Build your dream business with Alejandro Reyes - AdSkills Pro Podcast EP.3

Unknown Speaker : 0:08

Welcome everybody to this episode of the ad skills pro podcast where we share case studies from real life campaigns from top media buyers. And of course, the best part is, you're gonna have a chance to find out how you can hire these pros at the end of this episode. So again, welcome. My name is Kate buck and today I am sitting down with Alejandro Reyes, a top ad buyer and he's going to share with us a little bit about his approach and some of his best case studies. So Alejandro, it's great to finally get you on the show.

Unknown Speaker : 0:44

so pumped to be here especially with you Kate so yeah, man, I'm excited about this and you said top ad buyer and I just like man, when you're, when you're in add skills, you sometimes feel like a newbie and I think we all are newbies period, and always Learning but a man What an amazing community amazing group. So thanks for having me.

Unknown Speaker : 1:05

Yeah, you have been on my radar for a while now. Well, and but I might even be a little late to the show. But you've been on my radar for about 18 months or so where I've kind of been keeping what you're doing on Facebook and showing up but I'm curious. For those for everybody that's listening, like when you got started in media buying or even, you know, lots of folks of course, have had quite a journey in this internet business that maybe landed them to media buying and also I kind of think of you unless I'm, unless I'm wrong, I think of you as more than just a media buyer. But talk to me about your journey and what got you What got you to where you are today. What were you doing even before media buying? I'm just curious.

Unknown Speaker : 1:48

No, that's great. So I'll try to make it Reader's Digest quick. But 99 it was either the path or road to success by Bill Gates and half of every dollar will be spent online. By 2010, and for some reason, 20 years later that's etched into my school and, and, and I wanted to learn how to sell stuff online because the traditional route of work didn't work for my parents. And so I just knew that I did not want to work a regular job. And so I learned, but I didn't implement for a long time. And I had a lot of knowledge and I think a lot of time as media buyers, entrepreneurs, we we'd like to learn, learn, learn, and it's just an excuse for not taking action. And so what ended up happening was my first kind of thing I got hooked on was SEO. So you know, believe it or not a lot of SEO I learned back in the day actually came from Justin. I was actually one of Justin's if not his first very first customer on the internet. And I started I started a local agency doing doing SEO for local small businesses and at the same time Time was, you know, we were calling it web 2.0. And you know this Kate, but you know, that was the name of social media before became social media. So I started working with local small businesses teaching them how to use social media in SEO. And, you know, Justin started talking about paid advertising like that's just a waste of time. This is free forms of advertising go free, free, free and Justin's like, yeah, that's gonna take you six months, but turning on paid media is gonna take me like moments for traffic. And so I kept doing that. And what ended up happening was right around 2012 I started toying and playing with Facebook ads as a result of Justin kind of being early with that. And around that time, I ended up selling that company for us to move I sold everything we moved from California to Seattle for my wife to go to nursing school. And while there, I got recruited by a company called push pay, and was a ploy like number 2425. They gave me like half a million dollars a month at advertising. And we went from 700 600 customers to over 7000 and went from 10 million in a 10 million company to 100 million 100 million dollar company in two years. And so a lot of that, you know, early on actually hired actually paid Justin for one on one time to just give me a couple tweaks paid him two different times. And as a result of that, you know, you know, growing that company, when we ended up moving to where my wife lives now, people started reaching out hearing about that push a story. And some authors that people New York Times bestselling authors and kind of the who's who, in my niche started reaching out. I didn't want to start an agency, but man, it just, it just was, you know, I spent so much money in advertising over the last four or five years and I felt like man, don't start an agency again. This time we'll kind of make it a growth agency as opposed to like an ad agency. Cuz you're right, I do a little bit more than just ads. And so so that's what we've been doing over the last couple years. We are not accepting clients at the moment. Like if you literally go to digital napkin.com it is by referral only. So we are an ad agency that's never spent $1 on ads to promote our business, and we've been 100% referral. And the reason we've been 100% referral is because we produce results for our clients. And if there's anything I can you, you can remember today, you can have the business and agency of your dreams, if you help people get results and results fast. And so so that's kind of the story. We work we work with some fun clients and you know, a lot I just I tell people all the time, this is public, you know, 99% of any success I've had in business as an agency is directly related to Justin Brooke or the people in community that he's connected me with and so so I'm indebted to add skills

Unknown Speaker : 5:59

where I'm I heard you about your you know, when you sort of when you started doing the agency work that you were is almost reluctant so to speak. And then you've had the chance to work with some of these amazing clients is there a point in time where you were like behind the scenes and then a point in time where you sort of decided to step out in front and and even though you're not really accepting clients but around like your own personal brand to brand yourself or market yourself as a as the as the expert instead of just being behind the scenes on all of these campaigns to be also teaching what you've learned?

Unknown Speaker : 6:34

That's a great question and I know this is like tactical media buyer. But But the reality is, I love being behind the scenes, although I desire to build a personal brand. And the reason because and here's here's here's like an imposter, imposter syndrome, type thing, Caden, maybe you can coach me through this, but I, it's so easy to spend other people's money I treat it like it's my own, but to To be honest with you, I'm always scared to teach this stuff because I still feel like a newbie. You know, although spent a lot more than a lot of people, you know, if I, if I do this on my own and I teach this and it fails Kate, well then it wasn't actually me that helped those companies it was actually them and their brands. And so I'm this imposter So, so this is actually in real time I'm actually really thinking this through like how and, you know, I want everyone that's listening right now has something to share, we have something deep inside that some sort of gift or something inside of us that we just want to share with the world because we know it can impact a large audience audience or a small audience. And right now kind of working through that courage on the other side of fear to to start teaching what I know and so when I heard about this, I was like, man, I love that that's awesome. I get to share, but but I'm kind of working that through so so I do want to grow more of a personal brand because I think I have like one or two things to say. And so I am in that process as you kind of asked.

Unknown Speaker : 8:08

Cool. Yeah. Well, I, the reason I mentioned that is just because I felt like I said, Wow, you really, really came on my radar, just about 18 months, whatever in the in the most recent history, then I'm listening to you share, and I'm going like, you know, when is it that you decided to like, step out and let people know who you are. So I'm glad that you're here and doing this. And yeah, if I could be a cheerleader for you not only do I think, based on what we're about to hear about some of these campaigns that you do have stuff to share, just I think the audience will agree and you guys can leave a comment below if you're watching this on YouTube or whatever, that you're quite charismatic and the camera loves you. So I highly encourage you to take that leap. So john, you're welcome. You're welcome. So tell me I'm see man, that's so cool that you mentioned that you were one of just you were just in first customer customers on the internet, and I love what you said. Cuz I have a similar experience where I've known Justin a long time. And I've used to kind of feel like the app organic, free web 2.0, social media, blogging, all of that, that I was teaching that, like, ads was like the antithesis and sort of a competitor and I want it it was like, which one's best? Which ones right? And, you know, I think they've they've had their they both have their pros and cons. And they've also both had their heyday sort of depending on what's happening in the marketplace, but we have kind of ended up at a fusion place where I just found myself saying the other day that and I almost, I mean, I almost as an organic and social media marketer had to, to catch my breath because I said any good organic strategy has a really smart adspend behind it. Would you agree with that as well?

Unknown Speaker : 9:53

Yeah, that's actually the strategy and this is a strategy. This is why like, I'm Owen trick pony. Justin taught me something I literally built my entire career, every campaign but like, I have this saying that best strategy wins, like best strategy always wins. So again, we're talking about tactics, but tactics without a sound strategy, a strategy that moves the needle, like it's cute to kind of grow a business. But if you actually want to scale a business, you need a really big idea and a great strategy. And so everything that we do, you know, I feel like we're a content marketing agency almost, and I don't even write content. And so for me, content is the fire. You know, paid traffic is like the gasoline and as you know, you know, one of the best places to advertise right now still, and Justin's probably gonna like bleep this out. Just kidding is Facebook. You know, I know testing is kind of rooting for all these other ones but but man, still so many active users, and if you're not spending money and you do have a page, you know, you're going to see you know, less than one percent organic and so organic, coupled with some paid traffic to that content is really the the foundation, the foundation and eat. Here's actually the reason why. If we think of our favorite authors, speakers, actors, celebrities, the reason that we love them is because what they've done is they've created content. Like we've built trust with someone we've never met, because they've written a book, they've starred in a movie, they've wrapped great lyrics. So we trust people that create content. And so what's the difference between Ace a brand, you know, how do you create trust with someone who create content, I don't care if it's a solopreneur, a small nonprofit business or a large brand, the brands that are winning and scaling are the ones that are have a content first strategy at the top of the funnel with a paid strategy driving and getting that content in front of the right people. And so that is literally the thesis of a lot of of what we Do

Unknown Speaker : 12:02

1000 I'm like, Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. What do you say to people that so on either side of the fence, you've got the Quickstart, you've got ads, which as quickstart, you mentioned, like Justin said he can have results in in a minute. And over here on the other side, where you're talking about content and social marketing, which, as you guys, I'm over here, like nodding huge nods. Yes, yes. Yes. That tends to be the that is a that is a very long term, you know, approach as, as opposed to turning on an ad and in 24 hours. So, you know, is that why there is the balance that you need both that fire so to speak that momentum to get started with the ads and still playing the long game with the content and what would you say to someone who really strongly believes in only one or the other? Well,

Unknown Speaker : 12:49

like I would say, for the most part, it will become increasingly difficult over the next 18 to 24 months. Here's what I say, you know, you can grow like this just, for example, like a course creator, you can grow a business, you can sell it to your existing 1500 to 3000 person email list. But if you want to scale that business, you have to be perceived positioned as the most trusted advisors, Jay Abraham talks about the fiduciary, right? Because if you're a course creator, an agency owner, a product creator program, high ticket coach or whatever, and no one knows who you are, then it's almost like the tree in the forest that is, you know, falls does any you know, no one's around, does it actually make a noise? And that's where I think whether you're any of those people, you have to use content to build that know like and trust. And so it is, I would say that's for the most part because if we look at someone like Justin Justin loves, he does not care about the spotlight. And so I do know a lot of people Don't mind just going straight traffic and want to stay behind the scenes. But a lot of the people that I interact with, and I would say for the most part, it's going to be difficult long term if you're just going ads only, and not building a personal brand or brand. And I would go, you know, there's two types of activities. There's brand building activities that build your brand, that know like and trust. And then there's income generating activities that produce income and you have there's always that that good tension of doing both of those things. But you have to start with a great content strategy, because if this is done, right, Kate, you actually sell effortless, you go from being the hunter to the hunted, and it becomes so much easier to sell to people that are raising their hand and saying, yes, you're speaking my language. You've given me so much great content, where do I sign up as opposed to going on a first date and trying to sell to that person like on the first date. It's just a backwards strategy it's an old strategy and because there's so much more tension you know 60% content consumption is up 60% in the last month because of COVID and so people are looking for content but they're gonna build trust with those that are giving them really good content on the front end and it's just I have a strong belief and conviction that you have to create that that really good pillar pieces of content content that sells but content that really entertains adds value educates inspires all that good stuff. Oh,

Unknown Speaker : 15:39

my gosh, I feel like you're in my brain right now. And I we are so on the same page. I'm really excited. Yeah, we I just I want to hear about your brag worthy campaigns. But you're exactly speaking to some of the more recent and especially in COVID success that a lot of people are pulling have been pulling back, so to speak, and I have a client has literally been focused way more on probably to his detriment more on the content production side and giving value than the sales side. And then we decided to do a launch in the middle of COVID only because we already had it scheduled. And everyone was really worried that it wasn't going to go very well. And we did you know, like 230% over our projected revenue. And on one hand as my marketing team, I wanted to take that as a huge success, but I will be honest with you, I give a lot most of the credit to my client, because he's been building his business with content marketing for four years. Not that that's how long it takes you guys but because he did that everyone and he has sold along the way. But nonetheless, he hasn't really been pushy or anything done a big launch like we did and so everyone was really I feel like he had primed the pump well enough that people trusted him. they've received a ton of value from him. And so the moment he had an offer that was the right that was a good attractive offer there. It was like a no brainer. So I'd love to hear, thanks for giving me just a little moment to use as an example because I You're so so right. In that is I want to hear about some cool campaigns that you've worked on or things that you're most proud of, in this, you know, maybe recent or maybe just lifetime career stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 17:21

Yeah, I think I think you know it again, it's, it's literally, Kate, it's the same strategy like No kidding. It's just there's little nuances, like, you know, it's always worked with, with so many different industries. And again, it's like, use content to build trust. And so there's, there's things you got to think about when creating the right angles and content and hooks and all that stuff. But if you look at a framework, it is, you know, build know, like and trust, you know, at the top of the funnel, it is creating content, the middle of funnel, it's getting them to exchange email, whether that's through a ebook, a challenge, a way banagher something that gives. So that's the light phase and then trust is your selling to people. It's a smaller audience, but that's okay. Because they've self identified as being your perfect client by that point. And so if through that framework, you know, at pushpay, you know, they had one ebook, and within a matter of, you know, 45 days, you know, we we started creating two ebooks a month, two webinars a month, eight blog posts a month, and we were just driving I think about 70% of our paid budget, to generating leads, demos and putting it towards that content. And then on the back end, it's really simple. You know, you have something like retargeting recipes, right? You, you, you, you know, Justin and I just and those I call it the Cookie Monster strategy. It's basically cooking everyone so that you can retarget those people with offers that and it just works so much better. And so You know, when I got to push pay, I think they were generating about four or $500, or four, four or 500 leads per month. And then just using these simple strategies, putting content and video content in front of people putting ebooks and blog content, then pixeling, everybody, you know, we were able to build a big enough audience to this thing. And just for those that are watching pushpay makes it easy for church goers to tie to give to building funds and all that kind of stuff. And so, so what we did is, you know, we have this campaign called the Free Church app, we were gonna, you know, front end top of funnel, we had put tons of content out there tons of content about the benefit of using an app, but the benefit of getting content in front of people outside of church service. And then we ended up in the middle of the funnel, we have what's called the Free Church app, you can and it was literally 100% free. They got we did thousands and thousands of Free Church apps. But it was actually the biggest quarter that We had in their history we went from like, it was like 3000 churches to like 6000. It was like our biggest quarter ever. And actually think that's the thing that pushpay on the map was just that one campaign. And so we have a framework, but man, we also need a big idea. So the framework was the strategy, the tactics, we had to have a big idea. The big idea was the Free Church app. It made waves because everyone else was chain charging. And so that campaign, I think, really put them on the map and we had to retire it because it actually was we had to create a customer we had to build our customer success team really big as a result of people just creating free apps. And so so it was good in the beginning and then it was like you retire it so you know, that's that's a that's a really important thing. Katie's like, you may have a really good idea right now, but you may eventually have to retire it and when is that time to innovate on your on your campaigns. And so that was probably the one of the The things I'm most proud of I got one more if that's okay.

Unknown Speaker : 21:04

Yeah, I just want to say I call that the Madonna's I call that the Madonna strategy because, uh, yeah, when she when, especially when, when she was in her heyday every two years or whatever, you know, she reinvented herself. And I always thought it was so bizarre. I was young then and I didn't understand but now I get it like, you have to because you need to become relevant. You need to create buzz, you know, if you just hang out if she had just been the same old Madonna the whole time. Who knows? Anyways, that reinvention I call it the Madonna.

Unknown Speaker : 21:35

No, it's 100% I think Janet Jackson the same exact thing right, you know, and then someone matar maybe more like Lady, you know, good god. I'm just kidding. Lady Gaga. Like just always, you know, she was crazy for a while different now. She's kind of like mature. I just, you have to be right. You know, and we get lazy as marketers, too. Oh, man. It's always work. So let's keep doing it. But the ones that win agencies that work When the products and services the immediate buyers that win are the ones that just do that extra little work to try to, like we said do this at pushpay. We ran in 3090 day cycles and every 90 days, we looked at everything and said, should we blow everything up and rebuild it? Like we just had to have that level of nimble thinking, to like, let's just squash everything and start over the net. The next one was a gentleman who actually, you know, Justin's recently become a fan of he is Canadian. And, and he very, he's like the Gary Vee of the church space literally like the Gary Vee of the church space doesn't swear in the church space, but he's like the Gary Vee of the church space and very successful SaaS business. And, and he kind of always wanted to do it his way. So we were his. We were an agency for about one and a half years and we always wanted to do what he because he was so particular, and so he had the launch of a new course. Great off I said, hey, what if we just did it, running it through our playbook. And the biggest launch he had done before that I think was like 250, grand, Canadian. And then we run, we ran him through this playbook of top of funnel content, you know, great content offers in the middle. And then long story short, this is right around the time his his mother passed away during this launch. And we ended up doing over a million in sales from this program, Canadian, which is about 850,008 70, something like that. But he's like, Hey, I did a million dollar launch and say, Hey, man, how do you feel? He's like, man, my mom would be so proud of me right now. And it's literally the top three highlights of my career. And so so, you know, the work that we do, yes, it's tactical, yes, strategic, but man, the impact that we have is potential as we have as agency owners to make people's dreams come true. Man, that's to me what it's really all about. And again, you You know if you have a client that does this or anybody asked me on this call I have a client I literally probably look straight to what's their content strategy what's the middle of the funnel? What's the big idea? And and yeah that this is literally stuff that I've stolen from Justin and he's given me permission to go and do for my own stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 24:19

That's awesome. I love that you feel very purpose driven and helping other people reach their goals, goals and dreams as well that is very fulfilling it's it's it's awesome to be at a place where you can pick and choose your clients and work on things that fulfill you as well as I know in the beginning, a lot of times when people that some of the ad buyers are listening Getting Started might just be taken note we know whatever once clients come their way, but obviously continue to produce results and by word of mouth. It seems like everyone right now is all of a sudden decided You know, there's there's always like this bridge that gets crossed and we are in COVID when this is being recorded, I'm not sure when this is going to get released. But um, I feel like I just keep finding myself saying welcome to the internet, like all of a sudden everybody else is now starting to understand what we've all understood for the last decade. So I've just like keep putting out my welcome mat saying like, yes, welcome. We've been waiting for you. We've been waiting, you know, and no, no good internet marketing consultants should ever have to beg for business.

Unknown Speaker : 25:32

Nobody should ever really need to, we really need to. For those that are watching, I'm assuming most of people, most of the people are part of the community, which if you're not, that's the detriment and irresponsible at this point. But I actually I actually think, you know, you have to know what you're worth and you have to believe that there's, you know, if you want to succeed for a lot of us, that grew up kind of messed up in the head like me, because of my upbringing. There. There's a level of there's like a financial thing to us where we don't think we're worth it. You know, Jordan Peterson talks about, you know, sometimes we don't feel like we're worthy of saving. And so it's really easy to undervalue what we're doing. But you are a part of community where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been pumped into ads have created result after result, with templates and frameworks and a community people like you literally have that at your disposal. You literally have all that education at your fingertips. And so you just have to believe that you can charge more I would say most people that are probably watching this need to double or triple their rates. I really believe that and I prefer to work with less clients and charge more. Because, you know, one, it's a lot it's, you know, people that want to spend more they're in it for the long run. You know, you know, I've never Never had a client, you know, cancel because of, you know, like, we keep people for a long time we actually have to sometimes because we want to work with different clients, we have to pass up other clients to someone else. And so I always recommend, you know, really believing that you're part of a community, you can get your questions answered. And you should just be charging more but you have to believe you're worth it because an okay and I believe that about you that's watching.

Unknown Speaker : 27:27

Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for the shout out to the Add skills pro community I do I really feel like it's the best community of I guess even marketers across the board that I've ever been in where people are just so generous and willing to share and there's no a lot of times you go in if you're a newbie, I think you feel like you're intimidated or you don't want to ask those beginner questions or more experienced people kind of feel like they're tired of answering those beginner questions that just does not exist in add skill. At all everyone is there and generous and just learning from each other and supporting each other. So it's really beautiful. And I know you said earlier that people can't hire you. So in support of your so instead in support of you building your personal brand, why don't you let people know where to reach out to you and also I'll give you the opportunity if there's anything else that you wanted to share on today's episode. I'd love to I'd love to any other nuggets of wisdom you have.

Unknown Speaker : 28:30

Yeah, no, I would just it's our hundred raise on Instagram and I post there like 10 times a year I promise to try to post 20 times a year this year. But I do post more stories and IDM really well I'd love to meet if you have any questions. love to connect with you and Amala Hunter is pretty much everywhere. But no man I you can really do this like you can absolutely like you. You have an unfair advantage. Every single person has something unique And and your DNA structure the the inside of you is different. You're, it's different than everyone else. And I really believe if you can tap into and figure out that kind of God given greatness, talent gift, whatever it is inside, if you can really tap into that, and apply that to how you create big ideas, how you create campaigns, how you help clients outside of just advertising, like helping them with copy, helping them with org charts and hiring and if you can figure that thing out inside of you, and then apply all of you to your agency or clients. Man, you can really have a lot of success doing this. You know, I literally work from about nine to three, Monday through Thursday and I take Friday's off and do it purposely cuz I want to take my kids to school when I pick them up and we take Friday's off just to hang with The family and catch up and read and all that stuff. Like you could do it. But you just got to believe it and you know, everything that you already know from going through, add skill stuff to pro Lee to get to your next level. So stop learning and start implementing like take action today and just give yourself three months, six months of taking action and just watch what happens to your business. But you're right. I've never seen a community like this have not just the course creator or the membership owner, creating value for it. But there's so many people I think of john Boucher I think Ileana Ling I think are bright. I think of so many people that are seven figure successful entrepreneurs that spend time and hours and hours a week in here, adding value. And so there's literally no excuse for you to not be successful. And, man, you could do it. I believe in you in two Go make it happen. That's it.

Unknown Speaker : 31:03

Amazing. Thank you so much. This has been one of my favorite episodes a little off book for us, but I really appreciate it. appreciate you giving us the time today to be here. And you guys I want you to follow all 100 dm him and the link will be if you're on YouTube in the description. If you're listening to the podcast, you'll find it in the show notes. Go dm him and tell him and tell him to get his podcast or his YouTube channel or whatever, start creating his content. Yeah, because the cobblers kids always has no shoes but we I really want to encourage you in that regard. So you guys go send him that message right now. And thank you also for listening everyone for being here for this episode. If you if you got a golden nugget from Alejandro, let us know in the comments. Be sure of course it's subscribe to the channel or to the podcast, whichever media is your preferred method of consumption. And thank you so much. We'll, I'll see you or hear you. You'll hear me on the next episode. Transcribed by https://otter.ai