad. They know that, they know that. The buzz has already been out for a few years now on the importance of building your business on social media. You have to have an online presence. So they know the importance of it. And so when you're over here talking to them and consulting them, like no other company is or no other freelancer is because everyone's trying to pitch and close the deal and everyone's pitching a high ticket. When you talk to them and say, hey man, this is where we can start. Like let's start on step one and two first and it's not going to cost an arm and a leg. Like let's start there first and as we get everything updated, as we start to run some Facebook ads together, as we really start to build a relationship, we will scale up together. We will grow together. And that's what I tell my clients all the time. I'm like, man, I don't want to start you at an expensive package. I want to grow with you. Like I want to start small and increase monthly as we start to capture more leads, as we start to close more deals, I want to grow with you. And that's been my strategy. My whole process is approaching the call that way and knowing at the end of the call, they're not going to have the time or the willingness to go do it themselves. They're going to need you to do it. They're going to need you to do it. And that whole call will literally last about a good call with everything being said is about 30 minutes. About a 30 to 45 minute call. And I'm off. And so the way I transition is that way. I'm not really, I am pitching. I'm so ninja where I am pitching. I'm pitching the whole damn time, but I'm making it sound like I'm just consulting. I'm making it sound like I'm just teaching and I'm coaching and I'm guiding them and I'm walking them through. And that's why I use Zoom so I can visually share with them what their pages are missing. And then I can share other clients of mine and I can show them their pages and they're like, damn, that person, he's in the same industry as I'm in. His pages look way better than mine. And so this whole Zoom app allows me to visually walk them through, man, and show them how their overall social media presence can improve. And so I hope that helped, Raymond. I hope that helped, man. It all starts with knowing the niche. It all starts with knowing their pain points. It all starts with being able to leverage your experience or your background or your interest or your passion. It helps to be able to leverage that type of selling point, really, it's a sales point. I use that as my leverage to get me more respect, so to speak, on that call and make it seem like I am a big deal. I'm the important one here. Your business is important, but without me, none of that's gonna happen, man. You're not gonna be able to run a Facebook out of the right way. You're not gonna capture a lead. You're not gonna freaking make more money. Your whole social media brand is not gonna be as up to date as it should or up to par as it should. You need me. So I know I have that type of authority on the call already, but being able to leverage my experience and background in the same industry definitely helps. Okay, it helps a lot. And having all your social media up is super important. So watch some of my previous videos on how I'm building a social media agency. In my playlist, if you're kind of my channel, you click on Playlist right here, click on Playlist. One good playlist to look at is how I'm building my social media agency. And then also, if you really, really wanna know, Raymond, here's another thing, man. If you really wanna know how I'm building the damn thing, there's a link in the description, digitalagencyblueprint.com. That is an actual VIP email list where I'm teaching a lot of what I'm doing and how I'm doing. That's gonna be a whole new training course that I'm gonna be releasing in 2020, teaching people exactly how I built my agency from my niche, from direct messaging them, from presenting to closing to the services that I offer. I'm gonna be packaging all that up and offering that as a real good training course to teach you how I'm building my social media agency. So that's digitalagencyblueprint.com. If you're new to Facebook ads, you gotta know the basics, man. If you're gonna be offering these types of services, make sure you check out FBAdsForBeginners.com. That link is in the description. That's where I'm teaching people the basics, starting the most important foundation of your Facebook advertising career or endeavor or whatever the hell you wanna call it. I've been through so many courses, man. Shout out to every guru out there, but so many people miss the basics. I truly believe so many people miss the basics and that's what FBAdsForBeginners is gonna be all about, is teaching people how to launch successful Facebook ads and how to cross the T's and dot the I's with setting the right foundation and knowing the basics because the basics will kill you if you don't implement them, man. Had I knew different ads to run in the beginning, I would have saved thousands and thousands of dollars. So FBAdsForBeginners.com is gonna be an amazing course that I release as well, teaching people the basics of Facebook advertising. So those will be two good links for you, Raymond. Let's stay in touch for sure, you guys. What I do during the day is build my social media agency. What I'm doing during the day is direct messaging, running Facebook ads and presenting to social media clients. That's what I do during the day. And then that all started in 2016 and from that came a book that I wrote, a digital book that I wrote, and an actual training course. And that's what kind of led me to falling in love, to falling in love, excuse me, that's what led me to falling in love with digital publishing, being able to package all that knowledge and put it into video form and being able to offer it to my specific niche. Like that has been a game changer as well and that's what I'm looking to scale in 2020. It's my course. But when you're starting out, man, I'm telling you, man, I did it on a shoestring budget. I didn't run Facebook ads in the beginning. I did not cold call. I didn't tell a market. I didn't door knock. I didn't do any of that. All through the direct message, all from my little office, all from freaking a laptop and a cell phone, man, and a wifi connection. I built my agency. So you guys can too, man, keep it simple. Go after that niche on social media, become friends with them, direct message and bring value. All right, guys, so thanks for the comment, Raymond. Much love and respect, man. I'll see you guys on the next video over and out.