Building a $1M+ Business with Cold Outreach in One Year | Jake Motyl

- I don't think anyone is better at cold outreach than me. - You're making $120,000 a year, and you quit your job. What the fuck were you thinking? - I knew I had struck gold. I expect us to do a million dollars in the first year of business. - This is a very good playbook I think in terms of thinking about how to do this. It's a cultural takeover. That's what it is. These large businesses that want to embed themselves in culture. We will replicate these videos to get millions and millions of views. - One of them has 44 million views. - That's awesome, dude. - It's crazy. - Which one of you would go to LinkedIn DMs? Guarantees, a response. - I have a Google sheet with every outreach message that has ever worked. - Jake Motel, your business is pretty baller. You're eight months in your company. How much revenue have you booked so far total? - I expect us to do a million dollars in the first year of business. - Yeah, so, dude, so here's how you and I met. I don't even really remember that close to how we met, but here's how I remember about what we met. You, I feel like you showed up in this office, the like medium office one day. And I didn't really know who you are, you were. And the context I ended up getting is that you have this consulting job that you quit. There was like, how much do you make, like 120, 130? - Like 120 a year. - Cool, so you're making $120,000 a year and you quit your job and you show up to this office and you're like, my friends are starting businesses. I just feel like I could do it. I'm gonna do one too. No idea, you're just here and it worked. And I remember like my like initial reaction was like, what the fuck is this guy thinking when you first got here? - Yeah. - And so I'd like to ask you now, what the fuck were you thinking? - Yes. - So good question. You know, obviously we're very, both very close with Josh's dogs. - Yeah. - And he's been my best friend since growing up. So like we were from same hometown. He's always been this eccentric, like outgoing dude. Always, always had like a huge vision. Like since we're kids, he would be talking about this type of thing. And yeah, that's when we first met. I was still working that corporate finance job and Josh has a way of like almost, I feel like it's a form of brainwash where he's like, quit your job, quit your job. Corporate America is horrible, quit your job, quit your job. Said it so many times to me. - Yeah. - And then I go in a Chelsea Pierce fitness and I see this group of, I think it was five of you there. - Yeah. - Shamest, who's 20 years old. All of you guys have employees and are extremely successful in your respective niches. And I see that and then I wake up at 8 a.m. and go to work for 10 hours a day for someone else. And it just didn't click right. And while I was, you know, I was working this job that everyone respected it. My parents respected me. My brother, my sister. I was like one of the most respectable people in the family of Thanksgiving. I would tell people that I was working in finance to be like, oh my God, that's amazing. It's crushing it. It's crushing it. - It's a street you can't see. - Yeah, yeah. - Fancy guy gets in his button down, goes to like, and what I think was happening when I went to Chelsea Pierce fitness and I would talk to Josh, I would talk to Matt Epstein who runs show in media. Like I was, you know, the curtain was being pulled back. - Yeah. - And it was like this cognitive dissonance where I was like holy shit. Like how does this exist? It was like, I was, it was a mind-fuck seeing this. - Do you remember the numbers you were hearing at the time? - I was your crazy numbers. - What numbers? - I was here, you know, obviously Josh was doing, I think, I think his business was probably doing like 300 K a month. - Yeah. Maybe 100 to 300 K a month. Now he's doing way more than that. But at the time still, a ton of money. - Yeah. - And obviously, you know, Matt's business was doing extremely well. Everyone was making, everyone's business was doing more than 100 K a month. - Yeah. - Which to me it was more than I was making in a year. So it was mind-boggling. - Yeah. - It was mind-boggling. I was like, and you have all these people, your family, friends telling you how, you know, respectable the job you're working. - No way, you're working in finance. Oh my God, you're making 120 a year, all this stuff. And it's almost like, you're, it's conformity. And it's like, there's a certain, you know, everyone views success that isn't in the entrepreneur world in a different way than like we view it. - For sure. - So I saw that, you know, I was, and then I saw you guys crushing it. - Yeah. - I thought, how am I not doing this? And then I was at dinner with Josh and my parents. And Josh said, dude, you need to at least try, at least do a side hustle while you're working this consulting job. At least try to do something in social media. 'Cause social media is like, you know, if there's never been more opportunity to be an entrepreneur, just try doing something. So he set me up with one of his clients that he does street interviews for. And I essentially was in charge of sourcing. It was a jewelry company. I was in charge of sourcing that jewelry company. Louise Carter jewelry. I had to get them 10 female creators to make content every month. So I started, like, where the fuck do I find female creators to make content about this jewelry? What type of videos do they make? What am I doing? I had no idea. - Did I have to often talk to 10 females in my life? - Yeah, I was like, shit, this is hard enough as it is. And I have to, like, get them to make content. Like, how do I do that? - Yeah. - So I start DMing people, just started. Like, you know, I would see a girl on TikTok and say, she makes good content, DM her. I DM, like, 100 girls got no responses. And the system was just broken. Cold outreach on TikTok, it doesn't work. And I realized that. And I said, why not try to have, you know, my sister's friends make content. Like, people that I know, it ends up, my brother's girlfriend was in a sorority at Boulder. She was in Kappa at Boulder and she knew what I was trying to do. And she was like, you should just send a text in our sorority group chat that you could, you know, give girls free jewelry and they have to post content. He said, that's an amazing idea. Crafted a text. Like, hey, if you're interested, we'll give you free jewelry and we'll give you $50 to $100 per video. I have never gotten more messages from women in my life. I got like 50 text messages. I felt like it was insane. Yeah. Am I dreaming right now? Yeah. And I knew I had struck gold because these girls are amazing content creators. And they wanted to make content. People were offering to do it for free. They just wanted jewelry. Yeah. This is insane arbitrage. What is going on right now? Yeah. So I text all them back. I'm like, you know, I got the jewelry company of 50 creators. And that was like the start to enter the sorority niche. Yeah. And that's like where my business is now. That's fascinating. And so your initial stuff for them was like, you just bring the content creators to them. Yeah. And then they make videos. They pay you per video or something like that. That was like the very first iteration. So the very, yeah. The very first iteration was, you know, the videos for Louise Carter jewelry were super easy. They were very easy videos to make. How much did they pay for that? I got paid $1,000 to just source 10 creators, I believe. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Your first internet money. Yes, first view of internet money. I forgot exactly how it was. I just remember I was making like the contract values that I was doing and Josh, after I successfully sourced these creators, I got connected with like knobs and some of these other creators. Yeah. And I promised Josh connected you. Josh connected me. Yeah. I promised them 100 videos for 5K. Yeah. That was the next iteration. So I guess I went from, with Louise Carter, I think it was $10 of a video, I assume. Okay. She's fucking nothing. Yeah. It's okay, you just didn't know. My next contract was 5K for 100 videos, which is insane. Yeah. And I realized why that was such a horrible business model. 'Cause I have to manage all these girls. They're sorority girls. So a lot of them, you know, are not reliable. And when you're not paying them enough, they're not reliable enough. And they're just girls that wanted to get free PR pretty much. So there's a flaw with the business, where I was again paid enough, I had to manage 100 creators, which is very difficult to do. Or sorry, 50 creators each posting like two videos. Sure. And I realized this business model is horrendously bad. Yeah. Now the part where it got better was, while this was happening, I realized, and this honestly, like I knew it existed, but I realized that this could be a better business model. And that's what Matt and Josh were telling me to, this is a way better business model, where rather than doing like large scale or GBGC, like selling a ton of videos for cheap amount of money, why not take an entire sorority and do an event and a collaboration surrounding the brand with the entire sorority in an event. It's pretty much an event. And like obviously there's like the rush talk dance videos that have gone viral every single year since like 2021. They get like anywhere from three to five million views. One of them has 44 million views. Yeah. And that's these like beautiful girls, like they just do these huge dances and they go viral. Exactly. And you're like, dude, they should have fucking body armor in their hands. It's like 50 to 100 girls dancing with the product, like showing the products. Yeah. That is unbelievable. And I'm already working with these sorority girl creators, but I'm not working with, there's the entity which is the sorority. And there's all these individual girls. I was working with all of them. all the individual girls. Why not just work with the entire sorority and make it a really fun event for the girls and sell those like, you know, hero videos, those dance videos. Sell those to brands. - Yeah. So this is a very good playbook I think in terms of like thinking about how to do business by the way, which is like not dissimilar from Josh, who does treat interviews is kind of like, well if you go and you look at the hard-knocked sky, it's like, oh, dude, that guy runs around and interviews people. Well, what if that was just a business and like you just did it with like a product in somebody's hand. - Yeah. - Boom. Yours thing was similar. Like, hey, this thing I see online goes viral. It gets some traction, but nobody's doing it, like a business, like nobody's charging for it. I assume or maybe somewhere, but it certainly feels like it was early. - Yes, 100%. And it was, it's obviously like Rush Talk hasn't existed forever. I think it became a huge thing in 2021. And then, 2024, it really took off. - Yeah. - 2025 was even bigger. But Rush Talk has five billion views on TikTok. - Wow. - It's a global trend. Like every single people around the world would like watch these videos. - Yeah. - And these videos are already one viral. I just had to make my business around that, doing that for brands. It's like taking something they already works and making an offer and a business around that. - And they go to you, Matt and Josh, and they, what do they tell you in terms of like, who should you sell this to? How much should you charge? And like, how do you actually get in touch with these people? What advice did they give you on that stuff? - Yeah. So they, and they gave really an advice in the beginning where they said, listen, like these activations, you could charge way more for than just traditional UGC. And it could be, you know, it's just a better offer. - Yeah. - But that was like the, that was the light at the end of the tunnel, or it was like, shit. I'm getting screwed by doing this high volume low ticket UGC. I could do an event with the entire sorority, charge way more, and it'd be easier to fulfill 'cause I don't have to manage all these individual girls. - Yeah, that was logic. - So when, what you're looking back now, what's your advice in terms of like, when should somebody know that it's time to quit and burn the boats? - Ooh, I'm going. - Quit, like me quitting my job pretty much? - Yeah. - People would say that I was even Josh. People would say I was out of my fucking mind for quitting. - Yeah. - So I had zero business, zero reoccurring revenue. And I quit, the reason I quit, I'll go back a little bit. I was doing the UGC. And then I, the moment where I thought about it was Matt had posted a tweet a while ago about Gymshark collab and these girls wearing Gymshark and it got 300,000 impressions. I was trying to post on Twitter 'cause obviously, you learn from people that have done it. So Josh and Matt and you post on Twitter. - Yeah. - That's how I get clients is posting on Twitter. I was posting the tweets sucked, obviously. And then Matt was like, let me cook up for you. He writes a tweet for me and I post it. It was about this poppy collab with Alex Earl with the sorority. It got 600,000 impressions. And my sales, I put a little calendar link in my bio. My sales calendar, like overnight, I had 25 book calls. - Wow. - It was insane. - What kind of brands? - We had FabFitFun, we had Bodyarm, we had CalShi. - Yeah. - We had these mega brands. - Yeah. - Fucking brands. And the Bodyarmer thing really was like, oh my God. - Yeah. - It was Bodyarmer, it's a huge brand. They work with all these athletes. - It'd be perfect. - Yeah, it'd be perfect for sorority. Even CalShi too, all these big brands. And FabFitFun, which is also a billion dollar brand. And I was like, this is, I'm not selling low ticket UDC to businesses that want to run ads more. It's more of these large businesses that want to embed themselves in culture. - Yeah. - That was the shift. - Yeah, it's like do something super operationally intense where like a marketing manager at Bodyarmer is not gonna like source the sorority and coordinate 75 girls and fly in to do a dance video. Like do something really really hard. For somebody who like, I mean, look, if you do this for a brand that does $3 million a year, like I don't know, maybe they're best case scenarios. You had, you know, $100,000, $200,000 a revenue. But if you do it for Bodyarmer, there's gigantic, you just move the needle a little bit. Like, you know, on a company that size, right? And you, you know, like you could do $100,000. Maybe you'd make them a million dollars more. Or at least get them like a bunch of brand awareness or things. And they're less price sensitive. - I actually fit, that is exactly, you know, what I was thinking. It's like the, the company changed obviously when I went from large scale UDC to activations and events. And I'd say, you know, if a smaller brand would do sorority activation, I'd tell them it's done. I think it's stupid. 'Cause one, the sorority won't be as excited as if it was a big brand like Bodyarmer. Sororities are way more excited to work with bigger brands. That's the first thing. The second thing is, I feel like when you're a smaller business, you need to make every single dollar count towards making you more revenue. So it's like, if you're a smaller business, like small, medium-sized business, it's like, you want to spend that money on ads and you want to see the metrics. Okay, this CPM, you know, this is the row ads. We got to keep running this ad. We got to cancel this one. With these bigger companies and these events, it's like embedding and taking over culture. A cultural takeover, that's what it is. And that's how I pitch it to brands, too. Cultural relevant. - Is this what I would have heard if I was on your first sales call? - No. - Yeah. - 'Cause I've refined my pitch obviously so many times over and over. - Dude, you are, your first tweets were so bad. - Oh, you weren't, have you seen them? - I was just around, too. Like I knew of you through Josh, and you were here and you were tweeting and stuff. So I would read it. I feel like you asked me to look at stuff sometimes, too. - Oh, it was bad. - Yeah. - Oh. - It was not good. - It was horrible. - Yeah. And so you do these calls. - Yeah. - Like what's the most interesting one to go to? Body armor? - Yeah, so how it worked was, and I remember the exact week and days this happened. - Yeah. - I had a call with FabFitFun on a Wednesday, and I had a call with Body Armor on Friday. - Do you remember when was this, what day, what month? - This was in November, early November. - November, 2025. - Yes. And it started FabFitFun. I made a pitch and I used Gamma, which is an AI presentation maker, horrendous. - You should have seen this pitch. - Yeah. - And my entire job was making pitches on PowerPoint. - Into your whole job. - I used to be a consultant, you were probably as a fucking slides. - Yeah. - The slides were not that good, obviously, with Gamma. And I remember it was during lunch, and I take my backpack and I bike. It was freezing cold. I bike to the nearest lifetime fitness, and I take the call like in like the club area of lifetime. I took a sales call there. - Nice. - And I pitched them for $2,000 for an event. - Okay. - But I, at this point, I literally just wanted a case study. I would have done anything for a case study. - Yeah. - So, pitched them for 2K. It's FabFitFun, it's a billion dollar brand. They obviously were like, yeah, for sure, this is great, like 2K for a sorority event. And I learned a lot about that event too. I wasn't in person, it didn't go well. There's a lot that I learned from that event. - Yeah. - The next call was with Body Armor, where I pitched them the in-person activation with the dance video, and having all these creators post content about Body Armor. And the woman that saw my tweet, her name's Andrea. She's like a huge mentor to me now. She loved the idea. - Yeah. - Exactly what we needed to brand. I cannot believe we're bringing this to me. This is unbelievable. We definitely want to look into this more, like send us this deck. - What did you tell her? - Like, what were the things you were saying, where her reaction was, oh my God, I have to have this. - So, I showed her a lot of the videos that sororities have done in the past. And, you know, she saw those videos and I told her, listen, like, we will make Body Armor the center of these videos. I will fly down. I will make sure that this content's excellent. And we will replicate these videos, they get millions and millions of views, but we will put Body Armor at the center. - Yeah. - And that was like really the pitch. - Yeah. - I had no, you know, I was a horrible sales person. I didn't know anything about sales, but the offer was good, and it hit the right person. I think that's, I think that's right. I mean, my take is like, yes, and like, yeah, it's a novel offer, which is important. It's like, wow, it's a lot of work. All the things that we were talking about before. But I think also the wrong way that most people sell is like, they come on and they talk about themselves and their background and why they started to come in this amazing thing. And what you're describing is like, show not tell. Like, hey, this amazing thing. Like, you just want to see some videos that are people done and just look at the results. The barges look through together and you have them now. They're envisioning. the outcome, the solution. You're like that. You see that? What if I was just that but with you? Yes. That's exactly what I do now. Yeah. I literally, what I do now is obviously I do discovery, and I get to know their goals because maybe activation isn't even right for them. Sure. And I'll do research on the client before end, too. You know, if I think they could be good fit, I'll do a lot of research before the sales call. I really do a ton of research on the client that I'm pitching. And then we obviously do discovery. I'll see if it's something that they could be interested in. Right when that discovery part ends, I go right into case studies. It's like, let me just show you what we do. Yeah. I show them what we do. Yeah. And usually that is enough to get them to want it for their brand. Yeah. I have a, I have this little thing. I learned from this guy, Jesse Pujee that I do on my calls, which is the show not tell thing. Very similar. We're like, you know, I do discovery ask like, well, would it, you know, what, what do you want? How's growth going? What's hard? What are you trying to figure out? I try to tease out problems. But then instead of being like, here's my thing and what we do. And like, you have some DAC or something. I kind of start in and I'll go like, you know, I think a lot about the creative. Like we try to like map out who you're actually, I'll just show you here. I mean, I think I have this thing in your fig gym somewhere. Oh, yeah, I've still got this thing. And I had it out. I know, I know exactly the fig jam and it's all preset out, but it's meant to look, yes, kind of in the moment, you know, and stuff. I'm like, oh, I've got this fig gym somewhere and then I walk them through like ads, we've done with other people and like, how we break out the audience and we sort of you can just show this stuff you do and the results. And then people feel they see the product and they, they just feels better. It feels less salesy. Oh my God. It's so much, but I show them just the TikTok. Like, I don't know. I'm a slide back or anything. I really just go on TikTok. I search up the activation. I'm gonna show them. Yeah. And I go through all the videos and each activation average, it's like 50 videos. Yeah. And we contract a certain amount. I scroll. I'm like, look how much content we got. Look at these contracts, creator posts. And usually that's, I totally agree. The almost like the less polished and the more like you're just showing them what they're going to get the better. Yeah. Yeah. So you're on that call. You're shown in the videos. She loves it. And in your hat, I'm sure you're thinking, okay, I just sold this for two a couple days ago. What number are we going to pick for this one? What did you say? So, yeah. Wednesday, obviously, the FabFit bond call. Thursday, I went out with Matt Josh. I'm not, maybe I don't think you were there. Yeah. It was Matt and Josh. The entire hangout. I was like, holy shit, guys, I had this cold blast. Oh my God. Freakin out. And I was, I was telling them, I was like, what do I charge? What do I charge? Matt thought I should charge an enormous price. Josh thought I should charge a low price and just get the case study. Yeah. I ended up going like in the middle. Yeah. You know, she then emailed me the next day after I sent her the deck. This was on Monday, actually, because I sent it on a Friday. Yeah. Monday on email, Jake, we love this. We really want to go forward. Could you please send us any case studies you have? I'm like, fuck. Oh, shit. Yeah. This is so unfortunate. Yeah. I spent an hour, no more, five, three hours, writing the perfect email back, showing them videos that I've done in the past. I used to do street interviews on campus. That was like in college as a sidehouse. So I was doing those street interviews. I showed, look, I could do this stuff. I understand virality. I made these videos for this jewelry company and this subman company. That was when I was doing the the UGC videos. Sure. So I sent her a lot of examples of stuff, but I said, listen, I haven't done this exact thing, but I know all the creators in the sorority. I know I can make this work. And she got back to me and said, okay, and I think it's like it was just the perfect offer. Yeah. And I'm a likable guy. She knew that I was like really trying to make this business work. Yeah. And you know, it was emails back and forth. It's obviously a big company. Then finally they said, let's, let's fucking do it. She took a risk on you. She took a risk on me. And I am so grateful. Like there could not be anyone, I'm more grateful to then Andrea from Body Ember, Holy Shit, say my life. That's incredible. Yeah. That's amazing. So I have a little secret, which is that I'm not really a podcast host. My main thing is an agency. I started an agency called the feed. We got to about a million dollars of ARR in about 10 and a half months, which is very fast. The reason I did that is because I had a newsletter. Now, most people think of newsletters as like the Wall Street Journal or the Morning Brew, but I think the secret to newsletters is that they're basically just marketing emails that your readers actually want to open. And you can use them to promote events, courses, communities, coaching programs, SaaS agencies, anything you want. And I was able to launch mine with no design skills, no writing skills, because of a platform called BIHive. BIHive is awesome. They made newsletters possible for marketing and basically all kinds of non tech people like me. You can spend your newsletter, write your first edition, get your first subscribers, start selling ads within just a couple of hours. And you can try it for free. They literally do not charge you if you have under 2500 subscribers, which is probably getting me most people listening to this. And so if you want to give a shot, go to BIHive.com or check the link out in the description. Let's get back to the episode. The next thing I remember about you is you start reaching onto more brands. And when I think it's hard, it's like the first time somebody starts a business, you kind of like you don't know how to do outreach. Or even if you see on Instagram, it's like, oh, reach out on LinkedIn or do cold email. It's like, okay, fine, do that. And there's all these other steps like, fuck, like, where do I get the list of people to reach out to? What do I, I got to write a fucking subject blank in the email? What do I say in the email? Should I send it? Like, new? What is that? Too late? It's Friday or should I send it? There's only shit you realize you start to overthink. And I remember like, I remember sending you, I think, emails that I had sent. And like, we talked about this. We did. We did. I remember that. And so I'd love to dig into just like what I get it, you have this viral video, you know, but after that, what are the things you were doing to book more calls? Good question. So body armor, we booked it out for, we were going to do this in January. So I had time or it was February, sorry, we're going to do the activation February. So I have like a month to two months. Obviously, I wanted to fulfill and make that excellent. But I also had other time. And you said, hit it at drug. You're like, dude, I was like, oh my, shoot me out more. God, oh my God. Yeah. And I was like, I, uh, what I kind of like, I was doing some UGC stuff, but like, I was like, not signing any more UGC. I'm going all in on this new offer. And I started cold that reaching to brands. And I started by doing, and I saw this video from Alex Formozzi, where he was like, you can't delegate to early, like sit down for four hours and do shit that sucks. And just do it. Like, just do the outreach yourself. Do it yourself and understand how it works. That was like the most valuable piece of advice I had ever gotten. Yeah. Um, because no one wants to do it. But I would, you know, come into this office. Yeah. And for pretty much 10 hours a day, write LinkedIn outreach messages. Yeah. And Saturday and Sunday too, I remember I'd be in here. You be here. I would just grind up and Saturday and Sunday messages almost hit just as well. If not better. Yeah. I did that for weeks. And I became an expert on cold outreach. I don't think anyone is better at cold outreach than me. So genuinely don't think so. Teach me how to do cold outreach on LinkedIn. I open up LinkedIn and what needs to happen next to sell sorority activations. So, um, I would say it starts with obviously the person you're reaching out to. Yeah. So, what I did is obviously we signed body armor. And I knew that woman that had trusted me to obviously do it and saw my tweet. It's, I figured out the, you know, buyer personality, which is someone that works at a large company. They're not like the most senior person. They're not, um, junior. They've been working in the company for like six to 12 years. Um, you know, they're super, they're brand manager, um, you know, activations, events, anything like that. And I figured out exactly who I was looking for. That was the very first thing that I figured out. I started by obviously with the body armor, you know, mapping that onto other companies. And then as I did more and more outreach, I started to see who would give me the time of day. For sure. And whoever even responded was it just kept, you know, I started to, it's almost like so much data where it's like, yeah, all these outreach messages, people that this person responded. That's the fucking person. And it's, it's, it's worth noting maybe, maybe two things that I remember is like, so one, like, like this works by the way. Because I think maybe somebody would watch something, oh, dude, he got lucky this fucking viral video. Oh, of course, you know, but like, dude, you were booking like, um, oh, what's the fucking, what's the donut company? Um, oh, Duncan. Yeah, you booked like Duncan. Yeah, like all of them. Hold outreach on LinkedIn. So they proof this works. But then two, the other thing you were saying just now that I think is worth like unpacking a little bit. So it's you finding the role like the buyer personality. So it's like manager director. They need to have some kind of brand activation event in their title. And like in LinkedIn, you can search for that shit. You can go ahead and find me people. Yes. These companies with the word event in their role. Yes. And so you've got this big ass list. It's probably got what, what, how many, what a thousand people on it? The pants on the company. But yeah, tons of like, and get LinkedIn sales navigator. First of all, yeah, that's the first thing you need to do if you're doing cold outreach. Yeah. LinkedIn sales navigator. It's like a hundred 150 bucks a month. Yeah, that's 150 dollars. I've ever spent in my life. Yeah, I think they give you your first month for like 20 and bucks, too. So if you got you got $29 this hurt fucking costs. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. It's the most valuable tool Also if you do cold email, I just think that is like the you I've never had success with it I've done the same amount. I was doing it. Obviously tons of cold email to going on Apollo finding their email address sending them emails It's like I see outreach emails to me now now that I own a business. Yeah, and I literally have never responded. Yeah, but if someone says me a LinkedIn message I am way more likely to respond. Yeah And you see you could see who you're messaging and like there's a face associated with whose messaging you and it's just way better So I agree LinkedIn with sales premium navigator whatever like it's I think 150 bucks a month. Yeah Find who is going to buy from the company the person that actually is the purchasing decision whose job It is to spend some of their budget on what you were selling you need that person So if I was reaching out to junior people at the company someone that's been working one to two years they don't have like they don't They want to look good so they don't want to take a chance on some dude that's doing a cold outreach message. Yeah And they have no, you know decision-making power. Yeah, so yeah, obviously I even I would rather reach out to the CMO of a company on LinkedIn Then someone that's been working there for two years the CMO is way more like me to respond. Yeah And maybe they won't be the decision maker, but they can like hey up up up. Yeah, here's my director of events Talk to them exactly and like if it's good outreach message, they'll probably respond So let's talk about a fuck your outreach message actually maybe one thing before that I remember you asking me about this here in the office. Yeah, do you LinkedIn in mail connection request which one which one do you do either does that matter? Okay, it's been I think it's just quantity and I do a lot of both yeah, and Sometimes the connection requests works better sometimes and I actually have this framework, which is like a little anal Like it's like very like it's like if there's a mutual connection Then I will connection request because I'm a mutual. I don't want to sound salesy They might be like oh, it's a friend of a friend and then accept my connection request and then I'll send the message Yeah, because you already have that like kind of leg up where you're mutual connection You don't want to send a salesy message and throw them off right away. Just connect with them. Yeah mutual connection if They're not then maybe a in-mails better, but like it really just depends and get a feel for it too. Yeah I do a lot of both I just think quantity negates lock when it comes to cold outreach Do you do remember my heart like what what you say and that message? Yes It really varies to and essentially what I've done is I have a Google sheet with every outreach message that is ever worked and We'll probably keep testing new ones too Yeah, but I have outreach messages that I've sent that worked and outreach messages that my employee and like interns have sent that worked So we just have like all the data now on like this one worked twice. This one worked once Yeah, one worked four times which one of your go-to LinkedIn DMs that you feel like almost guarantees a response Oh, I don't have my phone. Can I get my phone? Yeah, grab it. Yeah, so one of the first people that responded to me was CMO Yeah, it was so hype. We were here at 8 p.m. on a Friday and you responded to me. I was like this fucking nuts Yeah, I said sorority activation times is the header I said Andrew comma. I'm shooting my shot deserves a sorority activation with hundreds of girls posting about Let me do it for free if it's not successful. You owe me nothing full day sorority shoot He said I'm listening dot dot dot and then gave his email open to a quick conversation That was Friday at 9.42 p.m. Yeah, I'm just seeing that now, you know, he gave me his email I sent him an email that was one of the outreach messages that worked this one to This is a connection request. Yeah I run a company that produces viral sorority activations what this looks like rush talk dance video sponsored by Plus influencers we contract to post around the activation these activations off again millions of views open to a quick conversation And she was like intrigued by the whole thing. I like it. So you're ending with a question like super simple This is not I mean, it's it's three senses. Yeah, yeah, it's you need it to be short and like no bullshit no fluff You know, and it doesn't even I don't think it matters. You could look salzy sure It doesn't really matters. I have it as it's really short and it's exactly what they need. Yeah, they'll answer Yeah, because what they would have taught you and what it consulting would be like, you know Evening, you know, whatever Natasha and then you have this whole fucking long thing and it's like every I don't know I don't know about your place, but in my place like I feel like you like got credit for being like really eloquent and wordy, you know, but here, I mean, it's just like fucking no actually like the dumber the language. Yeah, it should be so simple. Yeah I explain exactly what I do in every outreach message. Yeah, I don't sugar code it I just say like this is what you do let's chat and The reason that works and you could get fancy. I think without reach like you could You know try to do it like I've seen people try to do like re like you know try to pretend like they've already been a conversation Sure, I've seen people do all types of things. Yeah, I think that with this you're telling people exactly what you're selling them And if you send that message to 200 people one of those people will be like that's exactly what I'm fucking looking for Oh my god, yeah, and like it doesn't matter that sales it. It's exactly what they were looking for you're just feeding it to them I like it and you were you were doing this 10 hours a day here in the office. Do you do know and I never tracked this I mean, so I don't even know but like just a sense of volume How many messages are you sending every day or every week and like how many replies you're getting like how many calls are you booking? I think I was sending like 50 to 100 per day. Cool and You know, I've only probably gotten in total from me and my interns and you know 15 to 20 responses Yeah, and a certain amount of those have turned into clients. Yeah and like obviously like I had my business is centered around big clients and I'd honestly rather have a business focusing on a select few clients that I'm really doing amazing work for putting all my time and energy into those clients Yeah, it honestly, you know cold outreach if you're selling something for a thousand dollars probably stupid, you know for sure Yeah, you're probably talking about a you know single digit percentage reply rate and so your goal right is to book, you know 2030 caught get you know 10 clients out of hundreds maybe into the low thousands maybe thousand 2000 messages, but Expensive high ticket, you know the best clients enterprise. Yes, exactly And like the goal is obviously to just get them on a call Yeah, you're your sole goal no more email and back and forth Your goal is to get them on a call as fast as possible. Yeah, especially when you're like, you know If you're a good salesperson and you you're you know, you've practiced your pitch You just want to get them on a call like emailing all this, you know, let me see case studies Let me see the stack blah blah blah. I think like what I do now is Let's say they say yes, sometimes they'll want to see more information and sometimes they'll be busy and they won't go on a hop on a call with a stranger So sometimes what I say is like I would love to get a quick call if easier can send you a short loom on what we do Yeah, and so a lot of times actually probably more than not. They'll say we'd love to get that loom video And then I get into a room and I fucking hide myself up and I get on camera like hey like I get their attention right away And I'm so passionate about what I sell that I'm like and then I show them all the videos We're gonna do this for this like I break it down very clearly the loom is no longer than a minute and a half yeah, and That has worked more often than not so do you have one of the looms? Yeah, can't can't see it. Yeah, sure Decided to share what a sorority activation would look like that first. Why do we care about sororities? This is a video from Arizona Capacapa gamma Nice That video got 44 million views and look at their page 10.7 million views 7.6 million views These videos during sorority rush the viral every single year and we put cloud at the center of these videos This is an example of one we just did with body armor These choreographed dance videos is just part of the activation This is a two-hour event at the sorority house surrounding cloud So not only do we make the hero video we also contract 25 creators in the sorority house to make Arounding content these are trending videos that the sorority members post on their own accounts for example with body armor We got over 50 tech talk videos posted in this two-hour event. I'll show you some of that content now We put at the center of these events we make custom banners cost a merch on average We see over two million views per activation and 50 tech talk videos per activation. Wow Yeah, that was honestly now one of my best ones and I know worked they responded and said yeah We're interested in here more, but I think it's pretty good. I think yeah simple. What do you do? How are we gonna do this for you? Yeah, it's a clearly there interested in the answer. Yeah. Clearly like and discovery obviously you should do with every client. Yeah. But like clearly if they answer cold outreach message like you're you targeted right and they want what you're selling. Yeah. So yeah that's like you know I think the looms are excellent. I think like that's pretty much my funnel like LinkedIn outreach message to email. And then sometimes they'll send an allume sometimes they'll just book a call through email. I like it. You rent this dingy red pickup truck. You fly down to fucking I remember Alabama or some some place for body armor. Walk me through that day. For my first activation. Your first activity. Yes. So I am so hyped for this activation. It was said to take place I believe late January and 10 days before and you know I'm courting with body armor getting the sick banner. This these cool body armor coolers. We're sending 500 bottles of body armor to sorority. I'm having you know calls with like the head of PR at the sorority like planning the entire day planning the dance video. All of a sudden 10 days before ice storm hits Ole Miss. And this is this is an Ole Miss by the way ice storm hits. No power. No one has food. It's like because at a place like Ole Miss like they've never dealt with an ice storm. Yeah. Literally the entire town shut down for two and a half weeks. Yeah. So we had to move the activation and I was so I was devastated because I was like you know building up so much hype for this. I was so excited. This is going to change my business and boom like you got pushed back and we pushed it to February. So I had to wait another like three weeks. So I was like okay what do I do with three weeks. Keep out reaching you know keep playing this activation. And then we did the activation and it was extremely successful. We got 56 TikTok videos posted. We got I believe it's like over two million views now for the entire event. And it at first I was like pretty disappointed. So like after the event so I thought you were bothered. I remember getting photos in the case. Yeah. I was like dude you and all these like sorority girls. It's fucking dudes. It's Jake. Dude is out here like a crush in it. Yeah. It was I mean everyone was like hype me up. I to take you back a little bit. I go to Ole Miss. I rented a red pickup truck. Massive pickup truck. At first he got a van. I told the dude I was like dude. I'm going to fucking abduct them. I was like I will pay extra I need this pickup truck and he was like just take it. Yeah. Just people are so nice there. Yeah. And I drive this red pickup truck. I'm blasting music. I'm like this is un fucking real. Yeah. I go to the hotel. I spend the night wake up the next day. It's activation day. My nerves are pumping. Like holy shit what do I do? What do I do to prepare all this stuff. I go to the storage unit. We I rented a massive storage unit for 500 bottles of body armor. We had banners, coolers. It was a huge event. Yeah. Take all that stuff. Load it down. This was like three hours before. Put it in my pickup truck. Drove to the sorority. Set it up. And then the event was spectacular. It was so fun. We were out all outside. You know we had the girls wear like you know outfits that match the colors. So we had all of them wear like orange, pink, and yellow, which matched the body armor flavors. And we started out doing like a lot of the member content. Then we moved to the dance video. And I personally thought I was like damn I don't know. I hope we got enough content. Like I really hope the video started going out and we had everyone use a hashtag to track all the videos. And we ended up getting 56 TikTok videos. None of them are going massively viral. But then the next day you know I check again and the videos are doing extremely well. And I was so happy when I saw that. And that was you know I was nervous because obviously I wanted to sign body armor and more deals. And they said if this goes well, like we'll keep using you and we want you to be like our agency for this. I didn't need it to go well and thank God it did. Yeah. I put together this nice recap got in the called body armor. And they were like oh my God. How do you get these girls to post? Yeah. These videos with body armor. How do you do this? They're freaking out on the call. And they're so happy. And it made my day. I was like so that call was the best thing. Yeah. And then they wanted to do more activations. And I was pumped. And that was like my first really really big client. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's awesome, dude. That's crazy. It's it went when was that call? At least a couple months ago. That call was so his February was when the activation was like early late February. So that call was like early to mid-March. Yeah. Okay. So like 90 days ago. Yeah. Yeah. Did it all happen? You know. Yeah. It's well. Did you? Do you? How do you feel? I guess because like you've had a a large amount of success in a very short period of time. Do you feel happy? Do you feel motivated? Do you more? Do you feel like dude? I do. I'm content because you're like dude. I feel like this could be 10x what it is. Like what do you feel when you think about all this? I just feel like I'm definitely, you know, this is all I think about as this business. Yeah. I see this becoming, you know, a massive company. And this is the very early very difficult phases of it. What's massive? I think, you know, a hundred million dollars a year is really big. Yeah. Eventually we'll expand beyond like, obviously we're in a very niche topic right now, sororities. Eventually we'll do, you know, fraternities. We'll do all these other, which we do do some fraternity stuff, but like we'll do, we'll be, we'll dominate campus culture and Gen Z. And then I think Gen Z itself, that market is a huge market right now. So market that every brand is trying to tap into. But I think right now, it's just about doing excellent work, getting excellent case studies, and fulfilling for, you know, the clients that I have right now. And just, I think that is the most important thing, because I want those to be like long term relationships with these clients that I have now. Yeah. So it's just doing amazing work. That's all I'm focused on. I'm not focused on getting new clients right now. Yeah. I'm not focused on anything else. Yeah. Do you, um, do you feel rich? That fuck no? No, not at all. Dude, you are. I'm like, not, I should say that. Not well. I'm not, uh, at all, because I'm gonna spend all that money on employees. I'm re-invest every penny. Yeah. But like, I mean, in the sense of like, I mean, you're very frugal. Like, I, I chirp you about this a little for fun. But dude, I can't, I can't count the number of times I've like walked over during lunch time to the microwave. And you're like, dude, you're Michael living the fucking ziplock bag of beef. He got ground to be fucking whole foods, you know. Yeah. I'm like, all right, man. Dude, it's fucking take that over there. Where, where does your frugal mentality come? Because you have money. Like, yeah, what, what, what do you feel so frugal? So I actually like, I, it's just like runs in the family. Like, I do you have rich middle class poor, I'd say, upper middle class. Okay. Like, you know, not, not insanely well off, not, but like, definitely comfortable. But like, still like, I need to get a job and succeed and do well. Yeah, I'm not just, um, but I have, my mindset is slowly, but surely changing to now I spend, now I'd never, you know, I spend money now. And it's like, it's kind of something that I need to start doing. Yeah. Um, so like, my, I hired a full, you know, a full time employee, you're gonna hire another one. Um, and then I have like interns that I'm also paying. And then I hired a full time content creator, um, who's a senior in college, but she's like doing this pretty much full time. So like, things are starting to add up. And now I'm at the point where I'm like, almost panicking because so much money is leaving my account every month. Yeah. Um, but I look at it in such a different way where it's like, I have a skill. I have a company and I could always get more. Yeah. A company will always pay for what I'm doing. Yeah. What, um, given number in your head for like, like, not retirement, but like, when you would feel safe, what's your, I would financially feel safe now worth. Yeah. Financially safe. Yeah. 10 mil 10 million. Okay. Yeah. When you want to hit that buy 27. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's, that's pretty young. Probably 20. I feel a little ambitious. Maybe 28. Yeah. 10. Yeah. 10. No, no, 30. No, I wasn't, I wasn't yuck in your young man. No, no, honestly, I'm sorry, I realized it's fucking nuts. Um, I think by 30, that's a great goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool, man. Um, I like that. I like that. But then again, like, I'm never going to spend that much. Like I'm, I'm not the type of person that would buy a car or buy like a crazy house or do any of that better beef. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. Just getting like 97. - That's been three, right? - Yeah. - Like 90, 10 percent. - Like in microwave and wagyu. - Yeah. - Right in there. - You were telling me before this that you, to me outwardly, you don't seem like a competitive person. You seem like a grinder, like you'll sit there, you'll grind out these messages, like you're here every day, I see you in the weekends. But you said you were like, you feel kind of competitive in a way. - I'm just a super determined and super competitive. - Yeah, where does that come from? You know? - Earth. - Yeah? - I've always been extremely competitive and determined. - When's the time you remember being competitive? - I have a older brother, I've always been competitive with him in terms of sports. Like we grew up playing tennis, stuff like that. And I was always out of all my cousins. My brother was one of the younger people. So we'd have these ping pong tournaments. I would lose every single time. And I was so pissed. It was so much anger. And then I started playing like every single day. And then I finally became good. I started winning. And it was like, I love that feeling. Being the underdog at first, like younger, you know, losing every single tournament, I would get so fucking upset. And then I would literally like hit the ball against my wall all day. And then finally I won the tournament, the ping pong tournament that my family does. And I was like, this is fucking great. This is amazing, this is what it's all about. - So who do you compete against now? You're your older brother, primarily? - No, not anymore. - Who do you feel competitive with now? - Right now, do I feel competitive with? - Yeah. - Honestly, it's died down a lot since like my younger years. - Yeah. - And I'm not directly competitive with anyone. - Yeah. - But I definitely like, you know, everyone here in the office, like we talk openly about the numbers we're doing. We talk openly about our businesses. - I feel competitive. - Not in like a, these different types of competitiveness. Like there's some competitors who's about, I'm just like, I want somebody to lose for me to win. Right, which is I think not what we saw here. I feel like, like, to every else's tournament, they're probably like, they're killing it. They're doing amazing. Fuck, I gotta step it up. I want to be, but I don't want to be last, you know? - I feel proud. - It's the exactly I feel. So it's not like, you know, I want everyone to fucking crush it. - Yeah. - And I hear some of the numbers that are being put up, month or month, like, holy fucking shit. - Yeah. - And it's like motivating, you know? Very motivating. It's also like, damn, I gotta get my shit together, and really push. - Yeah. - But it's such a good environment to be in. - Yeah. - Like, you know, in corporate America, like you would never talk about how much money you're making. There's no like upwards, like upward, you know? I'm gonna make this much this month. I'm gonna make this much next month. There's none of that exists, but I think it's healthy. It's like, it's kind of like primal, I would say. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You eat what you kill, and you fight every day to do it, and it's like, that's what, you know, we're animals. We're human beings, you know? So I kinda like that. It's like, I feel more alive. - Oh yeah, better. - Amen. I appreciate you doing this. - Yeah, of course. - Yeah, that's a great. - Boom, it's a, it's a shot off the book. - Yes. - Hell yeah. - Awesome.