Over the course of doing a few dozen Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcasts I’ve had the pleasure of talking with entrepreneurs who have built phenomenally successful 7-to-9-figure online businesses.
Some can flash impressive credentials from places like the London School of Economics or West Point Point Military Academy. Others skipped college and mainlined into success even before they got out of high school.
But they all have one thing in common.
An unwavering focus on and understanding of some very basic fundamentals that everything else depends on. Billy Gene is one of those guys.
As founder of Billy Gene is Marketing one of the top online marketing influencers, educators, and practitioners in the world, he hosts one-of-a-kind Facebook live-streams and online courses that teach marketers how to use social media to get ROI for local businesses and turn "clicks into customers”.
Sitting solidly in the middle of the Inc. 5000 2020 list of America’s fastest growing companies and most inspiring entrepreneurs, Billy Gene is Marketing clocks-in with a blazing 3-year growth rate of 168%.
So what’s his secret?
I asked him about it when I talked to him on our How Billy Gene Managed an 8-Month $1M Ad Spend and Fights Fatigue with an Onslaught of Offers podcast episode.
We talked about really bridging the world of advertising and finance. What he does to manage cash and drives revenue growth and how that plays out operationally. And most of all what his mindset is when it comes to making money and teaching others how they can do it too. It’s surprisingly and powerfully straightforward.
1. Money is Simple
“My parents both grew up on welfare, so there was no talk about funding or venture or capital stock bond. Like there was none of that . When I went to the University of San Diego, that was the first I heard anybody talk about any of those things and it intimidated the hell out of me. And I literally had no clue what any of that meant. And when I say no clue, like literally imagine hearing something for the first time and note, by the way, this isn't about white, black or et cetera. But when people are mentioning the word privilege, a lot of people don't like that word. That's what they're talking about. It's a privilege to even know those things exist.
So my whole thing at an early age was money was simple to me. Which was, ‘Is it there? Or is it not there?” There was no ‘Well let's get this nice cush funding round where we can sit on a couple of mil and half time to figure it out. It was ‘I ain't got no money in the bank, so we need to go make some sales.’”
2. Data Drives Everything
“I still live by that guiding principle -- granted a more sophisticated approach. Now there's other things I do, but it is. I obsess about the money that is coming into my account. Um, as a whole, as a company, et cetera, I have an assistant, I have two assistants, but one works specifically with finances and she sends me a report every single morning, a text message where I can see how much money is in every single account and what we are plus or minus for the month relative to that day. And if I noticed we had five days of not hitting the goal of what we want to be at, then I will call an audible and do a promotion or something to get it. Like, I literally let that number, guide my actions to make sure I'm always following the data, you know?”
3. Growth is the Name of the Game
“Early in the beginning stages, my psychology was, if I just made three GS, then I could pay for this, this and this. And then you realize when you're doing your thing, it's we don't even talk about man. I ain't talking about no minimum. It is yo what, where we NEED to be.
And then the second is the bells are ringing. If you're not on there within five days, meaning you're taking immediate action to get that back on target, which means you are absolutely incredibly nimble and responsive to that number, which is like the way it should be. Right?”
4. Be Ready to Turn on a Dime
“Nimble is kind of our thing. And it's, like I mentioned five days, but even like a day, if I see a day of like down, you know, we can anticipate, you do some loan. If you can anticipate, like what's going to bring in sales and what's not right. Like pipeline, pipeline is fundamental in any business. Every business knows when they're going to have a big week. Very rarely do people just fall out of the sky and all of a sudden there are sales again. You know, when you're going to have a day, right?”
5. Marketing + Sales = Money
“It's amazing as entrepreneurs, how many times we pretend money is a mystery. It's never a mystery. It's always right in front of our eyes. And you know, my favorite quote is right. You know, like the amount of offers the money, the amount of money you make is directly correlated with the amount of offers that you make. But I asked you about a time like that. They tell me they're in a slump.
I say, ‘Hey, how many people did you ask to buy?’ And they said they made many sales the last week. ‘Cool. How many people did you ask to buy during that time?’ ‘Well, I didn't ask any because I was set up the end’. It's always the answer out of a cash crunch. Ask people to buy and then you work backwards.
Okay. Well, how do I, who do I ask to buy? All right, well, how do I get those people in front of us? Well, that's called marketing right in advertising. And when I got them in front of me, what do I say?
Okay. And what do I charge them? And how do I collect the money? Cool. Marketing and sales. Great. If you figure those two out that you can figure out the rest of the , you know what I mean? Like you can hire other people to help you figure out the rest of stuff, but you gotta be able to make the engine go.”
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