0 (2s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Hustle Daily. Today we're pulling a classic episode, from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to increase your traffic. To drop these value bombs, I brought Billy Gene into EOFire Studios. Billy helps business owners and entrepreneurs turn clicks on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube into customers. He's also the host of the Billy Gene Offends the Internet podcast. And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about how entertainment and controversy increase traffic. We'll talk about how advertising is the key, the most profitable companies worldwide have billions of dollars in sales and spend billions of dollars on advertising into so much more, Fire Nation.

‎The Hustle Daily Show (49s):
And a big thank you of sponsoring today’s episode goes to Billy and ours sponsors The Goal Digger Podcast hosted by my good friend Jenna Kutcher, is brought to you by the Hubspot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business acts, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recent on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger, wherever you get your podcasts.

BELAY (1m 20s):
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0 (1m 43s):
Billy, Gene, my man, my brother. Whoa, I've got some stories I could tell about you. They might come out organically during our talk today. We'll see. And they're, they're all good stories. Obviously they're all fun stories. But I wanna start 90% because I love your story. I never get tired of hearing about it, but how you, you were at one point 50 K in debt, which let's be honest, it's not super abnormal. I mean, we all have like this massive college debt. We get into credit card debt, we do stupid things all, you know, all over the place. But you went for 50 K in debt to running this wildly successful agency that, you know, in downtown San Diego. I've been to your office multiple times. I mean, as a baller. Talk to us about how you made that transition.

1 (2m 19s):
Honestly, if I had to summarize it for everybody, is number one just on the, the mindset of asking for help, period. Like, no, no one figures that out by themself. And so many times people think that's the case. But tactically speaking, 'cause I'm a tactics guy, I know your audience listening, they want the juice. It's, dude, I, I got really good at, at spending a dollar and turning it into three period. I mean, at the end of the day, my quote unquote Secret weapon, it's just Advertising. And you know who I got it from? The most profitable companies in the world. When you look at the balance sheet of all the fortune 1000 companies, the Apples, the Facebook, the, the insurance companies, the Walmarts, et cetera.

1 (2m 59s):
What people don't realize that you see is not just the billions in dollars in sales. They spend billions of dollars in advertising. But when you go to small businesses, the first thing you say is like, well, how do you get customers? What do they say? Referrals every time. And it's just like the, the most successful companies in the world, the world legally have to tell you exactly how they're doing it. They have to, but, but yet we don't do it. And for a long time it was because a lot of that stuff was expensive, right? tv, radio, billboards, it just didn't make sense for a small business. But I mean, honestly, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, it cost one to 10 cents. You know, to show somebody an advertisement, one to 10 cents, you can show for five to 15 bucks a thousand people your message.

1 (3m 44s):
That was my big Secret. So if I had something to sell, I would just literally make a video ad with my cell phone and ask people to buy it. And that's it. I would just make more than I spend. So if I, if I sold something that was a thousand bucks, I'd probably spend 200 bucks in Advertising. And I just repeat the process over and over again. It's so wildly simple like what we do, it's crazy. But the difference is, is I was able to overcome the fear of losing money on ads. That's what stops people. They go, well what if I spend a hundred bucks on the flyer and it doesn't get a return? Then you try again. It doesn't make it not the path anymore. It just means you miss, you get back up and you try it again until you find something that works, then you keep repeating

0 (4m 22s):
It. Now you've had a lot of things that have worked over the years, you've had some things that haven't, but when you talk about that arbitrage of like turning $1 into $3, you've obviously had a lot of those and there's a lot of examples you could give, but you know, I just want one of your favorites where you're just like, you know, this is almost too easy. Now, of course, all good things come to an end. All arbitrages get tighter and close up over time. Of course. Yeah. But like, what was just one you're like, this is almost too good to be true. I'm gonna max this out as long as I can.

1 (4m 49s):
I mean, there's, there's been a lot, but I think a fun one for everybody to listen to because they probably won't think it's possible. Let's take billboards for example. Oh yeah. So I, I've, I've purchased billboards, And A. Lot of people go, why do you buy a billboard? Like people don't spend money off of that. And this is where people really have to get obsessed with this about being creative. So, quick story, in San Diego, California, I bought four Billboards. They cost me 36,000 bucks and I ran 'em all. And that was for three And A, half weeks, just everyone let that sink in. 36 grand for three And A, half weeks on freaking billboards that people drive by. And so then people go like, how do you make money from it? Well what I did is I made a call to action on it to go to a website and it was an automatic webinar the same way that I would do Facebook or Instagram or YouTube anyway.

1 (5m 31s):
And I was just like, I wonder if anybody will opt in. I wonder if anybody will watch. And they did. And it made like $10,000 back because what I was selling on the water was like a a thousand bucks. So immediately people would say, okay, you lost money Billy, you lost 26,000 bucks, you made 10 spent. That's stupid. Well, what I did is people for some reason give a lot of authority and position to billboards 'cause they know they're expensive and the companies that are doing billboards are the biggest companies in the world. Yeah. So they automatically think you're

0 (6m 2s):
Official. I mean, I still think of Pete knows pb, that guy will always be Yes, exactly. The real estate guy in San Diego. 100,

1 (6m 9s):
100. And so take that, right? So what I did is I said, okay, well we're gonna take a, he, we rented a helicopter and we flew around, we went to helicopters and we flew around of me and my CMO at the time, And A Helicopter, and my buddy Paul filming from the other helicopter. and we flew over all the billboards and we flew over all the billboards and we turned that into a Facebook ad. And then from that advertisement we brought in probably like a million bucks, like throughout, throughout using it over

0 (6m 38s):
The course of Arbitrage Baby. Yeah,

1 (6m 40s):
Yeah. And so it's just like, how can you use it?

0 (6m 42s):
It wasn't just three weeks. Like you're able to use that footage forever. The pictures of you in front of a billboard, even today, forever, even. Exactly. Even Today, we literally

1 (6m 49s):
Putting an ad up, ironically two days using that same clip of the helicopter. And so people, you gotta start looking at your content as an asset the same way you do real estate. People go, it's a real estate investment and I can make money off of that again and again and again. Same with your videos. What's the difference? I'll tell you what the difference, this video's cheaper video is easier to make and you don't need to go through escrow. So everybody, if you're not, if you're not using videos as as cash assets, you're tripping.

0 (7m 14s):
I mean, I wanna give you a personal example that involves Billy here. Is that about a year ago, it was actually maybe close to two years ago now Billy and I were both promoting a Tony Robbins course. We both finished in the top 10. And so we got to go to Namali Fiji and have a great four days with Tony Robbins, Don Dean osi. I went scuba diving with Billy Gene. I mean, come on. Does life get any better than that? I'm underwater. I'm 50 feet underwater with Billy Gene, does life get any better than that?

1 (7m 41s):
Well, first of all, John John's good at it. I was, I was afraid. I like me, me and Lewis, Lewis hos. Yeah, we were afraid, like, because we, you know, we had never done it before.

0 (7m 49s):
Everybody's afraid the first time

1 (7m 50s):
You guys were like, pros like going down a hundred feet, like swimming with sharks. I'm like, what are you doing? It's so funny. So yeah, that was, that was a great time though. But

0 (7m 59s):
My whole point of this story, besides having an awesome time with Billy, Gene Lewis Howes and just the other amazing people there, is that I took a fantastic photo and I mean a fantastic photo with Tony, me and Tony, my arms around him. I'm looking at him, I'm laughing, he's laughing. Sweat's coming off. 'cause we're in Fiji, like we're both glowing. That photo is still my Facebook profile p picture, and I get, I get messages all the time. How, how do you know Tony Robbins so well? Like it's, it's impossible to get like close to Tony in a normal person's world, right? Yeah. And like, that's just an example. Like I, I, I made it happen. The arbitrage, I got that picture, I'm still using it to this day. So those three And A, half weeks of the billboard, those were just three And A half weeks for Billy, like those four days into Molly for me. They weren't just four days into Molly.

0 (8m 40s):
It's been ongoing content,

1 (8m 42s):
Dude. It's kind is so, it's such an asset monetarily and people just on slip on, I mean that picture will live

0 (8m 48s):
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0 (9m 54s):
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0 (10m 54s):
So Billy, we're back. And one thing I love about you, and I mean LOVE, is you are not afraid to ask for the sale. I mean, I literally like scream at some people in my community is like, podcast was paradise. Like I'm screaming at them like ask for the sale. Like they can't get it. They won't do it. You share that. Your secret of reaching more people is to ask them to buy literally every single time. And I listen to your podcast and you are always asking people to buy, which is awesome, and I'm taking notes myself to that. What would you say to people that are afraid to ask for the sale?

1 (11m 24s):
The biggest thing I would say consider, other than you know, it's in their best interest. The biggest thing that I would say is nobody actually gets upset with you for asking for the sale. They get obsessed with you for how you ask for the sale. Ooh, I give the same example and like dating or something, right? Like if you're just asking someone out all the time, be careful that's harassment, that's annoying, et cetera. But if you're making her laugh every single time and it's hilarious and it's this friendly, cordial, warm, fuzzy thing you can ask as many times as is appropriate, right? And so with asking for the sale, if, imagine if you make people laugh every single time that you do it. It's the difference between, we've all been in a position where we meet a sales rep for something and they just make us smile and we just love their energy.

1 (12m 7s):
They could ask us a hundred times totally. But if there's a person we don't like and it's not enjoying the process, they can ask one time and it was too many. So that's the obsession is how you ask, do it in a fun, friendly way. Like people have this, you know, thing that sells this, like this daunting process, et cetera. I'm like, dude, people love to shop. Look at Amazon, the end. Like people love to shop, they're on there to shop and spend money you don't like, it's not a bad thing people like to spend, just give them an opportunity to do so

0 (12m 35s):
Give them an opportunity. And I love it how you come across with your energy, with your vibe and you know, make them smile. I mean, Fire Nation, isn't that how you wanna operate anyways? I mean, just think about it. Yeah. Now it's obvious by now from the past episodes that Billy's been on Entrepreneurs on Fire, and you know, if any of you guys have gotten a sneak peek at the book, why I chose him for the chapter on Increasing Your Traffic, Billy Gene is a master when it comes to Increasing traffic. He's mastered a lot of things. I could've picked him for like four or five different parts of this book. Like there's 17 steps and like you're awesome at like a number of them. Thank you. But the Increasing traffic thing, I was like, no, this is, this is really the place where he shines. And I actually pulled a quote that I love from the book to share with you.

0 (13m 18s):
Fire Nation. And for you Billy, buy

1 (13m 19s):
The book. Fire Nation, buy

0 (13m 20s):
The book. Buy the book, buy the book. I'm not afraid to ask. This is what I wanted to, to pull out though, for the quotes amongst the arrest of the amazing contribution that you gave a full meaty contribution, this quote stuck out. You are never stuck. You're just not being creative enough. And, A, lack of creativity will put you out of business. And so will boring, boring will put you out of business. So Billy, bring this home for us. What do you want Fire Nation to know, to think, to implement about Increasing their traffic?

1 (13m 56s):
So today I'm sitting with my marketing team virtually and I'm, I'm talking with them about, you know, what's something that we could put out there to get more attention. And the first thing I like to do is go with historical data, right? What's worked in the past? So I go to the insights on my Instagram business page, which you can all do. You click the three dots, it hit insights and it'll tell you. But what you can also pull up and you can sort is your most engaged post. It'll show you the post that reach the amount of people. It will show you the post that got the most amount of comments and the post that got the most amount of likes. And as I was looking at my po, my top posts over the last two years, the ones that always did well, had something in common. They were funny or they, or they got people talking.

1 (14m 40s):
So there's this book that I have that's called How to Live With a Huge Penis, and it's a book that I received as a gift from my girl. And I just laughed so hard, I thought it was funny. So I posted on that book, Kate

0 (14m 52s):
Hasn't got me that book. I wonder why No,

1 (14m 56s):
I'll send it to you, I'll send it to you. And I, I posted on my Instagram and dude, out of all of the posts that I've had that was the most engaged wow. And it, and it, and it's, and and like it at least it was one of the, one of the top. But my point is, is the difference when I say engaged is I'll just use, you know, numbers to keep it simple. Sure, if you have a hundred people following you on Instagram, when you post something, you might get like 5, 2, 3, 4 people to interact with. But when I was posting, you know, something like the Entertainment book, I may be able to reach instead of two 20 of those people, right? So it's the same energy for the Post, right? But one reaches two people, one reaches 20 people.

1 (15m 36s):
How do you increase your traffic? You increase your sense of humor, you, and it doesn't, and it's not just funny, I I shouldn't just limit there. It's not just about making people laugh, but also controversial. You know, when the last quarter four politics, every single time I did a post talking about Trump, whether it was for or against engagement, Boom skyrocket, I would put out something educational like, let me teach you about marketing. Nobody pays attention.

0 (15m 59s):
Not

1 (15m 60s):
A word. So nothing. So you, it's about the combination, right? It's Pammy lead with a, a post about Trump and say X, Y, and Z. But then the Ps would be, by the way, you know what I mean? Like, I would circle back and, and make it full circle and combine 'em. So for everybody it's like, look, Entertainment is requirement, but enter, you don't have to necessarily be entertaining either. You could comment on entertaining things. Your opinion becomes entertaining just by talking and showing something. That was it. Look at the show. If everybody remembers Tosh Point oh oh yeah, in comedy sense, Tosh would just stand there. He would play a funny YouTube video and then he would write another joke in addition to the guy. Never had to be that good because his content was so good that he was sharing period.

0 (16m 43s):
Fire Nation Billy Gene, as I already shared, you can tell why I brought him on as a master for Increasing Your Traffic. If you are looking at the calendar and it's still before March 23rd, that means my book,

The Common Path to Uncommon Success (16m 55s):
the Common Path to Uncommon Success is still available for pre-order. Why is that relevant? Because I have five amazing pre-order bonuses for you. Five. That is Cinco and Puerto Rico, just one of 'em. By the way, Billy, I am literally shipping to the door all three of my journals, the Freedom Mastery and Podcast Journal to your, as a bonus, as a bonus for, for a single pre-order. Dude, I'm, I'm losing money on every pre-order. I could care less. This isn't about that. It's about getting this book in your hands, making it an irresistible, no-brainer offer. Hey, can I try, can I chime in on this for please, please do. Guys, I have to tell you something. You know, let's just talk about success, right? If you listen to this podcast as, as I did when I first started listening, you're an entrepreneur, I remember that that's on your way. And I would tell you something, books are the cheat codes to life. Like every single person here is dealing with a problem. Whether it's hiring, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, whether it's getting more traffic to your website, whether it's relationship, and do you realize there's someone really successful out there who's already beat that problem a hundred times that put it into a book and they're trying to give it to you? That's exactly what John's trying to do right now. He's, he's literally giving you the blueprint. All the stuff that you're like, just imagine how ridiculous. It's to wake up feeling stressed with anxiety and then not getting the book to solve all of that. That takes it all away. It's irresponsible, damnit. So go get the book. I mean, it's basically free. I'm not even gonna say it costs anything. It's basically free like get the book. And Billy, you're the man, like you've supported me on this. You bought a book for every single person on your team. I did. That's so of, so, I'm so grateful for that, I'm so thankful for that. So Fire Nation, you heard Billy, I'm not even gonna hammer it home any more than he just did. Uncommonsuccessbook.com, Uncommonsuccessbook.com. The pre-orders bonuses go away on March 23rd. And then you just get the book, which is amazing by the way, but why not get the bonuses as well? Hello? Make it happen. Uncommonsuccessbook.com.

0 (18m 48s):
Billy, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that we salute you and we'll catch you having me on the flip side,

1 (18m 55s):
Lady, y'all,

The Goal Digger Podcast hosted by Jenna Kutcher (18m 58s):
The Goal Digger Podcast hosted by my good friend Jenna Kutcher is brought to you by the Hubspot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business acts, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts.

0 (19m 24s):
BELAY is passionate about helping your business succeed with their simple, flexible staffing solutions. Download Belay’s, Bulletproof Budget template for free, which is the exact budget template they used to grow from a small startup to one of Inc five thousand's fastest growing companies for nine straight years. Today, just text fire, that's FIE 2 5 5 1 2, 3.