Brandon Koon: A Serial Entrepreneur’s Road to Online Marketing

Okay, welcome to this exclusive Empower Network Inner Circle interview. Because you're listening to this, you're in the right place at the right time. My name is Chris Rushlow, your host, your designated driver through the cyber waves. Let's block out all distractions, tune out all background noises, turn off any TV or radio, close the door, turn off the cell phone, close out Skype, and don't forget that email as well. My guest today, Brandon Kuhn, is an extremely successful online marketer in only a few short years online.

Brandon is really an entrepreneur at heart who started his first business at the age of 16. He's owned multiple businesses in different industries, including lawn care, telecommunications, pay phones, real estate investing, and most recently, of course, the internet network marketing industry. When Brandon entered into the internet marketing arena only a few short years ago, he quickly became one of the top producers and income earners inside one of the largest attraction marketing systems in the world. And he went from not knowing anything about internet marketing to learning how to generate over 100 plus leads in one day. He is now able to do this on autopilot every day.

And not only does he have the ability to generate a lot of leads, but has also learned how to turn those leads into cash. Brandon has had days where he has made more money in one day than most people make in a month. Here today to tell us his story, ladies and gentlemen, Brandon Kuhn. How are you, my friend? Hey, Chris.

I'm fantastic, man. Thanks for having me on here. Absolutely, man. It's absolutely very, very cool to finally get on the line with you. You know, being aware of you and what you've done for a long time here inside, you know, some different systems and everything and finally getting the chance to talk with you here is definitely a cool thing.

And so I'm just really looking forward to this. So, you know, let's get into this and let's start with your story and let's find out how, you know, where you came from and how you got into this industry and what prompted you to get into this industry. Okay. Yeah. I mean, kind of like what you said, really, my background is just...

Just entrepreneurship and, you know, I've really been an entrepreneur my whole working career. You know, I started a lawn mowing business when I was 16 and, you know, at that time I realized that I wanted to be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life. And the reason I realized that is because, you know, I was only working two days a week, you know, from like 8 o'clock in the morning to like 1 o'clock in the afternoon. And I was making like... Twice as much money as all of my friends that were working, you know, full-time jobs during the summer.

So I just realized at that time I wanted to be an entrepreneur just because I could see mostly the time freedom I was going to be able to have. So that's kind of what kind of sparked my interest at an early age was just because I started so young, you know, being an entrepreneur. I had that lawn mowing business for quite a while until I was like 21. I ended up just selling that business. And then I got into the telecommunication industry, started my own business there where I would sell like local service, internet service, long-distance services to, you know, just businesses here locally.

And then at that time, what I realized was I wanted to build a residual income, okay? Because with the telecommunication industry, you actually get paid every month on, you know, a small percentage of that person's bill. And so then I fell in love with, you know, residual income at that time. And so I knew that I wanted to do something or build something that had residual income. You know, then from there, you know, I did a lot of reading and I fell into or came across, I guess, Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I'm sure a lot of you guys listening to this, you know, have read his book.

If you haven't, you know, make sure to go pick up a copy of that. But anyways, I got into all the Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff. You know, Cashflow Quadrant, started learning more about, you know, business in general and came to realize that, yeah, I had a business, but really I was self-employed. You know, I had to work every day to, you know, obviously make a living. Even though I had the time, you know, I couldn't leverage my time.

And one of the things that Rich Dad talks about is being able to leverage your time, you know, building a business of over 500 employees. And then that's... That's kind of where I got into, you know, real estate investing. You know, I've done some real estate investing in the past. I'm not doing that as much now, mainly because of the market, but I got into some real estate, you know, and obviously that started to go downhill.

I still was making money with my telecommunication business just because it was a residual-based income, like I said. But I've just wanted... What I really wanted to do was find something that I could help other people have the time and freedom that I had, because all of my friends, you know, they always ask me, you know, what did I do? What do I do? Because I really didn't work that much, and that's because I had that residual income coming in.

And so I really wanted to be able to share that with other people, so I started doing some research, came across network marketing. You know, I had one of my buddies come up to me, just like I'm sure many of you guys have had, you know, and said, hey, check out this opportunity, because he knew I was an entrepreneur. I was like, okay, I'll look into it. Saw the business model. I actually really fell in love with the whole concept of network marketing, the business model, but I just don't know where to go or, you know, how to get started.

You know, I've bought other businesses, like you mentioned. I was actually in the payphone industry for quite a while, and, you know, that's something you don't think would do too well, but we actually did really well with payphones. But that was a business that I... And that's kind of where I struggled, is because I didn't know... You know, I couldn't just go out and tell people, hey, go buy this business or go do that.

You know, it's going to cost you 50 grand or whatever. Most people can't do that. And that's kind of where I saw a fit with network marketing, where, you know, most people, you know, you can get started for, you know, 500 bucks or, you know, 1,000 bucks, where you can start your own business. And that's kind of how I fell in love with the industry. Now, with, you know, like just most people who are probably listening to this, you know, I went out there, did the whole friends and family thing, and, you know, I had some success because, you know, my family, I mean, they pretty much do whatever I do.

So I signed up, you know, quite a few people just by doing that into my first company. But then I soon realized that I was spending a lot of time... You know, at other people's houses, in the evenings, doing hotel meetings, you know, and that just really wasn't what I wanted. So, you know, then I went online and was just searching online, trying to figure out a better way to build my, you know, my network marketing company. And that's really how I got started to, you know, to the online world is just because I was struggling offline.

And, you know, it's not to say that the offline marketing doesn't work. It's not to say that the offline marketing doesn't work. It's just that I wanted something that was a little faster, and I just had always been intrigued with the Internet. So, you know, I went online, started learning about attraction marketing, and like you mentioned, you know, I came across, you know, the largest attraction marketing system online, and just started surrounding myself with, you know, other people that had been successful. And, you know, that's one of the other reasons why I got into this industry is because, you know, I'm sure you guys have heard the saying, you know, people are going to be successful birds of a feather flock together.

You know, I just wanted to surround myself with other entrepreneurs and other people that had the same mindset as me. And that's really where I started to kind of take off is when I was able to surround myself with other people, with mentors, people that had already done what I wanted to do. You know, so the first thing I did is just went out there, started marketing the way that I was taught. Had quite a bit of success rather quickly. You know, started making a little bit of money.

You know, I made like 300 bucks my first week online, which isn't a ton of money, but at least I knew that it worked. And I knew at that point all I had to do was, you know, just duplicate what I had done and that I could make more money. So, I mean, that's really how I got started in the industry. And then I guess now that's just most people say, you know, the rest. It's history.

But that's how I got started. All right. Well, I mean, and that's cool because, I mean, you were able to experience having results quicker than the average person by far. And, you know. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Go ahead. No. Yeah, I mean, really. And the reason being, I would probably say, I mean, that's probably true. I wouldn't say that I did anything amazing or anything out of the ordinary.

What I did was I just took action. You know, what happens in this industry, a lot of people, they get online and they're like, oh, you know, I'm going to make millions of dollars online and, you know, they buy some course or whatever and then they don't do anything with it. And that's where most people fail in this industry is because they just don't take action. So, I really, I didn't do anything extraordinary. I just took action.

I did exactly what I was told to do. I started to generate. You know, a couple of leads a day, started turning those leads into money. And then really where I had one of my biggest, I guess, explosions is where I started taking some of that money that I'd made and started putting it into paid marketing. And once I started reinvesting that money into some of the paid marketing, that's really when I exploded.

And that's when I, you know, went from 10 leads a day up to, you know, generating over 100 leads a day. Okay. Because I was able to leverage my money and systems into generating more leads. Okay. Now, most people would, you know, they see that model and they go, well, yeah, it's easy.

You know, let's do the math. And then I can do the same thing and then leverage it. And that sounds great. But, you know, what most people don't see when they really get into paid traffic is that, you know, there's some things that need to be learned along the way in terms of converting and making sure your paid traffic, you know, converts. And so why do you think you were able to bring, you know, to have high converting ads?

Obviously, you did if you were having success with it, especially, you know, from, you know, quite early on. So why do you think that was? Yeah. You know, what I think it was is I just took massive action. You know, Tony Robbins says massive action equals massive results.

And that's kind of been my mantra ever since I got online. And so what I did is, well, I started out with Google pay-per-click. Obviously, now, you know, you can't really do that. But that's where I got started was with Google pay-per-click. And what I did is I just went crazy.

I mean, you know, I did lots of research on keywords that people were searching for. What I mainly targeted were people in other companies. So I got a list of, you know, like 500 MLM companies and just started figuring out what keywords people were searching for. You know, for example, like let's just use Amway because that's pretty – like if you had Amway, I started finding out that people were searching for Amway scam, Amway review. They typed in Amway.com.

And, you know, things like that. And what I did is I just created over 500 campaigns on Google pay-per-click for all of these different companies. And I think that's kind of why I had a lot of success is just because I just went – I just went all out. I mean, I just went, you know, I'm just going to go for it and just started generating a ton of traffic just because I took so much action and, you know, just targeted so many companies with so many different keywords all at once. Then at that point, it came down to just scaling.

So, you know, obviously, I started kind of small just to make sure that my sales funnel worked. And then once I figured out the conversion rates and, you know, how it worked and how much money I was paying or making per lead, you know, then it was just – then all I had to do was scale it up. And that's probably one of the most important things as you get started in any marketing is, you know, figuring out, first of all, what you're converting. What are your conversion rates are? And that's easy to figure out.

All you do is, you know, how many – you figure out how many people have gone to your page and then you figure out how many, you know, people have opted in and then you just divide it. So let's just say you have, you know, 100 people go to your website and 10 of them opt in. You just divide that 10 into 100. That's 10%. And then you just work it backwards.

So you figure out, okay, if I get 100 people to look at it, I get a 10% conversion rate. So that means I got 10 leads. You know, then you figure out. Out of those 10 leads, how many people buy my product? How much money did I make off that product?

And then you work it backwards and you figure out how much you're making on average per lead. Now you know how much you can spend on marketing to make it work for you and so you can be profitable. And, you know, I think that's where some people go wrong when they get into paid marketing. I know those conversion ratios and they just kind of – you know, do it blindly and don't really know exactly, you know, the metrics of the conversion rates and actually how much money they make per lead. And that's really important because once you figure that out, you know, it's just scalable.

And you just scale it up and, you know, you're going to make money because you worked out the conversion rate. Well, yeah, and that's – I mean, that's so eloquent. That's beautiful, really. I mean, that's the thing of beauty, even just the way you explained it to make it sound, you know, how it is. And how simple that can actually be.

You know, that guiding principle is really, really, you know, that needs to be understood really well. And one of the things that, you know, like you – I go back to what you were talking about earlier where you were self-employed and you were looking at, you know, the cash flow quadrant, you know, those four quadrants like Rich Dad talks about, like Kiyosaki, and, you know, where you were in the self-employed and you couldn't scale your time well. Thinking like a business owner is where you shifted to with this because you needed to look at this. In terms of a return on investment and run your numbers and scale that out just like the same way a business owner would, you know, if they had a brick-and-mortar business with employees and all the other things, it's the same thing. And so, you know, that's really, you know, good to point out that you did make that shift.

And that's what most people have to do because I'll tell you what I hear most of the time from people who do a lot of paid advertising. They go, you know, I did these certain number of banners or I did these certain number of solo ads or I did these certain number, you know, pay-per-clicks or cost-per-clicks. Or impressions, you know, the amount of impressions. And I'm not getting any results. And oftentimes it frustrates them to quit.

And I often liken that to say, well, you still have the employee mindset. And they say, well, what are you talking about? And I say, well, as an employee, you know, the quality of your work, you literally normally do what you can just to get by, you know, and that you get your hours right because it all pays the same. You know, the quality of the work is you just do enough quality just to keep the job. And so some people who never learn how to put ads together, they just throw them out there without really putting in some good thought as to what might really appeal to a person to click on.

And so they go run those numbers and then they have a horrible loss in terms of how much, you know, return on investment they have back. And then they quit. They go, well, this doesn't work. You know, and the reality is that they've got to shift into a business owner mindset kind of like you did. And look at that and go, okay, well, what can I do different to figure this out to make this convert?

And let's do this one by one and make sure all these ads are starting to work and convert. And then let's. But most people stop short of that, which is sad, you know, and it's easy. It's easy, you know, simple, but it's not necessarily always easy to do that. But now the burning question that I think popped into my head as well as anybody listening right now is when you said 500 different campaigns for 500 different companies.

Now, before I say anything else, that's amazing. I mean, first off, that's just, whoa. All right. You know, and. And two, Mike, my real question there is out of those 500, how many of those actual ads were profitable your first time around?

And then after the first time, how much did you improve the second time around with those with those 500 campaigns? Well, that's a good question. I mean, at first, I just kind of like I said, I just kind of threw everything out there to see what worked. OK. So that's why I did with like, you know, 500.

But I didn't make money on all of those campaigns and not every campaign brought in leads. So what eventually happened is I was able to figure out, like I mentioned before, exactly what keywords, you know, like, say, 90 percent of the people were searching for. And then once I figured that out, so let's just say, for example, Amway scam. Once I figured out that the people were searching for certain keywords like Amway scam. Or, you know, whatever.

Then I was able to just scale that out as well. So instead of having to do, you know, let's say 100 different keywords for each MLM company, I was able to just narrow that down to maybe like the top 10. Keywords that people would search for that specific MLM, which saved me time because now I could create a whole new campaign for a company, you know, in like two minutes. Because I knew which keywords. Those people were going to be searching for.

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And so you were probably utilizing like a Google keyword tool, you know, the AdWords external keyword tool to find out, you know, what people are searching for, right? Well, not only that, I mean, just the data that I had collected. So basically what I did is I threw everything up against the wall.

And then I just collected data, which was all through my Google AdWords campaign. It tells you, you know, what keywords obviously people are clicking on. And so I just looked at all of my keywords, which ones more people were searching for, which ones they're clicking on. And then I just kind of narrowed it down from there, which made it a lot easier to create new campaigns because I already knew in advance exactly what kind of keywords they were searching for, which ones people are looking for, what kind of ads to write. So I would always split that.

That's another big key with any type of marketing in general. Is to always be testing. And I'm sure you guys have heard that before, but it's just, that's just how marketing, I mean, that's really what it's all about is testing and then tweaking and just trying to get that conversion rate a little bit higher. So that's all I did is I just kept tweaking my ads until I figured out ones that worked really well. And then I just scaled it up basically.

I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah, yeah. And it does in a lot of ways. And what I was pretty much trying to see there was, you know, for just throwing everything against the wall with 500 campaigns, you know, what percentage of those 500 campaigns were successful to where you either made your money back or made more than what you spent on them. You know, just as a good indicator for people to understand, like, you know, that, you know, for every five ads you do, you might get, you know, one or two that actually bring in money and the other three you might want to scrap.

So that was more so my question. Yeah, I mean, that's okay. Yeah. I mean, that's it. That's actually a really good point.

And a lot of times you guys have heard of the 80-20 rule. That really applies to just about everything. So I would say it was actually pretty close to that on this. You know, 80% of the campaigns that I built maybe didn't generate me any leads or very few leads. But I had 20% of the campaigns that I created that brought in the majority of my leads.

And, you know, that's just the way it is. And you don't know which works. You're going to be that 20%. And so you go out there and just, you know, put everything out there and then see what works. And then you've got to tweak from there.

Gotcha. So you're looking at about a 20% real success rate of everything you did that gave you actionable data that you could work with from there and the rest to basically go, okay, well, let's not do that again. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's funny because – and I just want to bring it back in another perspective here.

For those that haven't shifted into the business owner mindset that you really – you know, that you started out with here, just to point out is that, you know, if you follow the line of what we've been taught, you know, normally in school and going on up through the ranks where you go to school and you always make sure you do your homework and you get a good job, you know, going to college and good grades and good job and do the 9 to 5 and do everything the way you're supposed to, but then, you know, there's always those measurements. Well, you know, a 20% success rate, 20% on anything like that, well, in school, that's an F. You know, and so most people would go, yeah, I don't – this isn't good enough. I don't like 20% because, you know, someone who's a good student who would think that they could learn this and figure this out very easily because they might have had a lot of success in school, who was very intelligent, you know, intelligent, high IQ, things like that, or who just did homework and paid very close attention, you know, they're used to getting 80%, 90%, you know, in that sense, 80%, 90% success rate, you know, A's and B's. And 20% ain't an A or a B, you know, and so.

And that's the only reason I'm saying that is that I think you agree with me that we don't want people to get frustrated and give up and quit on that, you know. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that's what happens, and I think like you've been saying, as long as the mindset – you have to have a mindset shift into being a business owner. So, you know, this type of business is just like any business. There's ups and there's downs.

You will fail. There are certain things that. Don't work. And, you know, you just got to pick yourself up and try something different. It does work.

You can be successful online. At first, it may seem like a struggle, but I would just tell you, you know, don't give up. Just try something different. If you do something that doesn't work, you know, do more of it so you can get a better idea of, you know, the data that you need to, you know, make a decision or, you know, totally scratch that idea and do something else. Which.

Brings me up to another thing is I think the reason why I had a lot of success at first is because I just focused on one – just on one thing. And for me, it was Google pay-per-click and, you know, becoming a master at conversions and, you know, how to write an ad and, you know, all that stuff that deals with Google pay-per-click and was able to just scale that out and just focus on that so I was successful. And then I. You know, took some of that money and learned some other ways to market and things like that. But I think what happens a lot of times is people get online and they, you know, they get spread too thin.

They try too many things or try and, you know, doing a million things at once and so they don't get anywhere. So what I would recommend to the new person, if you are new, is just find a specific strategy that you want to learn and just become an expert at that one strategy. Got it. And then once you've become an expert, then, you know, then you can move into other marketing strategies if you want to. Okay.

Now, Google pay-per-click was your main, you know, method of operation there when you started and then probably for the majority of what you've done here. Is that still your primary method of paid traffic or is there others that you do now? No. And this is a thing. Like any business.

Yeah. You have to roll with the punches. So Google pay-per-click, I'm sorry, Google actually shut me down just like pretty much everybody does. Ah, the Google slap. I don't do any type of internet marketing.

You got the slap. I got the good old Google slap. I was cruising under the radar for a while but they finally slapped me. So I don't do anything with Google pay-per-click now. That's how I got my start.

I still like paid marketing. You know, a lot of people are afraid of paid marketing but I love it just because. I can get results so fast and then I can tweak certain things and, you know, see what works, see what doesn't work. So I haven't done Google probably for a year and a half now or maybe even longer just because I can't. So I kind of shifted, you know, my way of marketing.

Right now I do a lot of Facebook pay-per-click so I learned, I took what I learned from Google and apply that to Facebook. Facebook is a little bit different. It's a little different because it's not, it's not search, search-oriented. You know, you can't, people aren't just searching on Facebook for a specific key word. So I had to kind of shift a little bit on, you know, how to target people on Facebook but a lot of the, a lot of it's kind of the same.

So I do a lot of Facebook marketing. You know, you mentioned solo ads earlier. I love solo ads. I do quite a few of those. I do a lot of voice broadcasting.

You know, I just like that kind of stuff. So that's kind of where my main focus right now is, is on those types of things. Yeah, there is, it's definitely a different animal, Google versus Facebook when it comes to the demographics that you're targeting and everything with Facebook. And maybe not demographics, not the right word, but, you know, like you said, people search on Google and then on Facebook it's, you know, based on somebody's likes and interests on their profile. So, you know, and the theory is that obviously you're appealing to somebody who is...

More designated to the type of niche that you're targeting because that's already an interest of theirs. So, although they might not necessarily be searching for it, you know, that ad popping up there on the right still appeals to them. And when I first, you know, started getting into that, I looked at it and said, well, you know, this is not necessarily making people come to you directly because, you know, before people type in a search term, they are specifically searching for something. And then you can position yourself. Well, this person might have an interest on their profile, but, you know, is it that targeted to what they're about right now?

And is that still an interest and all that? -oh. Am I breaking up? Chris, you're breaking up on us. -oh.

Okay. How about now? Chris, can you hear me? Yeah, I can, bud. You're breaking up on us.

Can't hear you. Okay. You got to love wireless. Can you hear me, buddy? Yeah.

Okay. Can you hear me all right now? That's probably a no. Can you hear me now? I can kind of hear you.

You're starting to blow up a little bit, but. Okay. Let's see. Yeah, I can hear you. Okay.

All right. Yeah, that's one of the weird things going on right now. So we'll just keep rolling with it. Can you hear me okay all right? Yeah, I can hear you now.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it might be a little choppy here for a little bit. We'll see how it goes. What was the last thing you heard?

Because I pretty much. So I'm trying. You were telling me about Facebook and how it's different than Google. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, essentially, it's a different animal. And so here's a good question is if someone's going to do Facebook pay-per-click, you know, you said, I took what I learned from Google and I applied it to Facebook. Okay. So for those that never got a chance to get slapped horridly by Google, what did you learn in Google pay-per-click that you were able to transfer over to Facebook? The main thing is who to target.

You know, so I would target obviously people that are already in MLM companies or at least in the industry, which is huge because, you know, you've always, I don't know if you guys have heard the saying of, you know, if you're going to start a football club, you're going to start a football club. You know, if you're going to start a football team, you know, you want to recruit people that are football players and it's no different inside of our industry. You know, if you're a network marketing company and you want to build that company, you want to go out and recruit other network marketers. And I found the best place for that is people that are already in a network marketing company because you don't have to try to, you know, convince them about the whole industry and all that stuff. So, you know, what I did is I just targeted people that are, like I said, people harder, not everybody puts in a profile.

So one thing I've done that's maybe a little different than what most people do on Facebook is I try to figure out what do network marketers have in common and not necessarily their company, but what types of books do they read? You know, what types of cars do they like? You know, things like that are also on Facebook that kind of put that same mindset or that same type of person into that category. So you may not be targeting a specific company. Now you're targeting more a specific type of person.

And that person may, you know, like a certain book, like let's just say a Rich Dad Poor Dad, for example, or, you know, The 4-Hour Work or something. And so I started. You know, changing my ads, people that, you know, were interested in, you know, like The 4-Hour Work Week or, you know, The Cashflow Quadrant, things like that. And nine times out of ten, they were also in a network marketing company. So I had to kind of shift my marketing strategy on Facebook.

But, you know, I still took those same concepts. And even like my headers that I use on Google, I could use those same headlines on Facebook. One cool thing about Facebook, though, is that you have a picture. You know, that's probably the most important part when it comes to Facebook pay-per-click is the little image you can put on there. You know, having something that's compelling and there's something you want to click on.

So I just took a lot of things from Google and, you know, just applied them to my Facebook marketing. Absolutely. So let's quickly break down the anatomy of an ad on Facebook that you feel is, that works really well. Do you have a structure that you follow? Or some type of a guideline that you follow when preparing an ad?

Not really. So if I'm targeting a specific thing, like let's just say Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I try to have something, you know, whatever my keyword is, I try to have that in the headline if it's possible. So, for example, like the Amway thing, you know, I would say like, are you struggling in Amway? Or attention Amway reps. You know, basically just...

Trying to spark that person's interest because if they're in Amway and they see something that says attention Amway rep, or are you struggling in Amway? They're like, oh, yeah, because, yeah, I'm in Amway and, yeah, I'm struggling. You know, to me that seems pretty basic, but not every, you know, maybe everybody doesn't know that. But usually on the headline, I would try to do, you know, like have my keyword in the headline or have a question. You know, so, like I said, are you struggling in Amway?

Next. That usually gets people's attention. And then, obviously, the image that you use, you know, that's huge, like I said, in Facebook. So, I would try to get something that people are going to click on, you know, don't do something boring. I've been putting little borders around my images, you know, like little red borders just to kind of make it stand out a little bit more.

You find... There's really no, I guess you could say, structure. Okay. What's that? Okay, so no structure, but just...

Something that accomplishes those elements. Yeah, I mean, there's really no, you know, I'll have like an outline that I use every time. Probably because I've been doing it so long, so now it comes down to, you know, copywriting skills. You know, just kind of knowing what to put in an ad that will catch somebody's attention. What you can do also, and what I did with Google as well, and Facebook still, is I will just, you know, refresh my page, like 100,000 times, and just look at the ads that are on me.

And if I see an ad that is popping up quite a bit, usually that means that it's working. Right. Otherwise, they wouldn't continue to pay for it. So, you know, I'll take a little snapshot, you know, on my computer, like a capture screen or whatever, so I can kind of capture that image. And see what kind of image they're using, look at their headline.

And then sometimes, I don't copy it exactly, but what I'll do is I'll take out of the same concept and use that in my meeting or in one of my ads. And then I just tweak it, just like I did in Google. So I'll do testing. So I'll do two different Facebook ads, you know, one with the exact same picture, but it may be a different headline. And then I find out, you know, which headline converts better or at least gets better clicks.

And then I'll keep everything exactly the same. You know, put in a different picture and just kind of keep tweaking it until I figure out, you know, what's converting better, what people are clicking on, you know, always testing and finding out what works better. And probably important to note to only change one thing at a time so you know what it is that actually is making the difference when you're testing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you don't want to have two completely different ads because then you don't know, you know, what they're looking at. So to be clear, we would probably say. One thing at a time, you know, in the headline, okay, then only change the headline or only change the image or only change, you know, some of the text, you know, in a certain way, first sentence or whatever in the ad, but always making sure to do just one. Or, you know, am I wrong? Have you done it with multiple things and still been able to test that quite well?

I mean, that's not my forte. No. Yeah, no, I mean, you're exactly right. It's better to just change one thing. So, you know, have two identical ads and then just have maybe a different headline for both of them and have, you know, the image exactly the same and the description exactly the same.

Then you can know exactly what's working. And then once you figure out of those two, so let's just say one headline works better than the other, you scratch the other headline and then you keep everything exactly the same now and then just change, you know, the picture or the image. And then, you know, kind of work down that way. Then you find out what images work. And then you just keep everything that works.

So, yeah, you just want to change one thing at a time so you know what people are looking at. And even exclamation, I guess punctuation, as I'm saying, you know, different punctuations convert better than others. And it really just depends. There's no right or wrong. It's just you've got to just test it because every market is different.

You know, some people that like Rich Dad Poor Dad and my like questions, people that read, you know, 4-Hour Workweek, they may like something totally different. So, you know, you've just got to tweak it for each, I guess, target market that you're targeting. Absolutely. Absolutely. So when it comes to, so I would be guessing right now that probably your primary, like you'd said, is probably mostly Facebook pay-per-click on your paid advertising strategies.

But you also said you do some solo ads and a few other things. What do you find dollar for dollar, for you at least, because you do have copywriting skills. You do understand how to put headlines together. You do understand how to put ads together. Just from your experience, dollar for dollar, what type of paid advertising yields the highest results for you?

Oh, gosh, it's hard to say. Well, here's the difference is Facebook pay-per-click probably costs more, but it seems like it gets better traffic. So, like, I can run a solo ad and, you know, I can generate, you know, 500 to 1,000 leads a day. It's actually fairly easy, but the traffic may not be as good of traffic or the leads may not be as good as you would get, like, on Facebook pay-per-click. -huh.

So it's kind of hard to say because, you know, which one's better because there's really not one that's better than the other. They're just different. You know, you're going to get a more targeted person on Facebook. You may spend a little more on Facebook, but they're going to be more targeted. Solo ads, they convert and they work.

You know, it's just different traffic. So it's just kind of hard to say which one's better than the other. Okay. I've heard some varying viewpoints, so it's good to get, you know, a fresh viewpoint. You know, I've been told the same thing about Facebook is that, yes, it is very targeted.

So your upfront conversions with the amount of people that actually buy what you're selling is higher with Facebook pay-per-click. What you might find, from what I found with a few other marketers with solo ads, is that they do bring in a high opt-in rate. However, getting them to buy from that opt-in normally requires multiple exposures, webinars, and follow-ups and such like that to get them to buy the service. Is that something that you would say is just probably depending on the copywriting skills of the individual, or is that something you see as well as an overall general whole? No.

I think overall. It's very accurate. You know, I think you have better spent money with Facebook than you do, let's say, solo ads. Yeah, you may have conversion rates as far as getting the lead with solo ads, but like you said, it's going to take multiple exposures, you know, with solo ads. And that's one thing you've got to understand if you do solo ads is obviously you've got to have an autoresponder.

You've got to have, you know, multiple emails. You know, I usually have 15 to 20 emails and a follow-up. You know, in my follow-up emails when I do solo ads, things like that. And that's definitely necessary. Usually on solo ads, that's when people will sign up.

It's once they've been exposed to it a couple of times. You know, Facebook, you know, a lot of times you may get somebody to sign up with something the first time they see it. But even with Facebook, you still want to do a lot of follow-up. But yeah, I would say Facebook is definitely, you know, a higher quality of a lead. Gotcha.

Gotcha. If you're going to pay more so, it comes down simply again to you get what you pay for. Yeah. You get what you pay for. Yeah, exactly.

Right. Okay. I mean, the thing with Facebook too is, you know, the cool thing about Facebook is obviously everybody's on Facebook now. But a whole different aspect of Facebook is you can brand yourself. So with solo ads, you know, somebody's going to click on, you know, whatever, some ad.

And they go to some website. And they have no connection to that website. If somebody's on Facebook, what I normally do is if somebody clicks on an ad, I usually send them to my fan page. Okay. And then on that fan page, I'll have a tab that, you know, has them like.

I'm sure you guys have all seen this where they, you know, click like to get this secret video or whatever. So with Facebook, it's a little different because you're actually branding yourself at the same time. So, yeah, you may pay a little bit more for the lead, but you're also branding yourself. You have a following now. So long-term, you know, Facebook probably is a little bit better traffic.

You know, solo ads, you know, they don't know who you are. They just see a website. They opt in. You know, they don't really know you. Yeah, you can build your brand on the back end, you know, through your follow-up emails and things like that.

But one of the advantages of Facebook is being able to build a following. You know, a group of people. There's just all kinds of things you can do on Facebook that are really cool. So it's definitely better traffic. Absolutely.

Okay. Good to know. So what about this? Some people find it hard to get some ads actually approved. Have you found some common denominators there as to what not to do so that you can get approvals?

Yeah. You know, everybody runs into that with Facebook, even me. I mean, gosh. Yeah. So it's kind of – what I have found is, first of all, don't take people off of Facebook.

So, you know, one of my examples was when I do an ad, I have – I send people to my fan page. Gotcha. I don't send them off Facebook to, you know, a capture page because Google just – Google doesn't – I mean, not Google. Facebook doesn't like that, first of all. So what I try to do is I keep – try to keep them on Facebook as much as possible.

So I'll send them to my fan page. I create a tab, like an HTML tab where I can put in, you know, my HTML. And I usually don't have them opt in on that front page. Facebook doesn't like that either. They don't like videos playing, you know, right when somebody clicks on it.

So usually I'll have them click like and then, you know, you can actually have two different pages. So you have a page for people that are non-fans and a page for people that are fans. And once they click like, then you can have, like, a video or an opt-in or whatever, you know, on that – on the fan side of it. And that's probably the biggest thing is just that. And you can have – you know, it's got to be congruent.

So Facebook likes to see – you know, you don't want to say, like, family secrets or whatever. And then on the next page that it goes to, it's something totally different. So it's going to have your ad congruent. But it's your landing page. Those are just some of the things that I've noticed.

But, you know, who really knows what they look at? But those are some of the things that I try to do. And it seems like I can get my ads approved a little bit easier when I do those types of things. Okay. So for the person who wants to start in Facebook pay-per-click and hasn't ever done one before, just a few good things to follow would really be to make sure that ad goes to an internal, you know, Facebook fan page or another page on Facebook rather than taking them out.

Rather than taking them outside of Facebook. That really helps a lot to get ads approved. And then making sure that your ad is actually congruent with where you're bringing them to. Like maybe the headline might be just about the same or very close to the same so that Facebook probably looks at that and goes, okay, well, they're actually giving them what they're promising in the ad. So this is okay.

That's exactly right. And Facebook is very strict on that. So, like, I've even done some times where. . .

You know, I'll have a video or let's just say an opt-in. And if I don't tell them on my ad, you know, opt-in for free info, they'll disprove it. So sometimes on my ad I have to actually put that, like, you know, free video after opt-in or after like or, you know, whatever. And then it will get approved. So that's kind of weird when it comes to that.

But the bottom line is you just have to keep trying. So if you're not getting your ads approved. . . You know, just keep tweaking your ad.

Keep tweaking your landing page. And then just keep resubmitting it. And eventually you'll get something that's approved. And that's pretty much what I had to do. I had to just, you know, I had to put a ton of different ads out there to finally get some stuff approved.

Wow. And that's funny that in your ad you would actually say after opt-in free video reveals or something like that. Did you find that type of an ad converted well? Yes. Well, here's the thing.

If you do that, there's a lot of things you can do on Facebook. But you've got to remember most ads are sitting there on the side. So people may see them, but they may not click on them. So, you know, if they see, like, oh, I've got to opt-in, they already know before they even click on it that they're going to have to give you their email address. Yeah.

Or, you know, or click like. So you may not get as many clicks, but the conversions will be higher. And for you that's actually better because, you know, you're not spending a ton of money and not getting any conversions. So they already know before they even click on it, hey, I'm going to have to give them my email before I even watch that video. So you actually get a better conversion rate by doing stuff like that because they know in advance that they're going to have to do it.

Well, I mean, I already feel like I should be giving you money already anyway. I mean, as much as you've just, you know, explained today, you know, I'm just around your site where I can just send you money. Okay. So this is good stuff right here, you know. I mean, really, this is, you know, I've kind of pulled a lot out of you here, but you've been very generous and gracious in being able to just explain in a simple way how to do this and how you did it and what you're doing now that works.

And that doesn't, you know, that's not to be taken lightly. A lot of people will say only a certain amount and not be willing to teach a lot. And Brandon, you've come out here and said, hey, this is what you do. You know, and this is very, very much appreciated. I want you to know that this really is appreciated, you know.

And feel free, anything else here, I mean, by all means, you know, if we don't want to stop. No, yeah, I appreciate it, man. You know, I mean, there's some people out there that are, like you said, are kind of like that. And the way I see it is there's so much business out there. There's so many people out there that there's really no way that you can, you know, even if you gave away all your secrets or whatever exactly what you're doing.

It's not like there's not going to be enough business out there for everybody. So you don't operate from that scarcity. What's that? You don't operate from that competitive scarcity mindset then when it comes to this stuff. No, I think, you know, I think that it comes from a scarcity mindset, like you said.

And, you know, I think to be successful in this industry, you have to have an abundant mindset that there's enough for everybody. There's... There's just so much stuff out there and there's so many ways to market that, you know, nobody's going to just like steal all my customers just because I tell them how to do something. So, you know, I think that's important. I think that comes with having the business mindset as well.

You know, having an abundant mindset that there's enough for everybody. There's enough money out there for everybody. There's enough customers out there for everybody. You know, and then that kind of comes with the whole business mindset, I think. That's good to know.

That's really good to know that you share that as well as many of the other leaders. Well, every leader I've talked to, at least in Empower. And so, you know, everybody listening might want to take note of that and stop worrying about, you know, well, can this work for me? And is there too many people doing this and all that kind of thing? Because I still hear that every once in a while.

Let's shift gears a little bit, Brandon, before we wrap up. And that is to ask the question. So you've mastered paid traffic. You've mastered Facebook pay-per-click. You've mastered being able to scale your business in a way that makes you a lot of money.

And so is there other traffic methods like social media or, you know, have you dove into any SEO? Have you done other things that you found effective, you know, with your list building and such? Is there other things you practice or do you mainly stick to mostly paid traffic? You know, I do a little bit of everything. So I've dug into some SEO stuff and blogging.

You know, I'm not as obviously as good at blogging as, you know, like David Wood obviously. But I have learned and I've taken courses on SEO and I've built, you know, what people consider like niche websites, you know. So I've done a lot of SEO stuff as well or like obviously YouTube videos. I mean YouTube is awesome. That's actually a really good place for people to start that don't have money.

It's YouTube. I mean anybody can do a video, things like that. But yeah, I mean I do a lot of different things, not just paid marketing. Obviously a blog is kind of the foundation for anybody that's online is kind of their blog. I mean that's kind of like the central platform or should be at least for everybody.

And then just kind of, you know, do certain things outside of the blogging. But yeah, I do a lot of SEO stuff on my blog. I do a lot of YouTube videos. Like I said before, I've done some voice broadcasting. You know, I do even some old school stuff like even postcards.

I'll send out postcards. Just all kinds of different, anything I can do basically to market. And, you know, now that I've been successful with some of my marketing strategies, now I just try to get as many of them as I can out there so I can have, you know, multiple streams of marketing all generating traffic for me at once. And then really on the hindsight of that or on the back end of all of that, what you really want to do is brand yourself and kind of create a following for yourself. And you can do that by obviously generating traffic.

But you've got to build a relationship with your list, you know, through blogging, through videos, through, you know, things like that. And that's really what is going to set you apart from everybody else. If you can, you know, make yourself, you know, I guess brand yourself as a leader. And that's really what's going to separate you apart from everybody else. And once you can do that, that's really when you start noticing, you know, big numbers and start being able to sponsor, you know, as many people as you want, your company, you know, things like that.

You know, many people get into the discussion of how to cultivate the list that they build and how to develop that relationship with them. And I've heard a lot of different differing opposing views on it. Some people will email them their list every day with another offer, attempting to look at it from a mindset of let's monetize and maximize the monetization of the list. And then there's others who, you know, say, hey, you know, maybe do it half the time or a little less and just give them a bunch of content, redirect them back to videos you've created on your blog. What way do you see is most effective for you in terms of how you cultivate and build your list?

What are the lessons you've learned from list building over the past couple of years? You know, I think the most important thing for, at least for, you know, this may not be right. There's probably no right or wrong answer to that, but, you know, I've heard the same thing. Some guys blast their list, you know, twice a day, which to me is a little excessive, but I mean, I guess if that's what you want to do. At first, you want to stay in contact with them quite a bit.

So in my follow-up emails, you know, I have my follow-up emails go out every day, you know, for probably like two weeks and then I'll have it go like every other day or something. But I do a lot of broadcasts, which are, you know, live blasts out to my list so that I can give them up-to-date information. But what I think works the best is giving value and content and videos. I mean, people that do a lot of videos and then post them on their blog, that's probably one of the best ways I think you can, you know, build a following and kind of build up your brand, just by blogging, you know, doing like some kind of how-to and then blasting out your list and having them go back to your blog. Because when they're on your blog, you know, then they're looking at your brand and looking at your face, you know, your voice.

And the more you can get in front of your list as far as letting them hear you, the way you write, the way you speak, the way you talk, I mean, just you, just, you know, being generic and just being yourself. That's really what's going to help you have like a long-term, I guess, family or long-term following on the Internet is doing stuff like that. And so this can definitely translate to somebody who might not necessarily have built their own personal blog, but, you know, there's somebody who is just learning and they have their Empower Network blog. And so they can create these videos and put them on their Empower Network blog and essentially accomplish the same thing where they're building a relationship. They're building a relationship with their list at the same time.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's what I love about Empower Network. I mean, besides the money, obviously, but is that if you want to be online, the bottom line is you've got to have a blog. You know, like I said before, that's kind of like the central, that's like your house. I mean, that's like where everybody needs to go and kind of get to know you.

So, yeah, if you don't have a blog, obviously you do, you're in Empower Network and you're listening to this. But, yeah, that's probably the best thing you could do right now is, you know, do some videos, do some training. You know, it doesn't have to be anything too crazy, just something you've learned. Even with something you've learned today or something you've learned from somebody else inside the inner circle, you know, just blog about that, do a video, and then on your list, just keep sending those people back to your blog. And that kind of builds this brand recognition.

They start to get to know you a little bit. They start to get to know you a little better. So, I mean, yeah, with Empower Network, anybody can do that now because they all have blogs, which is just awesome. I mean, it took me forever to get my blog up and to get it working correctly and everything. So that's what's so cool about the Empower Network is, you know, the new person can join Empower Network and have a blog right from the get-go, which is really kind of like their central, I guess, hub for everything that they're going to do online.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And that's why we did it. You know, that's why we created it that way. And on that note, the videos, do you find one type of video to serve a better purpose or function than another type of a video, like, you know, sitting and talking in front of a video or if you're going to do a screenshot, you know, PowerPoint type of video?

Have you found, you know, different ones that serve different purposes or one that converts better than the other? Yeah. Well, as far as views, what I've noticed is people love how-to videos. What I've noticed myself is people don't really like watching a video of somebody just sitting there talking to their video camera. You know, I'm guilty.

I've got, you know, a gazillion videos like that. But usually, those are the videos that have the highest amount of views or that convert the best. What I have found is when you're, like, actually teaching somebody something, or not a lot, some of my videos that have the highest amount of views is when I'm sitting or standing in front of, like, a whiteboard. And they can see me. They can interact with me.

And I, you know, I'm drawing something on the whiteboard. I think that keeps their attention a little bit better than me just sitting there talking to them. So videos like that are great. I also like the videos where, you know, you can draw on. On the screen, you know, or kind of keeps them interacting that you're, like, watching you draw on the screen.

And those are usually how-to videos as well. I've noticed that people just love how-to videos or even screen capture ones. So if you use, like, Camtasia or something and you show people, like, how to do something. Now, so the types of videos, people just love them. Gotcha.

Now, have you done those videos where you've got, you know, like, in the lower right-hand corner, the camera on you and then, you know, drawing on the screen or PowerPoint or how-to or something like that? Have you found that to be effective? Or do you do any of those types of videos where it's kind of a hybrid type of presentation? You know, I haven't done too many of those. I've done ones where I just have, you know, where you're drawing on the screen, but I don't have the little camera down the bottom.

But that's definitely something I need to start doing. And I can see the advantage to that because people can see you. And also, you know, like a how-to and you drawing. So, I mean, that's definitely something I would do. Yeah, definitely.

Okay. Just want to get your thoughts on it on what you've experienced that works real well with that. So, yeah, and that's a major nugget for people to take away is that, you know, when people can engage you in a way where they can see you visually and they can see your facial expressions, they can see how you're saying something and they can watch what you look like. And then they can hear the tone of your voice and make sure that those two elements are in alignment. They hear what you're saying and they feel the tone of the voice.

And then they can look at you and make sure that all of those elements are matching up. And that makes someone develop trust for somebody so much quicker and easier when they can see all of those elements. And I think that really helps out a lot for a lot of people. So, just a thought there. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's really, that's huge, really.

I mean, if you think about it, if you had somebody just was sending you an email and it's just text and your name, you know, they have no idea who that person is, how to connect with them. So, just if you can get in front of your list, the more you can get in front of your list, whether it's just a picture. Obviously, video, I think, is way better than the picture. So, the more you can do that, the better. The better off you're going to be in the long run.

You know, just kind of building, I keep saying, a following because that's really what you're doing online is you're building like a following of people that just want to learn from you. And once you can get a following and have people that just want to know what you're doing and, you know, when's he going to do his next video, things like that, then it's super easy to build your business. It's super easy to sponsor people because all you've got to do is, you know, send out an email and people will join you because they know how much value you've already given them for free. You know, how much more value are you going to give them if you're on their team? You know, that way they're going to want to work with you personally, things like that.

And that's really, I think, the key to being successful online is, you know, giving value, building a following. And then it's easy, you know, then building a business is easy. There you go. Well, I mean, that's it. That's it in a nutshell, I think.

I mean, that's like all of this. I mean, someone can literally take what we've talked about today and start and move forward as long as they're consistent. And that brings me probably to my last point here is that, you know, those core fast start trainings in there, you know, they've got someone every day doing the same thing and, you know, like we say to blog every day, read a blog or read something every day and, you know, all these different core commitments that we teach people to do. And we are really finding out that when people actually do them, you know, it's the difference between people, at least in my personal team. And you tell me if you see the same here as well, that the people that are in my team and I say, you know, they call me with an issue or a question.

I go, well, are you doing these things every day? And the ones that are, it's very few and far between. They're even calling me because they're actually, you know. Making things happen. But others go, well, no, I don't.

And I have to continually bring them back to that. But what I found is that when you stay consistent with this stuff and you're doing those elements, it's not hard to come up with content to create. It's not hard to create a following because you've got the wheels turning the right way and the right momentum. Just want to get your thoughts. And if you've noticed the same thing with your team or if you've noticed anything different.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's really one of the, I guess, the basic keys to being successful at really anything is just taking daily consistent action. You know, like here in Empower Network, we say to blog daily. And it sounds simple, but it works. So if you just find something and just, you know, make a habit of it and do it daily, you'll be amazed at what happens with just with time.

Because if you're doing that consistently on a daily basis, you know, think a year down the road, you know, you can have over 200 blog posts, which is, I mean, that's huge. So really, that's, I mean, that's a huge key to being successful online is just taking daily consistent action. Absolutely. Well, Brandon, this has been very inspiring and very educational and cleared up a lot of things here for people. And I think this is going to be extremely valuable for everybody in the back office.

For those that were wondering. For those that were really wanting to learn a lot of meat and potatoes about, you know, what to do here, I think you've definitely filled those shoes and filled that role and helped people out. So with that, any final comments, closing comments, final thoughts that, you know, you tell someone who's getting going in Empower Network and is, you know, kind of trying to make some decisions on the next steps for them to take, you know, and any final thoughts? I mean, nothing that I haven't already said. I mean, really, it's just about taking action.

Like, you know, I've kind of hit on that a lot. You know, I would say take massive action. You know, like I mentioned earlier, massive action equals massive results. So I would just take massive action. You know, instead of doing one blog post, you know, do like five blog posts or, you know, just go nuts with it.

And I think if you do that, if you take massive action and you're consistent at taking massive action, then you'll have massive results. And that's really that. Sounds simple. And it really is. And it really is simple.

But that's really the key to being successful online. Absolutely. Taking action. 100% wholeheartedly agree. And that's it.

It really is. And some people might say, hey, well, you know, yeah, action, action, action. I heard it, you know. And come on, what are the – what else do I need to know? And, you know, it's funny how we always find people that say, you're not telling me everything.

You know, what are the – Right. You know. What do you think? You know, there's no, like, magic button or, you know, some hidden secret. I mean, there really isn't.

People always look for that. But it comes down to just having a good work ethic, you know, being determined and just taking action. I mean, that's really – that's all – that's what it comes down to. There's no huge secret. There's no magic button.

It just comes down to having a good work ethic and taking action, really. Perfectly illustrated by somebody who just jumped on it from the start. Opened up 500 campaigns and started seeing what worked and just went from there and had success right away. So if you can, then definitely anybody can follow that same advice, and that's all they really need is massive action. So with that, Brandon, thank you very much for coming on and really just bearing it all here and telling people how it is and what we needed because this was a very, very much needed interview that people needed to hear.

And I think, you know, everybody that's going to hear this for months and months and months to come. Is going to appreciate this. And we look forward to seeing you at an Empower Network event soon. Absolutely, man. Yeah, thanks for having me on here.

I appreciate it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we'll sign off and join us next time, everybody. We've got more and more of these coming up.

But definitely, Brandon, we'll have you on again at some point here in the future because, you know, I see nothing but things happening. We're going to probably be seeing you on the leaderboards here. I know you're pushing those leaderboards now. And I fully expect to see you popping on those things as well and giving some of these people a run for their money because you definitely got a lot of momentum forward. And I appreciate the time, Brandon.

Yep, absolutely. Thanks, Chris. All right. Thank you for listening to a private recording in a non-disclosure Empower Network customer training. The principles and strategies in this audio can be applied in any business.

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