Zach (02:09):

That's awesome, man. Well, uh, today's uh, today's guest is Adam Earhart. He is, uh, the founder of video brand builder is pretty awesome. It's kind of amazing YouTube channel, also an agency owner and, uh, has been in the marketing game for quite some time. So the guy manages and advises on over 12 million a year in ad spend. Uh, I think that's all Facebook ad spend. Um, but as you know, I think he's got his, his ad agency pretty well dialed in. So if you're an agency that's like really thinking about how do I streamline that, streamline this thing and ultimately, you know, graduate to where we can kind of start rolling out your own courses programs. I think Adam's got a great story. Plus he's got a ton of insight into what's working right now in the of information marketing, selling courses, uh, for course creators and, uh, online professional services. So without further ado, Adam, welcome to the show, my friend.

Adam (03:10):

Uh, thank you so much for that. Good to, good to be here and good to chat with you too, Dylan.

Zach (03:13):

Yeah, man. So get everybody a little bit of up to speed on what you're up to these days and how you ended up like doing what you're doing now,

Adam (03:21):

Right on. Yeah. So my path into marketing is super random. Uh, basically I used to be, um, a pilot of all things and I decided I didn't want to be a pilot anymore. And my wife's like, you should do marketing. I was like, I don't even know what marketing is. And I started looking into it and immediately became this like wildly addicted to it. And that was over 10 years ago now. So really over the last 10 years have just spent every waking minute as a bit of an obsession, really trying to figure out, alright, what are the kind of buyer psychology, the consumer behavior? Why do people do what they do and how can I influence and persuade that? And yeah, it's taken me down a lot of different paths down, pretty much every facet of digital marketing and, uh, and really have loved each and every one, but obviously have a special place in my heart for both that organic content creation side, like we do through YouTube and then also through paid traffic, because really there's no better way to quickly scale a business then through the use of paid ads,

Zach (04:15):

Dude. That's awesome, man. So you get to see, you know, quite a bit in terms of, you know, uh, the different, different campaigns. I mean, you know, a million a month in ad spend is, is, uh, it's definitely quite an accomplishment, so kudos on that front, but I'm dying to know, man, like let's, let's hear about this rich ad, break it down for us.

Adam (04:37):

Yeah. Right on. So it's funny when we're thinking about like one specific ad, there's just so many that come to mind and what the most interesting thing is, especially across, I don't even know how many thousands of ad accounts I've looked at over my career is that everything is different. There is no one size fits all method, whether we're talking about different industries or markets niches or whatever it is like sometimes it's gonna be a static image ads. Sometimes it's going to be a video ad. Sometimes it's going to be long copies. Some I was going to be short copy. So there's nothing clear. However, the one underlying trait across all of my top performing ad accounts across all of the best performing ad accounts I've seen really comes down to quantity. It's like, if you ever go take a look in different ad accounts and I can almost tell like you really can't judge a book by its cover, how well that ad account is doing based almost solely on the number of ads that they're currently running. It seems that the best performing campaigns that we have, we're running a lot of ads. A lot of ad sets always varying the creative and always testing different modalities.

Zach (05:37):

That's crazy, man, because it's funny because Facebook's now going to be limiting

Adam (05:42):

Terrible timing for this advice.

Zach (05:45):

Ads are we talking to here per ads? And I'm kind of curious now I got like four to five or like 10 to 12. Yeah.

Adam (05:51):

We still like, like the classic, like three, four or five ads per ad set three, four or five ad sets per CBO. If we're going to run it as CBO, but we'll just run a lot of campaigns and we'll vary it frequently as well. Like the second that we start seeing other frequency come up or if we start seeing costs, rise, uh, quicker than they used to like, Oh man, I remember the good old days we used to like literally set it and forget it. We'd have the crappiest ads with like the red borders around them and the, like all of the sketchiest spammy as things. And they would dominate for like a year or two. And uh, and now we're varying the creative. I wouldn't say weekly with every account, but like certainly monthly every couple of months at the very least. Um, so yeah, we're going through a lot of creative.

Dylan (06:33):

I believe that shoot. Yeah. The creative is a good way to kind of move the needle because yeah. These days it seems like, you know, that creative fatigue just happened so quick sometimes.

Adam (06:40):

Well, what's really interesting is that like, do you guys remember like power editor days when we had our spreadsheets and all that, uh, grown from the audience? So it's like back in the power under today's the hardest part of running Facebook ads was the mechanics of it, right? Like, how am I going to upload this thing? How am I going to duplicate it? What am I targeting it to be? What, uh, what are my placements, how am I going to do all this that is largely been taken away. And the complexity now has really come down to like copy and creative images and videos and understanding your avatar and like really crafting compelling stories and compelling hooks. So it's funny that we've almost had this transition where like media buying is as important as it's ever been. You absolutely have to be a master of it, but now you've got to be even better at copying creative. Otherwise it's just not going to work.

Dylan (07:27):

I think you're spot on now, now with y'all's copying creative, is that something y'all do in-house you outsource it? I'm kind of curious on how y'all get that and action.

Adam (07:34):

Yeah, we do it like 50, 50, and it's normally depending on the client. So it really depends on their understanding and their markets, certain clients that we've got, they have really strict regulations on like what they can and can't say, so all of our copy goes through kind of like a bit of a pain in the butt, but like back and forth and making sure everything's fine. On the other hand, we'll have some clients that are like, yep, just do whatever you want to do. And that is typically where we get the best results because we're able to sort of draw on all our own experience. And then we have clients that they want to do every single thing themselves. And then we often end up having some pretty hard conversations about why this needs to change or why this isn't effective or why you just can't say this. Um,

Dylan (08:15):

It's like, if you go to the dentist and he's fixing your root canal and you're like, Hey, maybe you should do this. It's like, well, Hey, you paid the dentist for somebody who's supposed to be doing. So it's the exact same scenario.

Adam (08:24):

Exactly. Literally the same, just Novacane excluded

Speaker 4 (08:32):

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Zach (09:49):

Check it out@funneldash.com. So what's not working, man. I want to hear about, uh, I want to be on here about an Epic fan man, break down for us. Exactly what the

Adam (10:04):

Example that, um, the best example I have of an Epic failure is actually something that worked that I didn't realize worked. And then I shut it off because I didn't realize the value of breakeven really in my career.

Zach (10:16):

This is, this is, this is to be great. This is like the equivalent of like the humble brag slash bless on Facebook.

Adam (10:24):

No, so, so the reality was is that I set up a campaign and this was for one of my own products years ago and I ran it through and it worked, but I didn't realize that it worked because it was sort of just hitting break even. So I shut everything down and so on and so forth. Anyway, sales kept coming in, it ended up being profitable. I went to turn it back on and I could never replicate the success, ended up losing money. So essentially what it comes down to is, I didn't know my numbers. I wasn't clear on my funnel. I didn't really work out my math and my breakeven. Like I really just mess everything up. So then it was too late. Uh, now in regards to, what's not working now very easy. It's the broad, generic, call-outs it's any ad that is not specifically calling out an ideal target market or avatar or addressing a unique pain that they have.

Adam (11:07):

So what ends up happening? And this is kind of the same as it's always been, but people forget that when they're scrolling through Facebook, they're in line at Starbucks or wherever people used to go back before this whole thing happened and they're like, they're out in the grocery store or they're like trying to like half watch their kids in the background. They're not really paying attention. So unless you like reach through the phone and like grab them by the throat, you're going to lose them. And so often we see these really boring ads and if you're boring, you're just you're forgotten.

Zach (11:36):

Oh yeah. I mean, to pair of seeing your ads, they're seeing a thousands of others in the same spot. It's never going to be a one and done or home run right out of the gate. That's for freaking sure. That's it. That's awesome, man. How much did you spend before you realized kind of it wasn't working and then realized it was Oregon? Yeah.

Adam (11:54):

Yeah. It wasn't, fortunately it wasn't too much. We're only about, I think probably 20 or 30 grand in, uh, but still it would have been nice to like, have that carry on rather than sort of just waste 30 grand in give, we still hit sort of a breakeven, but then we started losing after that. So yeah. It's never fun, especially when it's your own money. It's a lot more, you're a lot more sensitive to gotta like flushing 30 grand, especially early in your career.

Zach (12:18):

Gosh, that's awesome. Speaking of flushing my notes, but I want to talk about this next segment. Give us some financial principles, Adam, you know, before the show we were talking about, you know, your perspective as an how you, how you think about investing in marketing for your own business as an agency owner at a course creator versus really how you have that conversation around finances with your clients and how you really encourage him to, uh, to really leverage up and scale. So what are some of the financial principles that you think would apply to some of the listeners?

Adam (12:50):

Yeah. Right on. So there's, there's a couple of things there. The first of which is that it's a very different mindset when you're running your own traffic and scaling your own business versus doing it for someone else. So I'm easily, easily my own worst client when it comes to running my own ads. Uh, like I shut things off too quick. I freak out too quick. I blame things that are obviously my fault. Like I'm just a terrible client for myself. Now with a client you're able to take a more objective 30,000 foot view, you know, what's going on, you know, how things can sort of, uh, oscillate and go up and down and go all over the place. And so you can sort of approach it a little more calm and a little more strategic. Now from a financial perspective, I'm really strong, really strong belief in that I don't believe in sort of taking out a ton of debt or a ton of loan to grow a business.

Adam (13:38):

Now there's an exception and that is, if you have a funnel, if you have an ad that's performing and you're hitting and you know, you're hitting through your math and through your metrics and everything's working out and you're hitting breakeven, you're able to sort of basically make your money back ideally within 24 hours. But if not within a week or so, I really feel you should scale that thing to the moon as fast as humanly possible. They, and that means like selling whatever organ you need to, to get more cash because like this may not last, so you really have to capitalize on it while it's in front of you.

Zach (14:08):

So whenever or you heard it here first on the Richard Morgan's as collateral for ad capital. Oh my gosh. So how does that actually play out for some of your clients? Have they leveraged, uh, debt? Have you, have you looked to what extent do you have that conversation?

Adam (14:28):

Yeah. Right on. So it's really tricky, especially with someone that's not an online business owner. So we've got like, there's really different mentalities. Um, when it comes to business, it's funny, right? Like if you talk to your quote unquote normal business, they're looking for, and they're quite happy with like 3% growth year over year or 5% growth year over year. When you talk to like online entrepreneurs, if it's not like a hundred percent, every single month, you're clearly failing and you should just give up and, and go back to wherever. So it's like, it's a bit of a different mentality depending on the scope and the size and the market that said, if the client can be persuaded or can be informed that look, we're putting in a dollar, we're getting out a dollar in 28 hours, 24 hours, um, 28 days, whatever's reasonable. And then we're getting $2 out 60 days after, and we're getting $5 out 90 days after, and now we're getting $10 out, like six months down the road.

Adam (15:20):

Like why would I, would we ever want to stop this? And when you can show them the math and you can show them the numbers and explain that to them, it becomes a lot easier for money to all of a sudden appear like other departments that weren't really being used or other marketing initiatives. And that's typically where we'll draw most of the budget from is that there's almost always some kind of bloat in any business where they're spending money on some kind of ineffective marketing, that's doing nothing, but they thought it was a good idea back two years ago and they're sticking with it. So we can often find ways to increase the budget without needing to borrow more, to bake, more, to steal more, whatever

Zach (15:54):

This is gold. I love this. I mean, how many, how many agencies, advisors, marketing consultants really are? You know, most of them really just stop right there. Like, Hey, you should do this. Like not my problem, if you, if you do, or don't, you know, spend more on this campaign, but to really, you know, like basically do creative finance, right. And budgeting and, and do an audit inventory of like, Hey, what are the other areas that you're investing in your business that aren't getting this level of return? You know, a client this return right here, that's on their screen, call her in like $5 out, uh, and, and take inventory, like put, put that on a spreadsheet line item out. And it's a rarely transparent, it's a very real conversation. It's probably very valuable, uh, to, uh, to the end client. I think that is, he reminds me of, you know, um, we had some folks on the show last week and they were just talking about like debt and investment is really more the last resort.

Zach (17:04):

Right. Get, as far as you can, from a creative standpoint, in, in the, in the sense of the context, there was like no money down business acquisitions, right. They're like, let's see how far we can take this negotiation without, you know, taking on any, any debt or investment. And then we'll use that like the, you know, to get us over the hump. Yeah. And I love this exercise of take inventory of every other part of the business. That's not getting this level of return. And how can you reallocate expenses before you even kind of have the next conversation, which I think is, is debt and investment, but what do you think comes after that, Adam?

Adam (17:43):

Yeah. Well, first, even before then, like the beauty of having that conversation is that you're aligning yourself on the same side of the table as the business owner, as whoever it is that you're running traffic. So you're building this absolutely incredible level of trust where they start to see you as a fiduciary or as a trusted advisor or someone that I can almost guarantee they've never had this kind of relationship with an agency before. No one's ever really cared that much about their business and about what they're getting. So everyone wins, like you're going to look better. They're going to look better. They're going to make more money, which is going to make them like you more, which is going to have them refer you more, which means you're going to stick around for a lot longer. So it's like the, the value of this really can't be oversold.

Adam (18:24):

Like this is an incredibly important thing. So after that's done once, you've sort of like got every last penny from every other section of the business that you can think of and you still feel that there's room to grow then. Yeah. It really just becomes a question of comfort levels. So it's like, this is where I want to figure out like what my cost per acquisition is and how quickly I'm able to sort of break even. And am I looking at 24 hours? Because if so, then the flood Gates open, like we'll just, we'll bring out their credit cards. I'll bring it on my credit card. Like we're all in on this one because we're getting our money back in like 24 hours. You better be careful hold these back stoke cards you got out of this is gonna be an awkward conversation with the wife.

Adam (19:05):

But anyway, once those are done, then it becomes a question of figuring out, all right, cool. Are we not breaking even in 24 hours? Because then we've got to look at 28 days. And then we got to look at 60 days and 90 days. And the more confident you are in your funnel and in your kind of, uh, approach beyond simple ads, like if you're able to acquire someone at, I dunno, say 10 bucks, a lead five bucks, a lead 15 bucks, a lead relevant, the point is, is like, all right, cool. Do we know after six emails and, um, 50 bucks of retargeting ads and a couple SMS followups, like that's where they convert. And the more that we know that, and the more clear we are, that's when we can really, again, sort of extend the amount that we're willing to pay and extend the timeframe we're willing to get paid back. So it becomes a bit of an accounting nightmare, and everybody's gotta be a little more comfortable, but if you've already proven yourself effective, then you can just start to kind of dip your toe in. Pardon me? Dip your toe in slowly.

Zach (20:01):

Adam died, literally just died too many YouTube, too many YouTube videos for Adam. His voice just gave out and you'll never hear from him again.

Adam (20:11):

Oh, is it? Remind me never to record like five videos before doing a podcast.

Zach (20:17):

That is absolutely incredible.

Adam (20:21):

That's that's the real and rawness of the world we live in.

Zach (20:24):

Oh my gosh. I love it. We can do all kinds of fun things in post here. Um, I'm okay for the record. I'm I'm I'm back. All right. So good. I love it. So, so I mean like you wanna finish your thought there.

Adam (20:49):

It's like, literally just totally got out. I think that's really, it, it really just comes down to knowing your numbers and then making the client feel comfortable by actually being on their side. That's really what it comes down to. Um, I was given this piece of advice like a decade ago and it was, if you treat your clients business as your own, you really can't go too wrong. And that's sort of, uh, something I try to convey, however, in the least cheesy way possible with every new client, it's essentially, Hey, when we start working together your business, it becomes my business. This is like, there's nothing I would do here that I wouldn't do for myself.

Adam (21:26):

It's just like go perhaps out, grab some water we're back on. Well, you've been amazing guests on the show. I feel like we've just crank through all this stuff. And you just drop some knowledge bombs here. Tell everybody a little bit about what you're up to next, how we can support you on the show and how we can get in touch right on. So for me, I think that one of the single most underutilized tools available to us as entrepreneurs, as marketers, as business owners, as agencies, is whatever is video marketing. Whether we're running it through our own ads, whether we're running it for our clients. Uh, so the big thing that I'm focused on right now is really helping people create more videos. Now, I believe they should first be put on YouTube because it's simply the best video platform available. You can be discovered through search through discovery, through suggested lots of options there. But once you've got that video, you can splice and dice it and put on other networks as well. So really the best thing I'd advise people to do is yeah, just stop by the YouTube channel. Say, hi, leave a comment. If you want to have a chat about sort of getting this deployed in your business, then feel free to reach out as well. Oh, there you have it, man. Thank you so much, Adam. You absolutely crushed pleasure. You guys have awesome. So happy to happy to be here. Thanks for having me on

Speaker 5 (22:43):

[inaudible].

Speaker 4 (22:43):

Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the rich ed or ed podcast. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and rich [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 to 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.