Sean (03:08):

Yes, I am. I mean, I'm excited. We've got some amazing, amazing guests today. Yeah.

Dylan (03:15):

Some may even call him the Yoda, you know, internet marketing, this guy, man, let's do five to 6 million a year on the affiliate side of things. And we spoke with another affiliate marketer this morning. So, I mean, it's an exciting one. You also buckle up tune in and if you're into the affiliate

Sean (03:30):

Aside, you know, listen in. So Sean Kong, what's good, man. A man. Everything is good here outside of COVID.

Sean (03:43):

Yeah. How's COVID no, I'm just kidding. Oh my gosh. So Sean, I really love your style. So Darcy who's obviously here. So with, uh, did you store introduced us? And, uh, I, uh, you're just not one of those high flyers, uh, Lambo screenshot or Insta famous marketers. Am I really, uh, impressed about you? You are, uh, for the numbers that you push in every, every single year. So, um, would be, would be awesome to hear a little bit about how you got to this point. Uh, but obviously you're doing amazing things over at, uh, did you store and, um, you know, if Darcy is, uh, is saying you're, you're pushing some big numbers, it goes a long way.

Sean (04:34):

Yeah. I mean, um, uh, real quick synopsis of my background is I, I did that corporate America thing for 30 plus years, um, working in a fortune 500 company and then just kind of got burned out from it and had some, some big life changes last like six years. And I've been dabbling in online marketing for forever, um, to back to the days of those people that know a guy named Corey Rudel, uh, the young guy who's kind kinda, he was a true godfather. He started it. Um, and he was very transparent. He is really, really cutting edge at the time. This was when people were hand coding with things like Dreamweaver, HTML that I think is really ugly sites that still work really well by the way. But I, you know, he, he really resonated with me. Um, and from there I've been kind of dabbling in it and helping my friends while I was still working in corporate America.

Sean (05:27):

And then about six years ago, I stepped away from corporate America, came across a program about Facebook marketing. And I was like, okay, let me check it out. Jumped in, um, kinda messed around with it, got a ton of ad account shut down. That was back in the day. I didn't even know what business manager was. So I was literally going through all my friends and just using one personal ad account. So it was one and done kind of thing. So I learned my lessons there and just don't do it down deep into it started some traction about three months later, netting about a grand a day kind of thing, and just kind of took off from there. Um, I'm not, I I'm someone that I do like being behind the scenes. I've worked with a couple of big time marketers, Rob Jones, Garret Kramer.

Sean (06:13):

I ran their company for the last five years. We've changed like large 6,000 students through the program on primarily on Facebook marketing, that kind of thing. Um, but for me, it's, you know, it's, it's just, Hey, I just want to make some good money. Um, have a boat home, take care of my family, go fishing, that kind of thing where my son, um, and I think that's, that's a majority of people. They just want to make some extra income, get, uh, you know, step away from their job or take care of finances and things like that. Especially at times like this and be able to take care of their family and just enjoy life and live life.

Darcy (06:49):

Awesome. And so what's the, how did you get connected with Digi store and then how, what is your relationship look like with Darcy? How do you interact with

Sean (07:00):

Darcy is, you know, she's a big piece of part of my success as well. Um, she was with ClickBank previously and ClickBank is they're making a lot of changes going and it's getting pretty political over there. So she, you know, she had a great opportunity within your store. She moved over, she says, Hey, you should check out that forum. Um, introduced me to the CEO, had some conversation, so sure. You know, I'm always open to, um, good platform, good, uh, good company to work with. And obviously I've been working closely with Darcy and she's always showing me really good product promoters and vendors and things like that. So that's a kind of a match made in heaven.

Sean (07:41):

Consider myself a matchmaker like Fiddler on the roof. I'm just smash making matchmaking. I've had the pleasure of working with Sean. Me. I've worked with a lot of big, you know, high caliber affiliates at Carter's one, but I mean, Sean, just, he he's, he's so real. I mean, you, you deal with a lot of fake, uh, people in this industry specifically, and there's just something about Sean that always resonated with me. He's a very salt of the earth person for lack of a better term, but he's really real. And like what you said, Zach in it, cause it's one of those things you feel at the bat. He's not like Lambo and like new money in this. He just wants to make enough to take care of his friends and family provide for his son.

Darcy (08:17):

I was talking to him yesterday and he's like, yeah, I love my Amex. And I converted them Amex points at West Elm. I'm like, you don't hear [inaudible] Sean. So he's, he's mentored people

Sean (08:37):

What he knows and because he's so educated and he's been able to transform people's lives, he's able to really tap into the why. And so I'm, I'm fortunate enough to know him and, and you know, I was fortunate to meet him at ClickBank and now having, you know, on, did he start 24 and, and beyond it's the, you know, the possibility is really endless with Johnny. He's a great guy. I know he's working.

Darcy (08:56):

Why did you want him on the rich ed pride podcast? Because when I, I mean this lovingly Sean and cause I'm probably as older, older than you is that he is the Yoda. He is the end all be all. When it comes to marketing, he has so much influence.

Sean (09:11):

He's gone. He's gone down every minute. Like the Avenue he's had, all the pitfalls, he's had the successes. Um, he knows the most

Darcy (09:18):

About ads when we're talking about buying ads. Like he's

Sean (09:20):

Kind of seen it all

Darcy (09:23):

Vietnam, that kind of a thing.

Sean (09:28):

That's a perfect analogy.

Darcy (09:32):

Well, let's kick it off Dylan and let's, let's get into it. Yeah. So Sean, as you know, we love to dive into the rich at AKA, what's working good for you at this time.

Sean (09:41):

So what's something that's kind of just killing it for you right now.

Sean (09:48):

Well, you know, it's weight loss is people say the beginning of your weight loss is, is King. Um, and it is the weight loss is 24 seven. It's the big three, you know, um, well weight loss, uh, and looking good, that kind of thing. So, um, dating's also a good market, but weight loss is going to be your, you know, six figures a day niche. Um, and then if you, uh, for me, it's, it's more, I think the majority of people, if they're starting with Facebook, they should really go into something like manifestation is a good one. Um, and survival. Those are the two because they're going to be a little bit safer to run on Facebook and you can run for a while. So while you're learning, the hardest part of it is getting in, jumping in and getting your ad account, shut down, you get a couple of sales on weight loss and you get to the moon and people that are brand new, they're just not ready for that kind of thing.

Sean (10:38):

Ready to understand how to get more accounts, that kind of thing. So while you're learning the ropes, it's better to have an account longer, maybe break even, or lose a little bit of money up front. But it's just that, that training, that internship that you can put through and you get to do it uninterrupted for the most part. So if you're new, I would go with manifestation, uh, manifestation or survival, and you can find products both on Disney store. You can find them on match web and on ClickBank. Um, I would go with the new store first with our sheets,

Darcy (11:08):

Native advertising.

Sean (11:11):

Exactly. Those are the easiest networks to get into. And there's, you know, you just get in and just start running. You don't have to go through the interview process like with CPA networks, that kind of thing. Um, and then just kind of go from there. But weight loss is weight loss is your six figures a day kind of niche right now. And it's that's you around honestly, um, the key to weight loss, you know, I'll pop this in the key to weight loss right now is all about the Facebook pixel. So if you got a seasoned pixel meaning know over a thousand buyers use that pixel create lookalikes, um, you know, 10 30, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 day lookalikes, 10% and just jam at it, jam at it with a big five English speaking countries. That's a little bit more, but if that's what you're looking for, that's really where's that, you know, crushing weight loss with those different regions, do you split them up by campaigns, merge them all together?

Sean (12:05):

I'm kind of curious in your thought process there, I start by merging them. So I'll do the big five. So it'd be us UK, Australia, Canada. Um, it could be Ireland. New Zealand is another one South Africa. Believe it or not is another one. So it's not necessarily a big five there's, it's like six to eight of them that kind of revolve that, that there's a lot of people that purchase from there. And then I just break it out after I get some good data, get at least like a hundred purchases from each of those. And I see which one is doing the best and then I'll break it off into this own separate campaign. But a lot of times from a CPM and CPC perspective, it's better to lump them all together because you're going to get a lot cheaper and let Facebook's algorithm do the thing, especially if you're doing CBO campaign. And if this is a lot of technical jargon, um, this is for more of the advanced people doing it. There's a lot of different courses. A lot of people that can get into the details and basics of it.

Sean (12:57):

Well, let's talk about manual bids if we're going to, I'm just totally kidding. Let's get into the stuff and bore people to tears. Yeah. For real. Cause yeah. You mentioned weight loss kind of good year round. I was thinking right now in new year, new me, it's probably thriving, I would imagine. But is it pretty consistent year round or do you notice a bigger little push Q1 essentially? Yeah, it's two-fold Q1 is really good because it's a new new year. New me, new year's resolution, especially with, Hey, we're done with 2020 new president gets in, settles in the us and we can move forward. But, um, you know, it's a fresh start, that kind of thing. So it's perfect for both weight loss and manifestation, but also Q1 is big for Facebook, so they need to hit, you know, they're a public company, they need to hit revenue numbers. So they opened things up a little bit more. It's a little easier to run in the first quarter. Um, probably above all other quarters, especially the fourth quarter when things tighten up with the mass massive holiday seasons and stuff like that. So firstly, what offer, what weight loss offers are you doing really well right now? Uh, and did you store,

Darcy (14:08):

I mean the, the biggest one, the it's been the behemoth sense. I'd say, um, October it didn't feel the slump, um, was Medicore and that's um, I mean, that's been going strong now for months on end. And typically we would see a little bit of a slump in October, November, December leading up to Christmas, it barely slumped and it was just maybe due to saturation. It's this last health and fitness season hasn't been immune, um, to the, to the slump just because everyone's got pandemic pounds. We didn't have

Sean (14:41):

COVID-19.

Darcy (14:44):

Nothing is COVID-19 so Medicore is huge. But it, that being said, I mean, biotoxic gold is coming up saying solutions, um,

Darcy (14:52):

Toxi burn, hormonal harmony over 30 heart. I mean, there's a lot right now, but the big 500 pound gorilla is absolutely Medicore right now. There you go, Dylan. All right, Dylan, you can, uh, you can quit being a co-host and rich and poor and stopped doing agency life. Just live your life, run ads for like 30 minutes a day and enjoy the rest of your life man clients. So Dylan, Dylan, uh, Dylan calls me like a couple hours ago. He's like, yeah, man, I really just want to do this. This is after talking with courier. I really want to do some affiliate stuff. I'd like to mentor you for like 30 minutes and then have Darcy tell you what offers to run and like, and then just, you know, quit all your clients after this podcast. And then we'll have you on as a guest, you know, in a couple of weeks, he's not wrong. Cause I was like, man, I got Facebook, Snapchat, sick talk down. I got the hard parts out. I know policy. And then I'm thinking, man, I don't even know where to begin from there, Dylan, this is the way

Darcy (16:01):

Awesome. This episode is brought to you by funnel Dash's add card, the only charge card exclusively for your digital ad spend in partnership with MasterCard. And if you are an aggressive affiliate filling with dozens of ad accounts, or you are in gray hat or black hat verticals, such as drop shipping CVD or other verticals where you're dealing with ad accounts, getting shut down business managers, getting shut down or even deep platform from platforms like Facebook and Google, then you absolutely need to check out funnel dash as ad card. We give you unlimited free virtual debit and credit card. So you can have a dedicated card for every single ad account campaign. And you can attach any name and address in the U S you have complete anonymous entity on a card and at the card level. Plus one of my favorite features is that you don't have to pre fund or even top off like most typical virtual card solutions today. So if this is you and you're operating these verticals, whether you're an agency or an advertiser, then check out

Darcy (17:03):

Ad card@funneldash.com. You typically focus on one, offer two offers at a time. I'm kind of curious how you do that or, you know, perfect one ramp it up, optimize it. Or do you kind of test different buckets there? Yeah. You want to start with one, start with one niche. Um, you could start with, I prefer just one niche is to reach out to your am, you know, your affiliate manager or whatever. You're working with a rep and find out what's the top. If you don't know what the top offer is, or if you don't have an affiliate manager, then just do a sort and go by what's number one. There look at the refund rates. That's a huge thing. Look at the AOV, the average order value, um, right off the bat and then test it. Does it match up to what you're doing? A lot of times they don't match up because a lot of these guys are doing email marketing because they have huge lists and that's the vendors scratching each other's back. And they're just, Hey, you pop your

Sean (17:50):

New offer to my list. That kind of thing. So they go up in the ranking. So you can't fully trust the rankings, but it's worth testing, you know, start at the top and then make your way down kind of thing. Once you get good at it, then you find a vendor that's on page 100 that has got no volume or anything like that. Look at the VSL and you can pretty much bet out what's a good VSL. Then reach out to them directly, get an exclusive. And then you rock and roll right there. The no one else is running that. That's what it's because you know, there's saturation, you know, there's, there's more than enough people on Facebook, but there are certain saturation

Darcy (18:23):

Darcy. I'm curious with you being on the inside here, like how do you advise people to kind of go handle rankings, sort like kind of sort through them, uh, when they're trying to pick an offer?

Sean (18:34):

Well, I think, I mean, Sean brought up a good point. And even when I was back at ClickBank, I mean, the way they ranked the marketplace is the same mood ranking Disney store. It's all by gross sales. So some new affiliate would pop in and see, Oh, Mike medical is number one or Oh, research is number one. I'm going to go for that. Whereas that is showing saturation. Yes, it is number one, but it's also, people have already kind of beat you to the punch. So, you know, same thing Sean saying is once you really dial in your system, find that off of that is on, you know, the back pages. That is a good quality offer that maybe doesn't have the shine on it. The other ones do. And you can be first one in B, you know, and running through someone like myself, which is the benefit of having, you know, a direct contact into a company.

Sean (19:11):

They'll align you directly with the vendor. You get on a higher commission tier. Um, you can bring in maybe some kind of referral agreement with them as well. So once you make that connection and if you're just let Joe Schmoe affiliate with a big offer, you might just get lost in the mix. No one really cares if you're the newest affiliate for Medicore, they're like, man, we've got thousands, but if you're the newest affiliate for this other offer, that's new and untested, um, they're really gonna kind of roll out the red carpet. So it's, it's good to keep your eyes open and yes, you want to focus on the ones that make money because they're clearly doing something. Right. But also the ones that aren't saturated yet. Yeah,

Darcy (19:41):

Yeah, no, that's, that's that's killer advice. You re you write that down.

Sean (19:48):

You're basically running your own ad agency, but you get to pick your clients and if you don't like them anymore, there's no hard feelings. You just run something else. That's really what it comes down to. So that's it, that's the end game as a marketer for me is do it that way. That way you don't have any ties to anyone, you don't owe anyone, anything, and you don't have someone stressing you out about, you need to do this. You need to change that. And you, you know, you make each other happy without having the stress on the client,

Darcy (20:17):

Really getting exclusives. Like how long have you been able to ride that train? Uh, where they're just like, Hey, wait, we don't want to be exclusive anymore shots. Yeah.

Sean (20:26):

I mean, if they don't want to be exclusive anymore, that's fine too. Uh, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, you have to have abundant mind set to. Mindset's a huge thing. You know, that's a whole nother conversation, but um, you know, you help a vendor out a lot of times, they're, they're cool. They're good people. And they want to work with you. They don't want to work either with a bunch of different affiliates once they understand, if you explain it to them, Hey, you want to run, run with a thousand affiliates. That's good. Possibly get you shut down because a bunch of yahoos are doing stuff they're not supposed to be doing. Or do you want to run exclusive with like me and maybe two or three other super affiliates where we're running six figures a day for you? And usually that's an easy conversation because they don't have to. That helps them too. They don't have to do support. They don't have to place pixels for a thousand different abilities, all that kind of stuff. So it makes their life a lot easier too. Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker 7 (21:16):

Let's talk about some poor ads. Uh, I want to know the Sean's human

Sean (21:26):

Not working right now is like Darcy mentioned is going into some of these monster weight loss offers. Um, it sounds counterintuitive because I just said that what we lightweight lots is great, but going in as a newbie coming in, if you have a unseasoned pixel, a brand new ad account, you're going to get crushed, you know, regardless of what you hear. So it's, there's some barrier to entry there. So that's why I said, you know, um, that part, there's no getting around. Kind of like, you know, we talk about growing a thick skin as entrepreneur. This is entrepreneurial. People can say what they want about it for the marketers, but we are full-time business owners as well. And it's a business model that works. The thing that is important though, is being able to come in and go, Hey, you need to learn the ropes.

Sean (22:07):

You need to get some, you know, get a thick skin about getting your ad account, shut down about getting ads rejected by not making money upfront and understand that part of the process as part of the learning process. And if you have that mindset, it's not, don't quit that expectation that you will succeed. It's just a matter of time. Maybe it's add number six, 17. Maybe it's add number 77. But if you have that expectation, you'll get through it. But at the front expect to have a bunch of failed ads coming out the gate. I would not start with weight loss. If you're brand new weight loss is going to crush you. It's going to crush you with ad concept ads. It's going to crush you with no conversions. And you're going to think, I can't do this. This guy here is making six figures. Why can't I do it? Well, it's a different plan. You don't know the unders. They don't understand what's going on behind the scenes.

Sean (22:56):

What's the longest life of an ad account you've had. Um, I've had some for over two years, three years, I've had some for two days. It just depends. That's another thing is you got to remember, Facebook is not picking on anyone. Their algorithm is random on purpose. They want to make a proprietary. So it's going to pick, you can run the same and you can run the same thing. You're crushing with same ad on two different ad accounts. One will crush, one will tank. So it's, it's just, it's kind of a numbers game in that perspective, but you have to look an important thing. And I think I, I heard the past talk about, I told a couple people on your podcast acquire a big, important thing about any of this. It's just like the stock market, real estate and anything look for patterns. If you're good at looking for patterns and seeing what's going on, that's, what's going to be key going forward and just capitalizing on that. That's a longer conversation, but what I can say at the highest level,

Darcy (23:54):

I love it. I love it. All right. Let's talk about some financial principles here because you know, when you're profiting a hundred K a day, like you gotta manage your cash or credit your cards just as, just as closely as your ad accounts. Uh, so what are some of the best practices that you'd give to, you know, maybe some folks that are only like one or two credit cards in, and they're trying to kind of rotate them through. And they're just now thinking about, uh, stacking up a couple of dozen employee cards.

Sean (24:28):

Yeah. So if you're starting out, a lot of people start out, they're already behind the eight ball financially, their credit sound great, or they may not even have a credit card. So what you want to do is a couple of, couple of ways to do it. The quick way is if you can find someone that is, if you have the competence and you can talk to people, find someone that has some credit and borrow that credit and go in as a partnership. That's one way, another way is just use the money that you have and go slow, go slow and just put the money back in, keep piling it back into pilot back in. Um, uh, the third way is if you have a little bit of financial aid, I have some credit cards. I would get an Amex business card first. And here's why, because Amex has, um, for the gold business card, they have four X points.

Sean (25:12):

Um, and we can talk about that in a second too. And what the advantage is, that is the advantage of that. Exactly. But the second part, the important part is Facebook can, um, you know, they can flag, you can use up to about the credit card on about nine different ad accounts. Um, they don't, they're not too aggressive about linking card, so you can use on different ad accounts. We've been able to shut down, but about nine is the max. So if you have a personal card, it's really hard. Cause if you get a replacement, what happens is Facebook still knows the same card. So they're going to block that card. Whereas with Amex, with employee cards, each card is considered a separate card. You can get up to 99. Um, AMAX the thing I love about Amex is I've never had a failed payment maps.

Sean (25:55):

So what I've had challenges with is with visa and MasterCard, great cards, and these are huge cards that are tested with, and they have about 200 different fraud detection alerts on them. And I've called them talk to a high-end manager said, look, I'm running on Facebook. You're going to get 15 charges today for 900 to a thousand dollars. It's going to come through. Can you remove those so they don't get declined? Sure. We'll do that. We'll do that. And lo and behold, boom, you get shut down. And the challenge with that is, you know, you're, you're running, you're making 500% ROI on a Saturday morning and then boom, you get shut down. Facebook, won't come back until Monday morning, then that back on and try the payment again so that, you know, you lose tens of thousand dollars, especially when you have a hot day like that. Wow. So that's, that would be my three, three tiers of advices. Use the money. You have to just keep them putting back in, um, get a partner or get an Amex business, uh, Amex business card to start with or get, I know I'm going to start with, uh, Zach and Dylan's card. Um, they, they have a MasterCard, I guess you guys have a deal directly, so it doesn't go it.

Darcy (27:02):

Yeah, MasterCard. Right. I think that, you know, one of the reasons why that is, is that's actually more of, um, you know, like Amex is a charge card, right? So like you're paying off that balance and full and it's for businesses. And a lot of, you know, what mass MasterCard recognizes, you know, when they partner with us is that like Amex has the Amex gold and then there's visa has the chase ink, which is a different, you're not going to get as high limits because it's a credit card and it's, you know, you gotta use your FICO and all that jazz. But, um, you know, we're really wanting to get MasterCard and ad card in there. Um, I think we can beat out the Amex gold. I'm going to say some bold claims here in terms of cash back, but you know, that actually comes down to underwriting, right?

Darcy (27:49):

And so it's like a lot of these big banks, they just look at you as a business and they look at it like last year's phyco last year revenue last year is cashflow and add card. We take a whole new model and a whole new approach to underwriting, which is like, we look at every single day, right? Like your ads today are different than your ads yesterday and that level of attention to detail. And that's why we only, you can only spend on ads with ad card is because we don't have the bandwidth to be like, if you muddy the waters, do you start throwing some money on best buy in West Elm, a good job on, you know, what you're spending on Facebook and Google, but you're right. Like the pain point of payment failure, if you don't have your card stack in place is a thing. Right. And, um, whether it's ad card or MasterCard or, um, or Amex, you need to be watching it, um, closely because it, you know, that's like basically the tip of the spear in terms of trickling down to your ad accounts. Totally bombed.

Sean (28:55):

Yeah. Well, it's, it's kinda like a parking ticket or a speeding ticket or a traffic ticket. It's like you get one chance every year and a half to go to traffic school. Um, that's what I was told by a friend. It's not me, but, um, to remove the points. So Facebook doesn't have a point removal system. They can reverse something, but that will always stay on there. So it'll heart hurt your ad account in the long run, even just one failed payment that tarnishes your ad account, so to speak, um, with that. So that's something to keep in mind. The second thing is it's important. I've been looking for another card outside of Amex because in other countries they don't have any match with Facebook. You can't use the American express because it's American express. For whatever reason, they don't have the points, um, that kind of thing, but that's where you want to get a MasterCard or visa to work outside the U S too. So that's, that's a big advantage. So if you can get it,

Darcy (29:46):

You have, because you run like BMS and the ad accounts internationally, or like what's the, what's the thinking?

Sean (29:53):

Well, yeah, I do. I partner with some people sometimes. Um, so I'll do various different things, but what the main thing for me is I do teach people privately and I have the groups and they come from all different countries. So I can't really help them. I say, well, I used to not be stressed. Well, American express is not really, it's not accepted in some countries when you go into a Facebook account, American express and I, one of the options that they can choose. So I'm always constant looking for something, an international card or something that they could use and visa and MasterCard are more international. Um, in terms of what Facebook looks at, they're, they're more recognized. So I'm always looking for something for them to use without having to worry about, you know, another piece of the puzzle that could hurt that counts.

Darcy (30:35):

Now you talked about like the very beginning of your tip there of just like borrow somebody with credit. Right. What would be some of the deal structures you've seen if, um, if somebody was going to go out and get bankrolled, that was actually Carter story earlier, right? He was like spending, you know, 10 K a day, and then you got 20 to bankroll him 400 K a week. And, uh, and so how do you see those deals getting structured? They're obviously very short, um, the money's moving on a weekly basis. Um, but what, what would be some, some words of advice if somebody is gonna entertain taking either an investor or, you know, borrow somebody else's credit to, to fund their ads.

Sean (31:15):

Yeah. There's a couple of ways. One is they use this way is to find someone that's close to a relative or someone that's willing to fund it. Um, can I use your credit card? I will split. You can show the numbers. The best thing is if you can show some numbers, even if it's at low scale, Hey, I'm making 50% return on investment on a daily basis on average for the last month or a couple of weeks here. Um, usually family members are the easiest to get to. You. Don't have to, it's just, Hey, can I use your credit card kind of thing? Um, that's that's one, two is go out and look for some different Facebook groups. You can look on, um, like, uh, on Facebook itself, there's some Facebook buyers, groups, ad buyers, groups, that kind of thing. And just kind of talk around network with some people in there.

Sean (31:57):

And sometimes there's people that have a lot of money, they just don't have ad accounts and vice versa. So you can partner with people that way as well. Cause they understand from that, from that perspective, working together, they understand if they don't have that accounts and you have a good season ad account, um, they're more than happy to spend their money and split the differences. As far as that partnership is really up to the person. And that will have some kind of partnership, uh, affiliates, uh, set up that you can do. So the affiliates gets, but, or whatever their, their commission structure is going to be that way. It doesn't mess up the taxes for one person as opposed to the other. Um, the last way is going out and trying to get, you know, getting some kind of either you can mortgage, you know, do a home equity loan or something like that, too.

Darcy (32:40):

That's probably out of the range for a lot of people because they're already overextended. And that's why they're trying to do something like this, but that's another option. And if you have a business, you can leverage that as well. So those are kind of the higher tier ones. Again, that's probably out of the range of most people, but I would start with friends and family. So let me get this right. And then you can also DM Darcy, Darcy ad capital a is deep pockets and social fund, all your ads. Okay. So can, can, did you start actually do this starts anywhere it's like, let's say, I dunno, uh, ad capital or XYZ investor is going to fund a hundred grand worth of ad spend and they feel it can say, Hey, they're going to take, uh, X percent of the sales routed here. Um,

Darcy (33:30):

In terms of like, uh, like a JD contract or some sort of like, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, we have that completely built into the platform. Um, that would automate that and split the payment out if there was a contract in place, like an affiliate referral or some sort of JV contract. Um, so yeah, that's totally within the realm of possibility. And I think then given also, I mean, using your card as a backing for those lower level guys that can't quite get that Amex or have that hilar, um, and like Sean said, go into your friends and family. And I think also just showing the numbers. So it's people love to invest. I investors love to get return and if they see a true return possible, they're going to move through the cash down with contracts in place. And then you have to adhere to that burn your name, especially in this industry, it's small, I've known people. Then they were traveled like, Oh, don't deal with him. Cause he doesn't pay you or he didn't make good XYZ. So you have got to really cover your. In that instance.

Darcy (34:24):

I think one of the things that, uh, you know, you could do to get people comfortable, right, is do an automatic split like that with digital store. So there's, you know, and underwriting and risk. If I just kind of put investor hat on for a second there's can they pay and will they pay, can they pay us all numbers? But will they pay is, is a whole nother question, which you're getting it Darcy. And so, you know, if it's somewhat of a newer investor, you can kind of handle the, Hey look, we'll just take a split. We'll, you know, you'll get paid out directly from digital store so that you don't have to trust me. You just trusted you store on getting your money back. That would be like another way to, um, get somebody come from investors. Also love just to be comfortable. Everybody loves to be comfortable or you can just, you know, hit us up. Uh, I got a question for you brought up and it was going into Facebook groups and I'm in it's way too many to where I always see, Hey, we're selling an ad account or selling a business manager, how I've always thought, in my opinion, it's super sketch. But in y'all's world, is that something that's very common with people buying accounts or renting

Sean (35:38):

Them out because that just screams like policy to me. Yeah. You gotta be careful with that. Um, there there's a lot of shady stuff going on. You know, a lot of black-hat guys, there's a lot of farms out there that sell the $20 Facebook account, nine years old, that kind of thing. Most of those are not going to be very good. Um, some of them can work, but they're all short term plays. The better way to go is, you know, the friends and family route another option, and this is kind of outset. Borderline is going to be gray, but it's still a, it's still an option. It doesn't really break their terms of service, but you could work with someone by putting an ad, a social, you know, a social survey ad where you pay someone through like Craigslist or something like that here in the States or a local online classified, and just say, Hey, I'll pay you 30 minutes, 50 bucks for 30 minutes of your time, you talk to them, have a discussion, explain what you're doing as an agency.

Sean (36:31):

And you're looking for out accounts. You don't use them. I need 30 minutes. I'll do, you know, whatever a screen-share with TeamViewer or something like that, where you can access your computer. They're on my two watching the whole time. And then you can, you know, set up a business manager through there and I'd work through their account and you pay them, compensate them for that. That's, you know, again, there's nothing specific says that you cannot do that. Um, from Facebook's perspective, that kind of thing. So that's probably, uh, and that's a little more secure way to go to because you're not, you're not worrying about, Oh, my is my wifi. I, uh, you know them off the same guy, that kind of thing. Cause you're doing, there's a remote PC there's team viewer. These are applications that you can use where you actually go in and opens a screen.

Sean (37:13):

It looks like a browser window and you work on their computer just like you're at their house. So if you can, you can do that with friends and family that aren't close to you. That's the first step. That's the best way to do it. And then if you need to, you can either put a classified ad up and say, Hey, I'll pay you for your time services and just explain what you do. And people you'll be surprised. People are like, they don't care. Give me 50 bucks for some beer money or whatever it may be. They're happy with that. I don't make money off of Facebook. I don't use ad platform. So I'll pick 50 bucks for that. So that's another way to go. That's a better way to go than buying some of these sketchy.

Darcy (37:49):

Last question, Sean, and we'll let you go. This has been absolutely amazing. I want to know your Amex gold strategy because you're like, yeah, you're spending, yeah. You're spending five, 6 million a year on ads, but I think there's another strategy layer here. Cause you were saying you pick up five, 6 million points in a couple of years.

Sean (38:13):

Yeah. So like walk us through. So for the Amex business goal, that's, you'll see that any Facebook market has been doing it for a while. They'll have the Amex business goal because up to the first 150,000 points, you get four X on Facebook advertising. So you can get up to 650,000 points. I'm spending 150,000 and that should be no big after you do enough for like a year or two. Um, and with those points, obviously they can, you can, you can use them for whatever you want. They have partnerships with so many different things. Um, I, I initially did it for the points for travel. Last year, couldn't travel the issue we moved into our late last year, we moved into a new place or we're like, Oh, we need to couch new dinner table, DV, new fridge, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, um, uh, my, my, uh, my sweetheart, she, she looked, she was like, well, let's I like Westdale.

Sean (39:06):

I like crate and barrel. I like pottery barn. Uh, you know, and we're like, Oh, we need a fridge. Yeah. So you just go in and you transfer the points and we can, the points to gift cards, we'll get it all free. Um, what I do is I have two different Amex business goals. So when I cap out on the one 50 on the first one, I switch over to the next one and it refreshes each year. So, you know, that that alone is 1.2 million, then everything else is a one-to-one. Um, I also have like a Marriott Amex card for Marriott space. They used to be Western of their program. So that's the best bang for wherever we go. So we travel, we fly first class with points for free. So to speak where we stay, we stay for free and you get other products because they bumped you up.

Sean (39:53):

When you get to that kind of level and you get, you know, you can book a regular room and you'd get upgraded to a suite that kind of stuff, and small, all three points. And that's how, like, even if you're running low margins of ROI, it's like what he's going through and you're still getting points for your card. So it's a huge benefit. Same with any kind of cash back cards. Like, Hey, it's, it's free money basically. So if you're going to do it anyway, it's a smart way to go in. Might as well capitalize on that. So we'll use that to, we look through and say, Hey, what are you gonna buy? Oh, we're gonna buy this one. We'll see if it's looking transfer points. Oh, perfect. There we go. That's amazing. I love it.

Darcy (40:30):

That's honestly, the gap that we see in the market, Sean is like, how can, like somebody like yourself spend five or 6 million,

Sean (40:37):

But like the best point multiplier caps out at 150,000.

Darcy (40:44):

Come on. Like give me a little bit of love. So we're going to have you back on in a year and we're just going to have you do the whole set,

Sean (40:52):

Getting me on this, this black diamond ad card. Um, you could talk just how we converted you from points. There's another level to it too. I mean, if you want to buy something, they don't have any, like you wanna buy car, like, okay. We don't have a car points program that, Hey, do you like Costco? You like home Depot? Yeah, sure. Hey, I'll give you a $5,000 home Depot gift cards as a down payment for the car. Oh man.

Darcy (41:25):

I'm actually impressed. You only have two Amex goals. I thought you were going to come in and say, you got like a lot more

Sean (41:31):

For, for LLC. You cap, you can cap out at four at a time for me. I just don't. Um, you know, I, I don't need that many. I do. I do plenty of points across the board kind of thing. So, um, that's fine for me, but yeah, you can get as many as you want as many LLCs as you want set up, you can do.

Darcy (41:50):

I mean, Hey, you're doing ad accounts might as well do LLC is right. Diamond and crusted

Sean (41:58):

The way the Amex Amex works. It's like, you're like you said, Zach, with underwriting and stuff like that. If you spread yourself too thin and each card will have like a $30,000 limit, right. Whereas if you only have like two of them, you can get, you know, half a million dollar limit on each of those, that kind of, that's something you got to balance out and keep in mind too.

Darcy (42:16):

Totally. I mean, I think like the stat here, an average small business has five credit cards. And literally to your point, like the average balance is 32,000 or like the available limit. So, um, you're on point there, Sean knows this stuff. He really is

Sean (42:35):

Darcy.

Darcy (42:37):

Sean, this was awesome. You're super generous with your time and your knowledge and a super humble guy. We're really appreciate it. Tell everybody, uh, what you're up to next and how they can get in touch.

Sean (42:50):

Yeah. I, I like to, uh, like I said, I like to work with people on a small group mentorship, that kind of thing. Um, I'll probably have a course, not because I want to sell massively, but because, um, just, uh, like I said, I was talking about earlier about just learning the fundamentals and getting started as opposed to like searching out and getting a bunch of different directions from different people. So you can reach me@successcasestudies.com. It's a really ugly site. Uh, I'm not huge tech guy. I just do up a, I guess, a, um, name, capture page. So just, uh, subscribe. So pride my list. I'll send you out a case study that I did a year and a half ago with a product called easy battery on ClickBank. And I did, uh, went from zero brand new ad account zero spend in 30 days, I did 144 K with about 80% ROI on that, starting from scratch. So yeah, so I have a video for that.

Sean (43:50):

I didn't optimize it either because I didn't have time to, I just kinda threw it up just to play with it. And it did actually better than I thought it was going to do. So you get that uproar. And then, um, what I'm going to be doing is I'll be shooting a series starting now, a new case study that I'll do with a brand new product outside of weight loss, because everybody's just focused on weight loss. So I want to get people back around and go, Hey, do you want these other products you can do, you know, you can do five times a day on almost any niche, but you have to get into it and do it and learn it and learn the marketing side without getting your Facebook edge could shut down. So artwork

Darcy (44:23):

Art or is free, right? This, this, uh, this is this like a slot or something like that. Success case studies, uh,

Sean (44:32):

I use deposit photos. I'm ambitiously lazy, I'll work, I'll work like, you know, a hundred hours straight and then take a month off from working hard, that kind of thing. So, um, that's me, I'm a slob, slow and steady, slow and steady wins the race. I was talking to Dylan about our turtles, man.

Darcy (44:59):

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much.

Sean (45:03):

No, I mean, thank you guys for having us on and letting me introduce you to some of these heavy hitters that I deal with on a daily basis, because they should get some acknowledgement and some, some shine because they're doing some amazing things out there. And I know a lot of affiliates fly under the radar, so I'm just happy you guys can shine some spotlight on them. And did you serve 24 and the industry as a whole, and let's make 20, 21 way better than 2020, because the bar is pretty low. So let's just pull bolt right over that baby. There you go. I

Darcy (45:29):

Love it. All right. Thank you so much guys. Appreciate

Sean (45:32):

You. Sure. Thanks guys. Bye

Darcy (45:40):

So much for listening to another episode of the rich ed or ed podcasts. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and rich ed [inaudible] dot com slash podcast. And if you absolutely love the show, go ahead and leave a review and a comment share with a friend. If you do take a copy screenshot of it, email me zach@funneldash.com. Show me you left a review. I'll give you a free copy of the rich add or add book. Learn more about the book. Go to rich ed [inaudible] dot com to leave a review that a rich ed or at.com/review. Thanks again.