Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Cracking the Code: Lead Generation Secrets for Digital Business with Tanner Chidester

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We say if it's radical, we cover it. My friend here today is here to talk about radical coaching and radical ways to take knowledge and turn it into money. We're talking to Tanner. Tanner Titister, what's up, brother? CEO of Elite CEOs or founder. I got

Starting point is 00:00:39 too many titles. I'm CEO of CEOs. That is a title, though. That's a great title. The CEO of CEOs, Tanner. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure people knew what it was about when I built it. So that's what I want. There you go. It's like the superhero of CEOs. I like it, man.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Coming to you from hot Miami. My business partner's down there. I know you're just getting back from your world tour. Sounded like I was jealous listening to Tanner pre-episode talk about his world travels, man. I'm jealous. Yeah, it was super fun. I think I was going to go like I was telling you prior. I was going to go for the year, but I got six months.

Starting point is 00:01:18 I got to see a little bit of Europe, not as much as I want. Africa was amazing. That was actually probably the coolest and destroyed South America. So I think next time I go out, I'll start in Europe and Asia. much as I want. Africa was amazing. That was actually probably the coolest one. Destroyed South America. So I think next time I go out, I'll start in Europe and Asia. That's my plan. There you go. I'll just live vicariously through you. I'll continue to watch your feed. With four kids and five businesses, it gets a little different with children in the house. Yeah, I was actually one of seven kids. So I'm not sure if I'm going to have any because of that. But I grew up growing up in a household like that. I don't have any of my own, but I can totally imagine how your house looks. Maybe one day. Tanner, man, let's start from the

Starting point is 00:01:56 beginning, brother. We talked pre-episode and I liked hearing just because I went through some similar, let's say, opportunities. We won't say struggles, opportunities. Every door closes and another one opens. Let's give everybody a little background on you before we get into everything going on with Elite CEOs. Sure. Yeah, so I grew up, like I was saying, a family of seven kids. And I had four sisters, two brothers. So I would say I was a little bit of a weird kid or maybe a strange kid because I had my two older sisters. They put me in dresses and tea parties and I had no older brothers. And I don't know why my dad

Starting point is 00:02:31 would allow that. But I got through school, started getting bullied a lot. And around sixth grade, I started asking my parents if I could go to the gym before school to get some respect. And in my head, I think I was going to beat these kids up. And after about three months of doing that consistently, started getting a lot of respect. And that actually is what propelled me into sports. And I started really excelling in sports, got to play a little bit at the D1 level, didn't really go anywhere, got hurt a lot. Probably also wasn't going to be good enough, but my whole dream was to go to the pros. And then when that ended, I had a discussion with a mentor who knew my family. He actually convinced me to drop out of school. I was at petroleum engineering, had a year left, really good GPA. But he just said, man, if that's not what you want to do, you're wasting your time. Start your business. And then

Starting point is 00:03:18 I spent the next three years trying to get this business off the ground. I made probably two grand the first three years. And I was about to quit and go back to school and then it took off. And I started a fitness company, did super well. That propelled into helping trainers and then that propelled into elite COs. And now we're about what, coming up on six years and it's been a huge blessing in my life. It's changed it. Hey man, congrats. I also talked to ex-athletes and actually had a guy that's doing some mentoring with ex-athletes because of some of the struggles they have transitioning from the highs of being at the highest level athletically and then transitioning. But I told him, and I agree, if you can get the mental thing right

Starting point is 00:04:02 or flip that switch and take all of that, I don't know, discipline, desire, coachability and all that and flip it into something in a career, it tends to work out very well for either someone you work for or yourself. And so it's like you've channeled it into your own thing, it sounds like. Yeah, I think with sports for me, it just you face a lot of adversity in a lot of different ways. And I don't know if I would have been ready for that in the real world, because a lot of times in the real world, if you don't want to face any adversity, you don't have to. You just quit and stop. And in sports, you don't really have that option. The coaches say, hey, you got to do this. You do it.

Starting point is 00:04:42 If you have other athletes on the team, you have to compete against them. I agree with you. I think a lot of stuff in sports translates very well. I see there's so much of the coaching and the online money making, I'll call it the sizzle. I'm a marketing guy. I talk about sizzle and steak a lot. There's a lot of sizzle.

Starting point is 00:05:03 There's not always a lot of steak. steak a lot. There's a lot of sizzle. There's not always a lot of steak. And so what I wonder when I see a guy like you that seems to have really turned it into both sizzle and steak, what's the differentiation for the average guy, girl? I guess age doesn't matter, but it's just, I see the young guns. I'm going to get rich online. But what is the difference? What makes it go from sizzle to steak and maybe translating into what's made you successful? It's a great question. For me specifically, the first thing is I was just willing to outwork anyone. I was working 18 hours a day for a long time because I just felt I had no other choice. I think outside of that, the thing that's really helped me compared to others, there's really two things. It's either you have a really big

Starting point is 00:05:47 organic following, which really is not my thing yet. I'd love to have that. But you'll see guys who have maybe two, three, four million subs on YouTube. And so they can just pump out anything they want and people will buy it. Or the other way is you just have to be really good at building a team. And where I see most people struggle is it's just so hard to find quality talent and get them to perform at the level that maybe you would. And that took me a long time to understand because I'd hire someone, I'd show them something twice, and then they keep messing up. And I'm like, man, how many times do I have to show you? And the answer is you got to have to show them forever, depending on the position. And then the higher or more you pay someone, the less you're hoping you have to show them. But I think

Starting point is 00:06:28 it's really the biggest issue in the online industry or like education industry is people view it as quick money. And then when it comes to delivering the fulfillment, they don't really put time into their teams. And so the product just is not very good. And yeah, 80% aren't, but it's hard to win for long periods of time because the nature of the industry already is it's scammy. That's how most people view it is. It's not scammy. It's icky. It's gross. And I got into the industry, not really. I just didn't know what else to do. That's what my mentor showed me. And I am starting to transition into other types of industries. I just went in there and did the best I could do. And I think I've built a really good team and that's a very hard skill to learn. So I got about a team of between 85 to a hundred at any time. And yeah, I mean,

Starting point is 00:07:16 it's, I think it was that because that's what allows you to step out and keep that sustainability because otherwise you just, I feel people burn out because they're just having to do too many things on their own. Yep. A lot of good insight there. And to unpack, I want to start with where you started, which I actually own the trademark to a phrase that's called it pays to be known. It pays to be known. And like you said, when you have and build an organic following, a real following, you can monetize it a lot of different ways. And it's not just to take advantage of them and make money on them, but you're bringing value to them because they follow you for a reason. But when you start to build that audience, you can turn it on in a lot of different ways. And I think that's the first thing you described is if you have that built in,

Starting point is 00:08:08 it gives you a leg up at the beginning. At least that's how I'm interpreting what you meant. Yeah, so I built my company predominantly on paid traffic and paid traffic works and it's great, but there's ebbs and flows. Like sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. If I could go back in time, I don't want to say I would have done something different, but I would have taken more care to build maybe a YouTube channel. I'm actually trying to do it now. But if you're able to do that, what happens is six, I'd say about 60% of my operational costs is marketing.

Starting point is 00:08:46 is marketing. So if you cut away 60%, that can take your margins from 30% to 40%, or excuse me, 70% or higher. And if you're making 70% margins, it's just very easy to scale and very easy to run a business. And it also takes complexity away from the business because I'd say a lot of our time is spent on the marketing. So then you only have to focus on fulfillment. It just simplifies it quite a bit. So you can win with paid traffic, but it's, it takes more skill. I think you have to be a lot more skilled to do that versus building an organic following because it just drives your costs of expense down. That's right. Let's back up for the audience. Elite CEOs. Let's get down to the nitty gritty here. What is it? Who are we serving? Who are we helping? Let's just talk nuts and bolts about what the company does and is.

Starting point is 00:09:27 Yeah, originally I had a fitness company called Fit Warrior and I did. I built that very fast and very quickly. A lot of trainers started noticing. I originally never thought I was going to be a business consultant. I actually hated business consultants. Like I just did not like them. And I had a lot of trainers ask for help. And so that actually turned into fitness CEOs and then had a lot of trainers ask for help. And so that actually turned into fitness CEOs. And then more people outside of trainers started to help. And so that's actually how Elite CEOs came about. We really have two demographics.

Starting point is 00:09:52 I'd say like we still get 50% of our clientele are trainers because I just built a name in that industry. And then the rest of the people that are like I consider non-trainers. It's all online, just to be clear, because we're going to fit. trainers? It's all online, just to be clear, because we're going to fit in its essence is in-person sweat and guts. But just to be clear, are we talking purely online businesses? Correct. Yeah. So trainers that want to go online or business owners that want to go online. So, you know, the people we serve are usually selling high ticket products. It's easier for us to charge more. It's easier for us to make sure they get results. They're selling it over the phone. I've seen anything. A lot of times when people think, who are you serving? It's when they're teaching some type

Starting point is 00:10:32 of aspect. So it could be like day trading. It could be beauty consultants. It could be salons. It could be gyms. They're giving some type of service based business and they're able to charge a high price. The reason we can't really work with companies that charge low prices is it's just we can't make any margins. So if I charge them $16,000 and they're making $100 sales, they're just never able to recoup their investment. But those are really the companies we work with. And then we just help them A to Z, like marketing, sales, fulfillment, hiring, training, recruiting. We got a pretty vast operation, but I think it's helped us compete because not as many people can do it. And that's why I have such a large staff.

Starting point is 00:11:11 For the layman's out there, I have a skill set, maybe being a trainer, excuse that way because of your background, and you're helping them turn that into an online business through which they're coaching or upselling high ticket offers. Yeah. So the way I actually did it is I was a trainer and I realized, hey, this is capped out very low. This isn't going to get me where I want to go. I love fitness. So I got to figure out how can I turn fitness into something that can make me a millionaire. And so what I realized is if you go out and you learn how to build a social media market online, do sales calls over the phone, I could charge infinitely more money, which a lot of people, they don't get that. I didn't either. But when I made my first sale at fifteen hundred, I was like, oh, my gosh. And then I made one at two and then three. I made a sale like six or seven thousand one time for the CEO.

Starting point is 00:12:04 At the end of the day, all you're doing is you're doing communication through the phone and then you're sending them the plans. And so I just tell trainers, think of it as you're doing all the same stuff minus the workouts, because most people, what they're paying for in person is you to sit there and watch them through the workout, which is actually the least important part. And that was actually my big selling point is I said, look, the biggest thing I'm going to do for you is nutrition. That's 90% of your results. All these other trainers, they're going to focus on the workout, which really doesn't matter that much anyways. And it's usually illegal when they're working at the gym to do that. And there's super

Starting point is 00:12:36 gray lines and all that type of stuff, but gyms will definitely fire trainers for that. But when you're online doing your own thing, it's like, there's no one really telling you what to do. So that's how I built a seven figure company, just selling packages over the phone. That's what I did. And then you would train them with diet and training like you just described with that. Yeah. So I would give them an app where I would have their nutrition and their training and then they'd have access to me one-to-one and then once a week they do a sheet and it was easy because a lot of these people they just don't even they don't even understand nutrition at all they don't even understand calories they don't know what macros are and ultimately fitness is not that complex it's eat less move more so i would just build a

Starting point is 00:13:19 routine that would be flexible for the things they wanted with parameters and that's how i sold them was like hey i'm going to set it within these parameters and they stay within the parameters that would be flexible for the things they wanted with parameters. And that's how I sold them was like, hey, I'm going to set it within these parameters and they stay within the parameters. They lose weight. It just wasn't that complex. And so they'd be super excited because typically when people are paying for trainers, they're going to the gym, their diets don't change at all. So they don't look any different. And so I would focus more on the nutrition. I wouldn't care how much they worked out. I'd be like, I give recommendations, but I'm like, hey, as long as you follow the diet, you're good. And you can still have some treats as long as you

Starting point is 00:13:48 stay within these guidelines, which is just if it fits your macros. And it just felt, I don't know that my clients, it just felt like it blew their minds. It was just this mind blowing concept for them, which for me, it was very simple. Not to get too sidebar on the diet and the fitness side, but it's so true though. Like I can go beat myself up at the gym. And I know this, and I'm like, I can't outwork the diet. I'm 46 now. I couldn't outwork it at 36 or 26 either. But it's like, you just can't.

Starting point is 00:14:17 It's a side. You thought you were coming to learn about coaching and scaling and all that. But we're here to tell you, you got to watch that diet if you want to look like you want to in the mirror. Absolutely. Tanner Titheser here, CEO and founder of Elite CEO. So Tanner, talk to me about the core of, okay, you're teaching people.

Starting point is 00:14:41 Let's get to the nitty gritty. What exactly and how do you set them up? I know you've got a system online. I looked at that. It was pretty sharp. I was like, I actually want to talk to you after this about personal things. Guilty secrets here of wanting to get ahead. But in all seriousness, let's talk about what's the nitty gritty for how you do this, how you set them up.

Starting point is 00:14:59 Yeah, so when a client comes in, they get a one-to-one coach. And so that coach is working with them throughout the entire program. They get a portal that's like A to Z videos on anything you can think of. It's like text messages, emails, opt-ins, pages, funnels, all that type of stuff. They also get access to a Facebook group. And then we also do live events, usually once a quarter. And then we just coach them all the way through that. And you know, what most people struggle with is they may know what to do, but they're just terrible at it. That's just the truth. And so they're not good at messaging. They sound weird on the sales calls. They don't know how to set up fulfillment. Maybe they suck at tech. They don't understand marketing. They don't know how to run ads. And so most of our time is training and coaching relentlessly on those things.

Starting point is 00:15:43 And then I forgot, we also have daily office hours and coaching calls. Office hours is like a Q&A. And then the coaching calls will be on a specific topic. So we do a little bit of a hybrid model where I'm not a huge fan of group because usually group just is not, group's fine for guys like me.

Starting point is 00:15:59 It's not really great in my opinion for super beginners. But we do a daily two, they have two group calls a day, and then they have unlimited with their coach. So essentially, they could have three to four calls a day if they wanted. Plus, they have the portals and the live events and all that stuff. So that's the best way I found to do it, where it's the mix between the clients get the best results and your business is able to scale. You could go to group, but the clients just don't get results. And they seem to get a lot more upset from what I've seen in the past. What's the, I love giving value to the audience.

Starting point is 00:16:29 You don't have to give away every secret. I'm an open book with secrets, executions, everything. But I'm trying to grow coaching. what's something that might make someone pause because they're, they'd probably be surprised or I might be surprised at how well it works like with lead generation for high ticket. Like what's like the building blocks of that. Yeah. So honestly, the way I did it, a lot of people, when I was coming into the industry, like four or five years ago,

Starting point is 00:17:00 they would run a lot of webinars and they'd run stuff straight to a page. So for anyone listening who doesn't understand, if you see an ad on Facebook, you click on it, it usually takes you to a page where then they ask for your email and then they send you a presentation and then you get a call. And that just never really worked for me at all. I just couldn't ever get results. And so what I did is I actually started messaging each and every lead individually. And that's actually what made all the difference. And I grew eight figure company, just giving that personalization one-to-one. So one of the big building blocks of my company and what we help clients with is really learning how to message leads and set up calls. DMing or we talk about it. Yeah. Text works as well, but I find that DMs are

Starting point is 00:17:43 a little less invasive or people, they feel like they're less invasive. And so that's actually a cornerstone of building my companies where we follow up with pretty much every single lead individually. And it takes a lot of pressure off the marketing. And it makes it a lot more consistent because they're getting what about this and then also it makes it good for the sales team because by the time they get to the sales call they're much more qualified than if they just clicked on a page and opted in and booked on their own so that actually it's a lot harder it sounds easy but when you have when you're doing millions of dollars and you got 12 let's say 12 15 people in there you have to create a pretty unique system and that's really helped us scale over the years and stay on top i think what's the okay so it's the personalized messaging once they get in the funnel though. What's getting them in the top of the funnel? Yeah. So it'll be an ad typically to a message, a message. So e-message or Facebook message, and then it'll fire an initial link to the funnel. And then you hit them on both sides because if they book a call automatically,

Starting point is 00:18:44 great. If they don't, you can message them. and then on top of that your team can call email text so you're just hitting them from all angles and then you can do back-end automations to the facebook group retargeting ads so that's what i found is you just buy or die you just hit them until they either take action or they unsub and that's been our protocol every time we've only ran stuff straight to the page it just has never performed as well for us, at least in our industry. Every industry can change, but that's what we've seen in our industry. How do you find high ticket? Usually it's $1,500 or more.

Starting point is 00:19:18 One time or monthly? No, it can be one time or monthly. Everyone has a different definition, but usually for me, it's about $1,500 or more. If you're charging less than that, it's not usually worth it. So that's what I've always done. And it creates a lot of margins so you can grow teams and pay people. There are ways you can win with lower priced items, but I usually find it's much more complex and it's not really for beginners. Tell beginners'm like low ticket is for experts high ticket is for beginners typically is it's always fascinating to me so i came up i'm a like a hybrid guy came up analog slash digital like i own a digital agency now but was in the came up in the crux and worked on some of the largest brands in the world. And we've done this transition. And a lot of my, I don't know, age bracket of things that I think would be like high-ticket buyers, I think LinkedIn. But then I've grown personally the last six years on Instagram,

Starting point is 00:20:19 like at least my personal profile. And I know everybody's on Facebook. That's kind of like the last, not the first of the everyone, but like, where does LinkedIn play for you guys? Or does it even play at all versus Instagram versus Facebook in trying to get to high value, high net worth individuals? Yeah, that's a great question. So you're not really, it depends on your offer, but typically you're not going to find super high net worth individuals who are scrolling on Instagram and Facebook and coming through that way, maybe here and there. But I think that's actually a lot harder. A lot of those might sit on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn ads are super expensive.

Starting point is 00:21:02 So in the beginning days of my company, we were spending upwards of half a million dollars a month on Facebook. And then in year three or four, it just shifted and all the quality on Facebook started to suck and it shifted to Instagram. So we usually run most of our ads to Instagram for whatever reason, that seems to be much higher quality now. We don't do as much on Facebook. We try on YouTube, but YouTube has been tough lately, but YouTube also has pretty high quality because it's search. LinkedIn, we don't really touch. And mostly that's just because one, I just think people are outreaching a lot more there. It's not people will go on Instagram and Facebook just for that. LinkedIn is literally, it's all business

Starting point is 00:21:42 owners, right? So everyone's lead genning and so forth. And the ads are also super expensive. So again, it depends on your industry. Some people, I'm sure make it work. Some people, Hey, LinkedIn's amazing. But for us and for my company at scale to consistently get that client, it's usually been Facebook or Instagram. And in the last two years, it's been predominantly Instagram. Yeah. And so you're finding, I don't know, six figure plus earners at scale on Instagram? Yeah. Either five, five or six. Yeah. But typically that's been our bread and butter. I would say this, like the, all the years we've done it, COVID was like by far the time, like we were just had the lowest cost of acquisition. Everyone was indoors. Everyone's wanting to move online.

Starting point is 00:22:27 It all makes sense. Right now, I don't know if people, I don't know if the news is saying there's a recession or not, but it feels like it. It feels like people are being a little bit more tight with their wallets right now. And I've seen a lot in the last six years, but Instagram is our predominant channel right now. Yeah. Yeah. Never in time have we been more tried to be talked into a recession than we are, even though we're actually beating it in spite of the news trying to talk us into it.

Starting point is 00:22:52 Yeah. There's definitely less money in the market from the COVID stuff, but that stuff, most of that money has been spent for two years. I think we're doing better than we think we are. And the news is starting to give up the ghost on the recession because I said in December and January, and I've got it on record that this would not be a recession no matter how much we try to be talked into it. But I do think people are being more careful with their money, but the data shows we're not in a recession. So anyway, I'll try to stay off that soapbox. You're good. You're good. Tanner, what's up? up so we're getting leads we're teaching people how to scale what makes or breaks this for people like i know it started that whole the whole interview with what made or break it for you but like you said some people suck at marketing some

Starting point is 00:23:38 people but if they follow the system and they're truly driven what does ultimately make or break for people? If I just was to go off my best clients and worst clients, the best clients are usually good at sales and they're good communicators because all direct marketing is typically is you're having conversations in the DMs or you're having a conversation on the phone. And that's where it all starts. You can't make sales. You can't grow the company. So most people, if I was going to give you an analogy, it's like all the guys, they're like, oh, I'm really good at talking to girls. But when you see them talk to girls, they're not, they're horrible and they say weird stuff. That's the issue is people think they're saying

Starting point is 00:24:16 the right things, but they're not. And so I would say 80% of my program is making sure and auditing that they're saying the right things because people will be like, oh, I'm following the system. I'm doing it. And you go in and you say, that's weird. That's wrong. That is not what you say here. That's completely off. And it's a skill you have to learn. And the thing that helped me is when I was younger, I did door to door sales for about eight months, six days a week, about 12 hours a day. It was two hours area, eight hours knocking two hours back. And so when I started my online business, I was like, oh, this is a joke because these people actually want what I'm selling versus door to door. They'd come to the door with guns and knives and fire and brimstone. So I just think most people, when they start a business, they've never

Starting point is 00:24:58 done like any formal communication or sales. Some of them haven't even done anything really hard. like any formal communication or sales. Some of them haven't even done anything really hard. And so they don't really understand how to communicate. And then they also don't understand the amount of volume. Oh, I sent 10 messages. I'm like, yeah, send like 100 more and then come back. Like it's also a volume game a little bit in the beginning, because if your skills are low,

Starting point is 00:25:20 you're going to have to work harder than I am to get the same amount of sales. But that would be the biggest thing. I'd say just lack of sales skills. Like they don't know how to communicate very well and they don't know how to sell. And so they never really get it off the ground. Everything else, if you can get sales in the door, you can mess up for a long time and fix it later, but you got to get money door to keep the business alive. Yeah. You say you're still doing a lot of trainers. What are maybe the other sub-segments of typical coaches that you're onboarding? Yeah, I'd say we get a lot of stock traders.

Starting point is 00:25:55 We'll get some automation experts. So that could be like YouTube automation or Amazon automation or Walmart automation. We'll get beauty coaches. So they'll show ladies how to grow their beauty salons. We'll get beauty coaches. So like they'll show ladies how to grow their beauty salons. We'll get a lot of ad agencies, right? So they'll run agencies for different types of companies, real estate's a popular one, especially like wholesaling or Airbnb. It's a lot of teaching, obviously. It's a lot of service-based businesses.

Starting point is 00:26:20 And that's a gist of them. I know we get more, but I'll be honest with you. I've been out of fulfillment so long that that'd probably be a better question for my team, but those are the ones off the top of my head. And so they're trying to turn their knowledge, though, into sales, right? At the end of the day, it's like, how can they sell their knowledge and package it?

Starting point is 00:26:41 Correct? Yeah, exactly. When I was a trainer, I just took what I already knew in person and moved on online. People started asking me for help. I just took, okay, here's how I built my fitness company. And you're just showing them the backend. So a lot of times, yeah, like one of my clients, he's an amazing day trader. He has ran a hedge fund and he's, Hey, I'll show you guys how to do the trades and all that type of stuff. And that's typically what does the best. You don't always have to do that, but it's easier

Starting point is 00:27:09 typically when it's revolved around money, it's gotta be money, health relationships, right? And so as long as they know either a, I'm going to get better dating, better relationship with my wife or more money or more health. Those are usually the sectors that do the best when people go outside of that. And there's not one of those three things is improving. It's really tough. Yeah. So that's kind of what I've seen. You guys coach people on refining the offer or the, you know, what? OK, I'm good at this. I've got this knowledge and helping them package that. Yeah, 100 percent. That's one of our core pillars. That's the first thing we do when they come in. I'd say the biggest issue we have is if someone comes in, they have no idea what they want to do. So if someone comes in, they're like, hey, here's what I'm thinking. This is great. The reason sometimes it's, this is just on a side note, the reason it is an issue at times is because if it's your idea, not theirs, they don't get very passionate behind it.

Starting point is 00:28:05 not theirs, they don't get very passionate behind it. And so we really try to push either to bring people in who already know what they want to do, or we're like, Hey, look, we'll help you set it up, but you need to be the one who you tell us what you want to sell. Because if you start, what happens is we'll tell, if you tell them and then they start getting hit in the mouth and they're not succeeding, we notice like they're more likely to quit than the person who's, Hey, I'm a trainer. I'm really good at this. I just need to learn marketing and sales, for example. Yeah. How does like organic social media play into all this? Like whether it's their business or their personal feed, do you guys give them coaching on that? And how does that dynamic play into all of it? Yeah, we definitely help coach them on what to put in their bios and what pictures to post.

Starting point is 00:28:45 To be frank with you, my first two years of business, I didn't post on social media at all because my ads were working so well and I would just make sales from messaging people organically. So I think a lot of times the funny part is people get really caught up in, I got to post organic content and build a following. And really, you don't have to do that till later down the line, if at all. I built my whole business pretty much with paid ads. And I didn't post for two years because I was like, okay, if I message these followers, or I would even message strangers sometimes and I get them on a call, I'll make money. And so that just reinforced that my time should be spent doing that. So we do help with it, but there's a huge fallacy typically that,

Starting point is 00:29:25 Hey, I have to have a big following and all that type of stuff. And the reality is where you really don't, there's a lot of rich people who don't have followings. Obviously it can help, but it really comes down again. It comes down to sales. And if they're good at sales, everything else is really easy after that. Is everything you're running is an ad-like object? So what do I mean by that? Is it truly, okay, explaining what you're selling and like getting the lead? Or is it ever, again, back to the world I grew up in, you had brand and then demand. So branding, how do I build trust and authority? And you're telling about what you deliver, but it's not a hardcore sign up today, get it now, 20% off, you know? Yeah, most of the stuff we run is to a training

Starting point is 00:30:11 or a video or a download. More times than not, it's something specific, right? And most people, they want stuff on leads. They want stuff on sales. Even if there's other stuff, there's a saying, give them what they want so you can give them what they need. Most people want stuff on sales. Even if there's other stuff, there's a saying, give them what they want so you can give them what they need. Most people want stuff for sales.

Starting point is 00:30:30 So most of the time we're doing it to a free training. We actually are not selling stuff a lot on the front end, but they know what's going on, right? So they're like, hey, we're going to click on this ad. I'm going to get something. You guys are going to lead gen me. I get, I, at least I would say most people do, but we're usually giving away free stuff. And then we're selling on the back end. The only time we'll sell something on the front end is if it's really cheap. And I'll be like

Starting point is 00:30:53 37 bucks, seven bucks. And then we'll just slam them with our sales team on the back end to get them on a consultation call to upsell something. Got it. So lead magnet is a common term, but it's upsell something. Got it. So lead magnet is a common term, but it's you're giving away something that to then the ones that are serious about it, giving them something that's worth buying as the second offer, so to speak. Correct. Hey, you got to give value before you take it. That's the lesson. Yeah. And it also makes it easier because it'll drive your costs down. And for anyone who's listening, the book Ready, Fire, Aim, I really like that book because the main concept in the book for scale is it actually says the metric you should measure is how many leads you get.

Starting point is 00:31:37 And if you're focusing on increasing the amount of leads you get, you will make more sales. And that's actually a great number to focus on. So it's always around how can we get more leads? And so whether you're selling something for a low price and then you're upselling on the back end or you're giving away free content, as long as you're getting more leads, it's going to turn to more sales. Typically, unless you're like your team's not good, but if you're getting a lot of leads, I'm assuming you already know what you're doing. Bingo. Yeah. I don't know know i'd never heard that term and i will say the one quote your quote guy i could tell like me the give them what they want so you can give them what they

Starting point is 00:32:10 need i'm going to use that one i hadn't i've heard about i thought i heard them all i haven't even heard of that one but the ready the i used the fire name ready all the time and i i'd never heard that there was actually a book or anything so i'm, I get to claim like the second copyright on that. Cause I used it like 10 or 15 years ago and at a meeting with a client and I, it just came to me. I'd never read. I'm not bullshitting, but I love that shit. I got to read that book though. What's the, it's a ready fire aim by Michael Masterson. Yeah. And it literally goes through and says, okay, here's what you focus on. Go zero to one, one to 10, 10 to 50, and then 50 to 100. And the main thing for most people when they're trying to scale is that's not the main thing, but the big thing he says to focus on your marketing is just literally only focus on

Starting point is 00:32:55 getting more leads, right? Like just getting as many leads as humanly possible. And then that's how you'll scale your company. It's just constantly focusing on how to get more leads, which sounds simplistic here, but the premise is just constantly focusing on how to get more leads, which sounds simplistic here. But the premise is just if you're getting 5000 leads, figure out how to get 7000, then 8000, then 9000. And that will translate into more sales on the back end. Tanner, personally, what makes you happy, brother? What keeps you going? Yeah, that's a good question. I just, I actually, in January, I stepped out of my company for a little bit.

Starting point is 00:33:27 So I still owned it, but I let other people manage it. And I started traveling the world. And part of that was, there's two reasons. Part of it is that, although I'm really proud of the company I've built, it's not going to be the end all be all. There's other things I want to do. And there's bigger opportunities.

Starting point is 00:33:42 I'll say that. Warren Buffett talks about there's better vehicles. And I think this is a great vehicle to start your career in possibly. But I think there's other places I want to go. And then, yeah, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and answer some life questions. I don't have it all figured out yet. I still think I'm in a discovery phase.

Starting point is 00:33:58 I'm 31, just barely turned 31. So I think I'm in that phase of like, how do I want to live the rest of my life? But to be honest, it's funny, like when stuff is hard, a lot of times we wish it were easier. And we man, I wish I could go on vacation, do all these other things. The irony is typically when I feel my best is when I am working really hard, when things are difficult, when I've had a bad day. It's ironic. Yesterday was probably one of the worst days of my life. There were so many bad, there's probably six or seven pretty, I'd say bad things that happened that most people would be like, holy, holy shit. And I'm like, I'm doing these like daily rants now. That's part of

Starting point is 00:34:36 my content. My team wants me to do. And I don't know, it's, it sucks, but I feel happiest. I think when I'm lost, like trying to be the best I can be like in all aspects personal development business pushing myself and you're there at the end of the day and you're exhausted but you put in like a good day's work and I think ultimately that's what we're here to do I don't think any amount of like hedonism is like the answer I'm not saying like you can't do it sometimes like I'm not here to debate like zero or like a little bit, but I do think that being the basis of your life is not the right path. I do think it is getting lost in a good cause and hard work. Like the, for anyone who knows Alex, who Alex Hermosi is, that's a premise I align with a little bit more where most, some people

Starting point is 00:35:19 will say he's over the top. That's not for me to say, but I think the thing I do is he's really about, he just really wants to work hard and he gets a lot of fulfillment out of that. And I'd say that's the biggest thing for me is just doing that, just trying to be the best I can be. And even if I fail, like, I don't know, it's okay. Cause that happened to me in sports. I wanted to play in the NFL and when it didn't work out, I was able to walk away knowing I did everything I could. So that was like a very rewarding feeling. Yeah. And look, dude, if you had the worst day you've ever had or one of them yesterday, but then you had the fortitude like to come on this interview and suck it up. And I sensed maybe a little bit, I've got a good read on people, but maybe there was a little bit of,

Starting point is 00:35:59 I didn't know it was the worst day ever, but no, but it says a lot that you kind of, you put it on, you go, you wear your, you wear the wins, you wear the losses and you make the best of it. And I think, I think anyone that hasn't ever had satisfaction from working hard has never worked hard. Yeah. And you said you like quotes. So this is actually one of my quotes on my phone. And the quote is whenever I get to a low point, when I think, why do I even bother? I just remind myself that it's this is where most people quit and this is why they don't win. And so yesterday I was like really reading that quote a million times because like I just wanted to quit. And it's a mixture of business and personal.

Starting point is 00:36:37 So it just it was like all at once. Yeah. But I think that's the goal is you can't have an extraordinary life doing ordinary things. Like you, you have to have easy time, excuse me. So it's like, you can have an easy life and ordinary, or you have a hard life and extraordinary. And so I think the irony is we get upset sometimes when we have these difficult times, but that's what makes our extraordinary lives. And so I'm just trying to lean into that more and push through. And so it raises your bar where if this is all you can handle, every time you handle harder stuff, it just keeps raising until, you know, your ceiling is,

Starting point is 00:37:13 your ceiling is like just so far above other people. That's how you can set yourself apart. I think. Yep. It's just like going to the gym. You start stacking those weights and go higher and higher because you get trained yourself and it's similar type thing. You want a radical life. You got to be radical. And my friend Tanner is radical. I really appreciate you coming on, Tanner. Where can everybody keep it up with you? Yeah, just honestly, anywhere in my social media channels. I don't think there's very many Tanner Chittisters. So if you just type in my name on YouTube, Google, Instagram, like you'll find me.

Starting point is 00:37:38 And I'm trying to grow my content. This is like the first time I've really tried to push. If you guys hear this, like give me some feedback and let me know what you guys want to see. Yeah, appreciate you coming on, content. This is like the first time I've really tried to push. If you guys hear this, like give me some feedback and let me know what you guys want to see. Yeah, appreciate you coming on, brother. I really appreciate your story and opening up there at the end. And I wish you nothing

Starting point is 00:37:51 but the best of luck. Sure. Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. Appreciate it. Hey, guys, you'll find us at the radcast.com. Search for Tanner.

Starting point is 00:37:59 You'll find, I think he's the only Tanner we've had on the show after 300 plus episodes, I think. You look for Tanner, search just Tanner. You'll find all the show after 300 plus episodes, I think. You look for Tanner, search just Tanner. You'll find all the highlight clips and the full episode from today.

Starting point is 00:38:08 We'll also have links to all of Tanner's content and social media channels. And you can find me, I'm at Ryan Alford on all the channels. Verified before you could buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.

Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Cracking the Code: Lead Generation Secrets for Digital Business with Tanner Chidester

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