Increasing Your Lead Conversions for Profit with Joel Louis on Episode #0152

Intro [0:00]

EA Interviews Episode 152. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview. 

Mario Fachini [0:13]

Business has a lot of facets. You can be talking about profit, you can be talking about leads, you might be talking about Facebook ads or perhaps funnels. And I’m sure we’re going to be talking about that today. But what I’m most excited about is the person I’m going to bring on. Who he is? I can first off say firsthand experience, he is a very nice and patience to the hilt. I don’t know what the hilt is. Maybe it’s a hill or something. But I’ve heard it somewhere. He is a really great guy and I’m so appreciative of him and he knows why. Thank you. And I can’t wait to bring up Joel Louis, because he is a great CEO of Integrator and Company. We’re going to be talking about funnels. But I’m sure what he’s most proud about is his kids and being a father. And I’m going to have him share his story, what he did a couple years ago to be able to spend more time with them while still maintaining his business. I’m going to bring up Joel Louis right after we thank the sponsor. 

SPONSOR Acorns [1:18]

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Mario Fachini [1:36]

Here it is. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joel Louis. Joel, how are you doing today? 

Joel Louis [1:40]

Mario, I’m great. I’m glad to be here. 

Mario Fachini [1:43]

I’m glad you’re here too. And I was excited when we first talked. And I’m even more excited now because you were on fire last time. But it’s different and I know you’re just ready to rock. So take us into how this started. And please do touch on why you wanted to spend more time with your family instead of less, but also maintain your business? 

Joel Louis [2:08]

Yeah, Mario. Thanks for having me on again. And everyone who’s watching live right now, thanks for tuning in. And, you know, continue to watch Mario’s show here. This awesome podcast that he has going on. So, really quick, I’ll fast track you guys to everything. So until – 

Mario Fachini [2:23]

We got time. You don’t need to do it fast. We got plenty of time. We’re even ahead of schedule. 

Joel Louis [2:29]

Oh, good. We are. So in 2008, that was the catalyst, right? I think we all, you know, along this journey, there was something, right? Either it’s aha moment where you have this brilliant idea or something happens in your life that’s transformational. And for me, it was my youngest daughter – my oldest daughter, she’s 11, was born. And I had the fortunate opportunity. I was working for a great company, Intel Corporation. And I was able to take a two months paid sabbatical. Two months paid sabbatical and that was just awesome. And my wife is a NICU nurse. She went back to work after eight weeks. We had about two weeks overlap. And then I became, basically, the primary caregiver for my daughter. And I had six weeks with her. It was just me and her. And my wife worked 12-hour shifts. So I would get it her from the morning until late into the evening. And we just went all over the place. It was just so much fun. And not only was I taking care of my daughter, but at the same time, my company was still paying. So it was a paid sabbatical. So I was still providing for my family. So after those six weeks, I was like, “How can I get more of this?” Because prior to that, I was just looking to climb the corporate ladder, climb the corporate ladder. And again, it was an amazing company and I loved working with Intel. It’s just, I wanted something more. And and that’s when my journey began into entrepreneurship and listening to podcasts and reading books, and all that kind of stuff, and kind of like how I ended up here, which I’m sure we’ll dive into a little bit more. 

Mario Fachini [4:05]

So you’re saying that was all in 2008? 

Joel Louis [4:08]

That was all in 2008. Yeah. 

Mario Fachini [4:10]

And you had mentioned the company name and it sounds like, you know, just something casual you do right after high school or college. It was nothing serious. It was only Intel. And you wanted to walk away from that. What changed between 2008 and the next point? So that’s where you got the idea. But walk me through the next step where it was the next big thing. 

Joel Louis [4:35]

Yeah. And it’s, I think, podcasts like yours, listening to people’s stories, to really understand, like, what’s the backdrop. Because oftentimes we see the end result. But then when we actually look back and see, you know, Steve Jobs says, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can connect the dots looking back.” And the journey for me started in 2008. But there was multiple failures in between that journey attempting multiple different things, app development, I had an animation agency where I was creating those animated videos. 

Mario Fachini [5:10]

Really? You’re talking 2D or 3D? 

Joel Louis [5:14]

It was using Powtoons. So it was like, 3D. So it was like – are you familiar with Powtoons?

Mario Fachini [5:20]

I’m not familiar with Powtoons. But my background is in video production special effects and animation, like, with Maya. 

Joel Louis [5:26]

I don’t know Maya. So I was using an application that made my life a lot easier to do it. So if you go to – where is it? – on Facebook. I think it’s like YourAvatar. co. I was looking at something the other day and it was like something was still available. You know, with the internet, you could never get rid of anything. So it’s still up there. And I just tried a number of different things. And what I realized was that I was just – anything that came at me, I gave it a shot as opposed to figuring out what is my passion, what am I good at, what are my superpowers. And it wasn’t until 2013 when I heard –  so I was listening to a podcast, like I mentioned. So John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Eventual Millionaire with Jaime Tardy. And in 2013 – it was, like, January of 2013, I was listening to a podcast by Jaime Tardy, who’s now Jaime Masters. And she was interviewing Dan Miller, which maybe some of your audience knows or are familiar with. And Dan was talking about his book, 48 Days To The Work You Love. And then when I heard it, I was like, “That’s what I need.” And I immediately got the book. Actually, I got the digital version of the book. And then the physical version came out a few days later. And I just went through that. I think that was the first time I went through the book that was kind of like a workbook. And I actually sat there and did the work. I actually went through and did the work because of the whole idea behind it. And there’s two parts of the book. The first part is you figuring out what are your strengths, what are you passionate about, what’s your vocation, your superpower, all that kind of stuff, to become an entrepreneur to launch your own business. The second part of the book is like, “Hey, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. I want to know what my strengths are. And then take that to an organization that aligns with my strengths.” So I didn’t care about the second part. I was interested in the first part. And I went through that. And that’s when I discovered really what my superpower was, and that is technology. It’s just I love technology. It comes easy to me. I know it’s a struggle for some people. But for me, even at an early age, when I look back to when I was even a kid, I’d be the kid that would take things apart just to put them back together to see if I can. Or recreate something completely new out of something that I took apart. So that was the next. 2013 was the next kind of like leap. 

Mario Fachini [7:55]

That is fascinating. And we have that in common a little bit. I know we were talking about the software and the machine and everything. And I’m happy to tell you it is an Intel CPU that’s running this. And 14 cores. I remember when dual cores first came out, it’s like, “Wow. There’s two of them.” Now, it’s like, “How many can we jam in there? Because all this stuff takes a lot to process.” 

Joel Louis [8:19]

Yes. Yes. Awesome. 

Mario Fachini [8:23]

Why didn’t you want to go back to Intel or any of the other places? So what I’m hearing is you decided you wanted to leave in ’08. And it took a good – whatever the math is – four, five, six years to make the other shift. But you were still enjoying it. Just trying to narrow it down, why did you have no desire to go back at this point? Even when it wasn’t working as well as you would hoped it would. 

Joel Louis [8:51]

Right? So two things, I think there’s two answers to that question. So having Intel was like a security blanket, right? It was like a plan B. And what does Will Smith say like, “I don’t think about Plan B as – what did he say? Oh, man. I’m missing. There’s only Plan A because something about Plan B. Like, this Plan B is a distraction. So when Plan B no longer became available for me, which was Intel, so that’s kind of leap for me again. In 2015, Intel announced that they would be shutting down. Actually, the site here in Massachusetts. So they actually shut down in 2015. I think it was 2015 or 2016, somewhere around there. And it was no longer an option. It was like, now – but you know, you’ve been doing all this work since 2008. You’ve been trying a number of things. You’ve read the book back in 2013. I launched a podcast, which we haven’t talked about yet. I launched a podcast, which helped me along my journey. And in 2015, it was like, “Okay. Are you going to really – are you serious?” Now, that there’s no more security blanket, we could have moved to the west coast. Some of my coworkers went upstate in New York to another company similar to Intel. But my wife and I was, like, we don’t want to move. My parents are in New York. Her mom is here in Massachusetts. It was like, we don’t want to be so far away from family. And we decided to go all in on this. But fortunately, I had already started doing the work. I had already figured out a number of things. So by the time Intel was gone, I had a plan in place in order to be successful. 

Mario Fachini [10:32]

And fast forwarding now, how did you get into the funnel building, and repair, and everything you do to help people no matter what stage they’re at? 

Joel Louis [10:42]

Yeah. So the first – initially, when I launched the business, it was a webinar production agency. And then to take you guys back a little bit, so in 2013, what I decided is after I listened to that podcast, I went to the podcast with Jaime and read that book. I went to a conference called WDS, which is World Domination Summit. And it’s not what it sounds like. But it’s a really cool conference out in Oregon – Portland, Oregon. And this person who runs the conference is all about world changer and entrepreneurship and all this kind of stuff. And after that conference, I realized what I needed to do is to start a podcast to ask the questions about how do you start a business as a father, as a primary breadwinner with a family? How do you start a business without sacrificing the family? How do you take such a huge risk without sacrificing your family? So I started interviewing successful entrepreneur dads all over the world. I did 140 interviews. The podcast hit and noteworthy in all three categories. It was awesome. I think it was just like really good timing. It was a conversation that was out in the space. And there was a lot of movement around dads being more involved and engaged and everything like that. I think Dove had come up with a commercial showing dads as opposed to focusing so much on the moms and those kind of stuff. So it was like a really good timing to come out with something like that. And that gave me the insight into those dads, the successes and the failures. How do you balance, right? How do you balance the two things? Does balance even exist? All those kind of things. And then went Intel finally shut down, it was like, “Okay. Now, I’m going to take all of this information that I’ve been processing and gathering, and then start a business.” And it was that webinar production company, which is basically I saw a need in the marketplace where entrepreneurs wanted to sell their products and services, but they struggled with the technology. Because if you think about a webinar, if you’ve ever done a webinar, there’s multiple moving parts to it. Not to mention, you have to worry about the presentation and the delivery. And then there’s all this technology. And then – God forbid – you get on your webinar and you’re excited, you have everything ready, and then people start to say, “I can’t hear you. I can’t see you. I can’t see your slide.” And now you’re trying to balance all of that and do an awesome job on your presentation. So my company basically took all of that off their plate. And all they had to do was, literally, show up. Actually, even the slide deck, they gave it to us. And I had the slide deck ready, uploaded. All they had to do was show up and do their thing and just really focus on their presentation. And I launched that business. And I did some cold calling – cold messaging through Facebook to get in clients. That’s all I did. I had no website. I had no official business name. I did a DBA. So Startup Dad, The Podcast, that was an actual LLC. From that I did a DBA as Webinar Production, and then I just launched. 

Mario Fachini [14:00]

That is fantastic. And that’s a great Expert Authority insight right there. Because so many people, they come to me going, “I want to publish a business book. I want to get more leads. I want to do this.” Just pick something. And they have this, like, “I need to be all over.” Which you do. But there’s this order of operations that you can’t tackle it all successfully at once. And there’s so many moving parts you got to knock out. And I go, “All you need – ” and I’ve done this at seminars before where I’m training, I throw some pens on the table and grab a stack of paper. And everyone looks at me, you know, I got the tie and it’s all fancy clothes. And the videos and all this crap. I’m like, “We’re kicking it old school. You guys are over complicating the crap out of this.” 

Joel Louis [14:49]

Yeah. And so I don’t know how much your audience knows about the DiSC profile, D-I-S-C. So I’m huge on the DiSC profile now. That was one of the things I discovered about myself. So I’m a high C, high D. I tend to lean towards my C, which is the perfectionist. Which is like, everything has to be perfect. Everything has to be detailed. So I think I’ve shared with you before we went live, before I launched the podcast, I had this fancy mic that you see here. I had these two. I have lighting coming on here. I have another one at home. I had all this. I had a mixer. I had all this fancy stuff that took me forever to put all this stuff together. And I think it took me about six months before I finally launched the podcast. And it was really me, one perfectionist, to fear. Fear of finally going out there. Fear of actually doing it. And again, once Plan B was gone, I was forced to take action. So I eventually did launch the podcast. So because I did all of that in full transparency, so I’m probably a lot like your listeners. I had all that fancy stuff. I had a beautiful website started at the headquarters. That website is not even up anymore. But it’s a beautiful website. The podcast is still available. The episodes are still available. But the website, I paid someone who’s amazing. And I was looking at all the experts. I looked at all the gurus. I looked at all the people that have been doing it for five, ten years. And I wanted mine to look like that on day one. And I spent all this time with no money coming into the bank account. Spending all this time doing all this stuff. So when I learned about the DiSC profile and that I was a high C and high D, I realized I needed to turn off my C and allow my D to thrive. And that’s why I was able to launch Webinar Production with no website, no business name. Literally, just cold messaging people in Facebook saying, “Hey, I just saw you did a webinar. Are you planning on doing another one?” And then that was it. And people started responding back. And actually, the second message I sent out in Facebook. The guy replied back, we got on a call. In 20 minutes he became a client. And he was a client for three-and-a-half years. 

Mario Fachini [17:02]

Now on what webinar, on what training, on what seminar on what course, did you have to invest to have the expertise knowledge of realizing, “I have a service. I can help you”? And then ask someone if they want that service and telling them how much it is? 

Joel Louis [17:19]

Yeah. Great question. So again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. So with these podcasts, we try to give you, Expert Authority listeners, as much as we can so you could really get the story. But obviously, I’m jumping certain things and there’s things that happen in between. So I actually did have an opportunity to work with Jaime Masters, who I mentioned. So my journey with Jaime has been like this. A very interesting story. Where I listened to her in 2013. So I’ll always give her tons of credit for where I am today. And then I bought the first big investment I made which was $1,000 was in her program. I was still at Intel at that time. And then after that program, she was like, “Hey, I love the way you do things and the way you think. I have a position on my team. It’s, like, part time. Would you be interested?” So it was a very low paying position. But it was like, “I get to see behind the scenes of a successful entrepreneur. Let’s do it.” Right. And again, I still had that Plan B, so I had that security. So it just means sacrificing my time and sleep and all those kind of things. But I was able to see and I was able to get really into her business and helped her community. And she deals with very successful entrepreneurs. And I helped her with her webinars and her landing pages and her website and all this kind of stuff. And that’s kind of like where I was getting that on the job experience – OJT, on-the-job-training. And in the technology, of course, that just came to me naturally. And then that gave me what I needed to see that entrepreneurs struggle with webinars. And then I launched with that. In terms of the pricing, it’s like all of us. But at least I think most of us start like this. We start, you know, underpricing ourselves, because we’re not sure. Maybe we do a little bit of research. 

Mario Fachini [19:13]

Yeah. You just got to test the water. 

Joel Louis [19:15]

Yeah. Test the water. 

Mario Fachini [19:16]

I remember when I started, I was offering websites. It’s, like, decades. It’s, like crazy to even think. But it feels like it. It was like 500 bucks. And then I go, “Oh my gosh. They didn’t bat an eyelid.” And actually my first one, I even made 6 or 650. I charged 50 for the photos and 100 bucks extra for the extra page. Now mind you, I was just out of high school a little bit. I was in college and I was working at GNC for, like, a whopping six or seven an hour. So this whole thing was, like six months income. I’m like, “I’m a millionaire.” The math was off but it felt that way. But what it made me realize is you can rate – you know, I went from 500 to 750 to 1000 to 12 to 15. And I was realizing when it comes to business, people aren’t really batting an eyelash unless you’re talking 10, 20, 30 grand in most instances. It’s like businesses have – you know, you’re not selling shoes for 20 bucks. I don’t even know where you can get shoes for 20 bucks. But it’s a different industry. And when you’ve never done it, you just want that first one. And now you have a baseline, at least, to work with. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs forget that. And that’s why, while I joke about the pen and the paper and all that, it’s like, “When’s the last time you followed up with the customers you have? When did you ever think them jump on the phone instead of an email?” Just see what they’re doing. Care. Because at the end of the day, you don’t need all kinds of fancy stuff to start. You need clients. Should I have a website, a logo, or should I start a podcast? You need some clients. Because this mic was not free and neither was any of that at all. But It’s easy to go to your strength and, like I was saying, we have that in common on the tech. I was freaking out a few months after the show. And where did I go? Let’s design and build a whole new computer. I already had 40 or 50 episodes. And I’m like, “No. I need to make it better.” Well, did I? Yes. And I’m glad I did. And that’s what you’re seeing now. But at the same point, there’s people that you could say, “Maybe they’re better off because they cranked out more episodes and they just stuck and they kept it very focused.” Because it’s very – you have to know how to go, “Okay. I’m going to expand but also not lose the focus.” Because it’s easy – a month goes by and you’re like, “What the heck happened?” And the answer is you got off focus. And you’re doing a million on one other things when the thing that got you to this point, was the simple basic steps that every business has to go through. 

Joel Louis [21:52]

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Just to put some kind of like story behind what you were saying in the beginning there.  It’s like I said, I don’t know if everyone heard, but the second person – one, I cold messaged. So not a fancy website. Not some fancy funnel. Even though I’m going to talk about funnels, that’s my thing. But if you’re just getting started, that stuff gets in your way. That stuff gets in your way. It’s like putting a wall between you and the potential person you’re looking to serve. So like, just get going right away. Number two, that person, a second person who became my client was my client for three-and-a-half years. That’s a long – 

Mario Fachini [22:36]

Because you probably served them over the moon and back. 

Joel Louis [22:41]

Right. Exactly. Getting on calls – 

Mario Fachini [22:42]

I still have a couple clients that I’ve been going with over a decade now. Ten years in one instance and 11 in the other. And I love them. But ever since day one, I have fun and I goof around, and I’ll experiment with things. But I’m always at the core. And that’s why I love sharing it with people. Just serve them and actually care. And the funnels, like you’re saying, and I want to dive into that. Because it’s kind of good to put up a wall at some point. 

Joel Louis [23:12]

At some point. 

Mario Fachini [23:13]

But when you’re talking about the cold, the other thing is the unlimited possibilities. The the entire world becomes your potential maybe. 

Joel Louis [23:22]

Right. Yeah. And the other thing I would say, I don’t know where everyone is, who’s listening and watching. At least from my experience, service based business, if you have a skill and you could deliver, I think you’re with websites. Me with the webinars and now funnels, it just seems like a very –  at least in my experience, it seems like a very easy transaction. Like I’m going to deliver this to you and you’re going to pay me. Versus trying to create digital courses and all this kind of stuff. Maybe it comes easy to some people. It just doesn’t come easy to me to create those digital stuff and then do webinars, and sell, and all this kind of stuff. Clearly it does for my clients. But for me, it’s just, “Hey, I’m going to deliver this service. This is the result you’re going to get. This is what I’m going to deliver to you and then you just pay me for that.” And I think it’s a great way to start if you’re looking to figure out something as an entrepreneur. 

Mario Fachini [24:22]

Yeah. And even now to this day with a business book publishing with my clients, it’s still that service that we can provide for you. But it’s a very succinct, “Hey, it’s going to take eight weeks. This is what it involves. This is what it entails. Here’s what to expect, boom, boom, boom.” We’re not focusing on the websites as much anymore. But at the end of the day, I’ve always kept the offers clear. I’ve never messed around with pricing. I keep it even. The whole $97 and $99 and 999, it just screws up accounting. I mean, just round up. If someone’s going to gravel over $1 they’re probably the wrong person, if you asked me. Because we’re not talking about – you know, there’s a lot of people that listen to this. They already have successful businesses. But I think it’s a good reminder to go -especially like you’re saying, when did you reach out to them? You know, “Oh, I need new clients. I need new leads.” What are you doing to capitalize the ones you already have that you have their private info and you can text them? Putting some context. I have nothing against webinars or funnels. I have this stuff set up for my business too. But do realize the context is you’re not going to just throw something up tonight and magically have 100 million new leads tomorrow. And if you do, you’re probably Oprah with a giant list who’s just buying because it’s more of your influence than any doing proper tweaking of the funnel. So let me ask you about that. Set the stage with a proper expectation if someone’s going, “Alright. I want to do a funnel. I’ve been hearing about these. I do believe I’m ready.” What is it reasonable expectation they should set to go, “Here’s how much time it’s going to take to refine it, get it set up, and actually hone it in before we crank up the juice on it.” 

Joel Louis [26:12]

Yeah. And that’s a great question. And so a couple things I’ll say before, absolutely launch a funnel from scratch from day one, if you wanted to. And if you have the money, the time, the investment, and you just have a really good feeling about your thing, you can absolutely launch a funnel. But usually, to get really good success with a funnel is, you delivered a product or service. You’ve have testimonials. You have results. You know the languaging. You know the avatar. You really narrowed down and figured out your avatar. And you’ve created an amazing offer. Which means that you took something from that is potentially something that’s in the red ocean, let’s say, real estate. And then you figured out a blue ocean offer from that red ocean. So you’ve created something unique, something different, something that stands out, where you’re not competing in this bloody water. So your audience, I’m sure they’ve read – what is it? Blue Ocean, Red Ocean or Red Ocean, Blue Ocean, that book, right? So there’s a couple of things that you have to already have in place in order to increase your chances of success when you launch your funnel. And those things that are kind of listed. Then in terms of the actual funnel itself, the design of it is very important. I know a lot of people say the copy is the number one thing. Copy is absolutely important. But what we found is that we get higher than industry average conversions when we have good copy and good design combined. And, of course, a good offer and everything like that. So if we combine all those things together, we tend to get really great results. In terms of what they should expect, it depends. It’s drastic, depending on whether you’re doing a webinar, ebook, directly to sales, even what type of funnel you’re doing, acquisition funnel, activation funnel, ascension funnel. It could vary quite a bit. In general, like, a 5 percent on the front end of your funnel. Let’s say, a sales funnel 5 percent conversion rate is considered industry average. It’s considered kind of good. It’s a good number to aim. 

Mario Fachini [28:31]

So out of every hundred people that go to the page, you’re saying five of them to opt in is good. And losing 95 percent is normal. 

Joel Louis [28:44]

Yeah. It’s going to say a good 5 percent is considered good on the front end of your funnel. That’s correct. 

Mario Fachini [28:50]

I just want to be abundantly clear. I don’t refute that at all. I just know that there’s people that think, “I’m going to try this funnel thing.” It’s not converted. Someone told me, they’re like, “Yeah. It’s only going at 60 percent.” “No. They’re their email.” “Oh, I only have a 60 percent opt in rate.” Are you talking like this decade or last decade? And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. You realized that’s incredibly high.” 

Joel Louis [29:18]

It’s huge. That’s huge. 

Mario Fachini [29:20]

I know direct mail for years and it probably still is. It was 1 percent. I’ve had clients who say they’re doing direct mail. And they send out 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 flyers. They’re like, “Wow. It was great. We got 40 people to walk in” or whatever the math is. I’m like – so realize it’s a different game, right? 

Joel Louis [29:40]

Right. I think what people forget is that prior to funnels and online – I mean, people still do it now. Businesses still do it now. There’s a billboard that they spent however much amount of money on the side of the highway. It’s TV ads, Superbowl ads. They’re spending millions of dollars to get some – you know, I don’t even know what the percentage conversion rate is on that. It’s probably very, very low, right? And they can’t even – they most likely can’t even tie it back to that ad. So now we’re bringing it online. Yes, it makes it more accessible to everyone. Like, the small guy, the entrepreneur, you could now do things and advertise. You don’t have to be NBC or Fox or a large corporation to be able to advertise. 

Mario Fachini [30:29]

A large drink manufacturer or a distributor or whatever. 

Joel Louis [30:32]

Right. But the percentages, it’s still someone – I mean, if we think about it. Someone is scrolling on Facebook. They’re just going about their business. Facebook is meant for people to engage and see what’s going on with their friends and all this kind of stuff. I mean, it was started in college to connect people in the college to socialize. And now, you have your ad on there. They’re scrolling through trying to enjoy their day. Maybe they just had a hard day of work. They’re scrolling through, they see your ad. They don’t know you at all from anywhere. You could be anywhere in the world. They see your ad, you did a good job with the image and the wording, they click on the ad. Just that alone is huge. Because you have someone who doesn’t know you at all but they actually stopped whatever they were doing. You disrupted whatever they’re doing. They clicked on your ad and went to your page. Now on the page, if you have a good continuity, where it’s like the ad and the page, they see that they’re still dealing with the same company. It’s not like some kind of spam or someone trying to get their information. If you did a good job with that transition from the ad to your page, now you have the copy. Now, they read through your copy. They’re watching your video. And then they opt in and give you their name, or an email, or maybe some cases, just the email. Some cases for some of our funnels, it’s name, email, and phone number. That is mapped. That’s a huge ass. And you’re getting a 5 percent conversion rate or 10 percent conversion rate. I mean, we have some of our free plus shipping book funnels with 15 percent conversion rate. That’s huge numbers. But sometimes people don’t realize that. And they’re thinking they could turn on an ad and they’re supposed to get 60 percent conversion rate. Now, we’ve had opt ins at 60 percent. One of our clients have webinar registration with 85 percent. But that’s not all the time. It’s a numbers game when you’re doing this because, again –

Mario Fachini [32:30]

And let’s add some context here, because I know you can get it to 40, 50,60 higher percent. And you should. But let’s give them some context for how long does it take to do that. If you started at five as the baseline day one, month one, how much refining does it take? And I know it varies. But how much refining should be expected to even bump it to 15, 20, 25, 30? Because I know that 65 percent wasn’t week two. It magically bumped. 

Joel Louis [33:04]

Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, 65 percent is not on the sales. That would opt in like an ebook type thing. So if someone gets 65 percent on sales, that’s amazing. They should just continue as long as they’re profitable. I don’t know how much they’re spending on ads. But if they’re getting that, they should just go like a bazillion dollars – 

Mario Fachini [33:24]

Yeah. I mean, they totally nailed their list of 20 people that are existing clients, probably, in that scenario. 

Joel Louis [33:30]

I mean, there’s a statistical – yeah. Like, you could turn on something. Like, I was watching something from Frank Kern the other day. Frank Kern is this entrepreneur or mega entrepreneur. And he was showing like his book funnel and the conversion rate was astronomical. It’s really good. But he prefaced it by saying like, “Look, this doesn’t happen.” Like, this. 300 percent return on investment doesn’t happen. And it was, like, 45 people, right? So there’s a number of – like, we usually don’t make decisions until we see – so to answer your question, number one, we usually don’t make any decision until we see 100 visitors. So however long it takes to get 100 visitors to the front end of the funnel – 

Mario Fachini [34:13]

Now, are you saying viewers or opt ins? 

Joel Louis [34:16]

No. Viewers. Like, just click on the ad, land on the page. So 100. That’s where we kind of start. And that’s still a small number. But usually if you have your analytics in place, if you have your heat mapping, if you have your – you’re looking at your – we use ClickFunnels. So you’re looking at your ClickFunnel stats. And you’re looking at all the different analytics that you have available to you, then you can make some decisions off of those hundred visitors, depending on how it breaks out. The more visitors you have, the better decisions you can make. But sometimes we’ve seen – so for example, I’ll give you a classic example. We were working with a company, local brick and mortar. They do stem cell. And their audience is a little bit older, more mature demographic. And we built a really beautiful page. And it was one of those name, email, phone number type of deals. Beautiful page. Everything was going great. They started running ads to the page. And we were seeing – again, we used HotJar often. Another one is Crazy Egg. We used the HotJar, which is the heat mapping tool. We were seeing people entered in name, email, and phone number. So a really nice percentage, like 14 percent entering name, email, and phone number. But then not clicking the actual button to submit. And we had some fancy wording on the button, like, no cost. Because you can’t say free. It’s like, no cost consultation or something like that. And I was racking my brain like, “What is going on? Why are they not – they’re putting in email and phone number, why are they not clicking the button?” Then we met with the client, which is what we do every single. We meet. This is how you make decisions quickly and you move forward. And the client was like, “Hey, you know, our art is actually a little bit more mature, maybe they can’t see the text or something like that.” We’re like, “What?” So we change the button to just say, “Click here to submit,” boom. And made a big text button nice and big. And then the conversion rates skyrocketed. So sometimes it can be really quick if you have your analytics in place so you can see what’s going on. Sometimes it may take you some time – well, hard draw, you may have to watch the recordings. And just sit there and watch recordings and recordings and recordings before you can finally start to see the trend. But I mean, you’re not talking about six months. You’re talking about – again, depending on how fast the traffic is coming into the funnel. We’re talking about days, weeks. I mean, just from a Facebook standpoint, you have to give like four days, I think, to kind of let the algorithm do its thing. Then you make a change and you give it a little bit more time. So it’s not overnight, but it doesn’t have to take – if you’re doing it right, it doesn’t have to take multiple months to start to improve your conversions if your offer is good, and your copy is good, and your video is good. You’re looking at – 

Mario Fachini [37:18]

And that’s the baseline you have to start with. I’m launching one of my newest books on book publishing. And the same exercise, I take my clients through with changing the cover design. It’s not drastic. We’re not changing the offer. We’re not changing the title. We’re not drastically altering it. But it’s funny you talked about making the text larger because that’s exactly what I did today. And I kind of did it as, “All right. Let’s see if anyone notices.” And everyone’s like, “Oh, yeah. For sure the second one.” And I personally thought it was too big. And I’m like, “Whatever. They have spoken.” But that’s the thing with the buttons. It’s reminded me of a couple years ago, I had some video shocking. I had videos and I was looking at the heat map through Wistia. And I will tell you, I changed one thing and it took it from a drop off rate at 53 seconds into the video to over six minutes in. It was a stupid cartoon picture of someone riding a horse. And I put a real picture and the cartoon stock image was horrible. Everyone was dropping off before the first minute. And then just by changing that one image and then testing it again, it took it to over six minutes. I was like, “Wow.” And once they got there then it started going up and you can see all that. But it’s so interesting because when people go, “Oh, you know, you got to do all that tweaking.” It’s like, “Welcome to life in business.” It doesn’t mean it has to take nine or 12 months to see results. But when you’re checking it daily or biweekly, there’s not enough time to pass. And I think that’s what it is, some people just tweak it once a week, once a month. What should we do next? I don’t know. It’s going too slow. You just got 500 or 1,000 more people, but you don’t know what the problem is. You got to tweak it and refine it like you’re saying. 

Joel Louis [39:19]

Yeah. Also, from one of our clients, I do coaching in her high ticket mastermind. And one of the things I’ve been doing is doing these funnel reviews. And so I’m like, “Give me your Google Analytics. Give me your HotJar. Give me your Shopify store. Give me all this stuff.” And then sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. And I get it. And if you’re not a data person and I know typical entrepreneur, they just want to go, go, go, go, go. You need to find someone who’s going to dive into the data. Because the data is going to give you information. You just got to know what – sometimes I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I just go in and I just sit back and I’m just looking, and I’m looking, and I’m looking. And like, “Aha.” 

Mario Fachini [40:00]

You look for the pattern and find the irregularity. 

Joel Louis [40:03]

Right. I find the irregularity. And then I then I start digging in deeper into that. And I’m like, “Okay. What’s happening here? Why is their boundary so high?” Sometimes you could go in with certain questions when you see bounce rate high or people are landing. So you see people coming from your ad. So the ad is working but then not opting in. What’s wrong? And is it a desktop? Is it mobile? That’s a whole another thing you got to look at. So you got to just look at the data and really make some – try to get some information and then make some calculated decisions. And then give it a few days to have more traffic go through to see if you see any results, even before starting to split test. People tend to, “Let me start split testing from day one.” It’s like, “You don’t even have enough traffic.” Let the initial funnel run first, get traffic, make some tweaks. When you get that first version converting to a profit standpoint, then you can start split testing and doing a version B. In ClickFunnels, it’s very easy to do that. 

Mario Fachini [41:09]

Now, earlier you had said, we noticed that they were clicking and going, you know, just viewing the page. And I thought of the one of the cookies for page view. And I want to make sure we touch on that. How do you track people through the funnels knowing how far they’re getting into it? We’ve covered the design and changing the elements. But how do you really know they’re going from the ad to page one, to page two, to three, and ultimately checking out or signing up for the strategy call or going on to the webinar, whatever the end result may be? 

Joel Louis [41:41]

Yeah. So we don’t do the ad side of things. We partner with Facebook advertisers and Facebook agencies and Google agencies. Because we just focus on the funnel side. That’s what we’ve gotten really great at. Facebook and Google is a whole another beast in itself. So I just really strategic partnerships. So whenever our clients need someone, if they don’t have someone ready, we just partner with them. And then I just meet with them. And they put all their pixels in. Sometimes I install them if they need me to. But they put all their pixels into the contract all the way through. Inside of ClickFunnel, I can see what’s going on. Because all the stats are right – ClickFunnel is beautiful that’s why. I used to use another platform. I don’t want to say any names. I mean, it’s a great platform. It just doesn’t lay out page by page by page all in one space, at least the last time I checked. Whereas, ClickFunnels I can see all my stats right there for the entire funnel, if I’m keeping them in that one funnel, which usually is built out all in one space. And then I could toggle between desktop and mobile really easy to see my mobile stats, my desktop stats, and then I could see date ranges and all this kind of stuff. So that’s how I keep track. And then I meet with the Facebook ads team to confirm. But then the heat mapping, Google Analytics, everything like that, that I have control over and I look at all those things on our end to make suggestions on what to tweak and adjust. I typically run – once we take on a project, I typically run it. I become like the project manager for the project. So I’m bringing in the team together and we’re meeting along with the client to make sure things are moving. 

Mario Fachini [43:23]

It sounds like a great process because I know, especially when you’re dealing with a lot of moving parts like that, you’re mentioning the Facebook ad side, the funnel side, the client side, it’s no joke. And that’s why a lot of people don’t enjoy doing it. Or I would say they probably don’t enjoy it, but they also don’t stick with it. Because this is too time consuming or whatever the excuses. But it’s like when you can learn how to take $1 and turn it into two, three, four, or five plus, why wouldn’t you commit everything you can to learning that. Instead of going, “Oh, it took two hours longer than I was expecting.” I can’t – whatever. But you’ve shared a lot of great insight here and I’m appreciative of that. Tell me one of your biggest success stories from someone that you’ve helped so far. 

Joel Louis [44:10]

Oh, okay. So we have – my favorite client – you know, we all have our favorite clients. My favorite line is someone who already has funnels. They’re not new to it. They know the jargon. They’ve already built out funnels. They have some success with their funnels. So one of our clients is a seven figure business and had a funnel automated webinar. A funnel that was running for about two-and-a-half years. Very successful. Started with the one thing I’m emphasizing that. But everyone who wants to build a bazillion products and services, they had one thing and ended up building a seven figure business with that one thing. It turned it into an automated webinar after doing it live in number times. Sold $997 offer. And after running two-and-a-half years, that’s a long time if you think about Facebook and ads and all this kind of stuff. And finding more people that fits that perfect audience. And it started to decline, the sales started to decline. And this client had brought on multiple different agencies. And then we came in with a referral through one of my strategic partners, she does messenger bots. And her conversion at the time was at 0.7. So the webinar was converting at 0.7. That was the conversion rate. I mean, 7 percent. And still doing well as a business. So again, going back to – 

Mario Fachini [45:48]

So even 1 percent would have been the 30 percent boost. 

Joel Louis [45:51]

Right. So client brought us on. He was like, “Look, if you can get us to 2.5, I’ll be above the moon happy.” And, literally, within a few weeks, maybe two months, we were already well above 1.8 heading towards two. And now, we toggle between 2.5 and 3.1 percent for that client. In addition to that, while we’re doing that, there was some other funnels that some other people had built that were not working well. You know, technology, they were broken. It was causing more headache for the client. 

Mario Fachini [46:29]

That can happen? 

Joel Louis [46:31]

Absolutely. Right. And again, this is where my C comes into play because like I’m across those Is, across those Ts. I got those Is. I make sure everything is set up properly. And we were able to bring up other funnels for this client. That low ticket offers, all this kind of stuff. And then at the same time, increasing the conversion rate on that main thing. And since then the client has now expanded and done – now, they have more room. They’re not worried about firefighting. They’re not worrying about every single launch. And because of that client is able to expand the business even more. So that’s one – 

Mario Fachini [47:12]

And in the term of revenue dollars, what did the 0.7 to 2.5 or 3.1 translate into? 

Joel Louis [47:20]

I don’t know the exact numbers. I don’t get into the exact details of the client numbers. I can see it on ClickFunnels, obviously. But I mean, 0.7, they were good as a business, right? I mean, they were profitable. So at 2.5, 3.1 – 

Mario Fachini [47:37]

It sounds like five and six figures in revenue. Because if you’re selling $1,000 product and you’re basically double, tripling, quadrupling it, you don’t need 10,000 sales of it for it to be a good day, week, or month. 

Joel Louis [47:55]

No. I mean, I’m talking about six, seven sales per day. Per day. 

Mario Fachini [48:01]

Yeah. So again, to the point I made about if you don’t want to spend the time tweaking it, what would you do with another five to ten grand a day? Again, once you get it to that point. But who’s going to do that? Like, really? All right. Well, I have one more question for you before we go thank the sponsor. And that is, where is somewhere you’d really love to go, whether for personal with your family or a business? Let’s do personal with your family. Where is somewhere you’d really like to go personal with your family you haven’t done yet? 

Joel Louis [48:43]

Italy. 

Mario Fachini [48:44]

Heck, yeah. Italy. [Unintelligible] [00:48:46] with Italian. 

Joel Louis [48:48]

My wife is half-Italian. So we’ve been talking about it and going – and actually, we had this master plan where we’re going to start homeschooling the girls, and we did. But the oldest daughter, we kind of caught her too late. And she was already used to school and friends. So this year, she ended up going back to regular school, which jacked our entire plan. Because my wife only works two days a week. She’s a NICU nurse. So she works two days a week. So we had this master plan where she would just take two weeks off or three weeks off, and we just homeschool them in Italy and travel all throughout. But now, we got to figure out a different way to make that happen with school. 

Mario Fachini [49:29]

Well, Italy is a great choice. 

Joel Louis [49:31]

Yes, sir. 

Mario Fachini [49:32]

Do you have a specific area in Italy? 

Joel Louis [49:34]

No. We were going to bounce around. Honestly, my wife is, I think, looking at all those details and everything like that. But you know, the plan was to bounce around and be there literally. We have a timeshare so we could go multiple different locations. 

Mario Fachini [49:49]

Nice. Well, I hope you get to do that in the next year or two. That sounds like a lot of fun. 

Joel Louis [49:53]

Yeah. We wanted a few people that are happy with our timeshare. I know a lot of people are not happy with their timeshare. We love ours. It’s great. We’ve had it for a number of years now. So it’s been awesome. 

Mario Fachini [50:07]

Well, I’ve been telling everyone that it’s a brand new not only year but decade. And we get to live through the roaring 20s. So – 

Joel Louis [50:18]

Yes, sir.

Mario Fachini [50:20]

I’m planning to do one more travel myself. 

Joel Louis [50:22]

Yes. Yes. Awesome. 

Mario Fachini [50:24]

All right. We’re going to thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect Action Round. 

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Mario Fachini [51:42]

And we’re back with the Imperfect Action Round. Joel, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

Joel Louis [51:47]

I think so. 

Mario Fachini [51:49]

Oh, you’ve been doing it the last 10, 12, 14 years. Rapid fire responses. I got three questions. The first one is, what is the fastest path to the cash? 

Joel Louis [52:02]

Service based business. 

Joel Louis [52:06]

All right. Good answer. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it? 

Joel Louis [52:15]

Trying to build multiple things at the same time, products, offers, services. As opposed to just focusing on one thing. 

Mario Fachini [52:23]

But what about the mastermind and live event? 

Joel Louis [52:27]

What do you mean? 

Mario Fachini [52:28] 

In addition to all the other things, shouldn’t we do all of it simultaneously? 

Joel Louis [52:32]

Yeah. Right. No. No. 

Mario Fachini [52:35]

We’re ambitious entrepreneurs, we can’t miss anything. 

Joel Louis [52:38]

Like Russell said, first make a million dollars before you think about launching that second product or service. Just make a million dollars first. 

Mario Fachini [52:48]

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value? 

Joel Louis [52:56]

For me, it’s just being personal. Like, meeting with the customer and – well, I guess getting them results. And then doing that in a human way where, you know, we talk with our clients. We don’t always jump on the call and we start talking about business right away. A lot of my – again, because of this whole Startup Dad, I’m passionate about being a father, CrossFit, faith. And a lot of my clients, I guess, it just attract that. And typically my clients are in that same mindset and we end up having those deeper conversations. I’ll have times where we will jump on a call – I’ve been on a call with a client for our weekly call and we don’t even talk about business at all. It’s just amazing. It’s just amazing. So the other thing is that – I didn’t share this on the on the podcast – but my three daughters have medical conditions. And when my youngest daughter was in the hospital for 22 days back in November in December – 

Mario Fachini [54:02]

Sorry to hear. 

Joel Louis [54:03]

Yeah. And it’s really rough. And we have a whole conversation about building a business where you’re not stuck in the business. I’m sure you’ve had guests talk about that. But my clients, we posted something and said, “Hey, this what’s going on so I may not be available.” And my clients were completely supportive and praying for us. It was just amazing. We didn’t lose any clients during that time. And I was out of pocket for quite some time. 

Mario Fachini [54:33]

Wow. That’s great. That’s who you want to attract and everything. And I saw something recently and it was – I mean, it’s funny. It’s the picture of the horse where it looks fantastic on one side and as you as they’re drawing it to the right, it gets worse and worse or the lion won. And it’s, I think, a shot from Life of Pi. And it’s clients expectations and it’s all victorious and it’s like clients budget and it’s a cat with, like, the kitchen floor or whatever. You know what I’m talking about. And people joke about it. But at the end of the day, it’s like, “I get the joke. But it shouldn’t be a joke because you shouldn’t be dealing with it.” I’ve said for years, you don’t have to take on anyone you don’t want to. Just because you’re in business and can help someone doesn’t mean that they get to take advantage of you or anything. I mean, you control who you say yes to and take the money from. And if you don’t like them, it’s your own fault as far as I’m concerned. You know, 2013 was a pivotal year for me. I finished up 38 simultaneous client projects. And I honored everything. But over that six months, I was like, “I’m not doing this the same way next year.” I over deliver. We provided great service, top notch experience. And I was like, it was just not the way I envisioned it. And moving forward since then, it’s like, “Any red flags?”  I’m, “Nope. It’s not worth it.” You can’t get the time back. You can’t ever get the time back and especially with your family. 

Joel Louis [56:10]

Yeah. And you know, one – do you mind if I – 

Mario Fachini [56:13]

Go for it. 

Joel Louis [56:14]

Yeah. One thing I learned from Jaime Masters was that the way she approaches looking at avatar. Because everyone says identify your ideal avatar and create a whole – there’s a document and you fill it all out, and all that kind of stuff. And that’s great. Because you don’t want to just say everybody is my perfect client. So you want to, at least, make kind of a calculated or educated decision. But then, once you actually start to work with people, then you start to redefine or define who your ideal avatar is. And sometimes it takes some time. So I get it. When you take me on potentially back. And you start to actually sense the red flags as you do those sales calls. You start to understand based on how they communicate, the emails and all this kind of stuff. You start to really pick out who is a good fit and who isn’t. But then, eventually over time, you start to really know who is your perfect avatar and who you want to serve best and who you could make the most impact with. 

Mario Fachini [57:19]

Yeah. And who appreciates it, too. 

Joel Louis [57:21]

Yeah. Because we could build a great funnel. But if the client doesn’t have the budget to run ads, it doesn’t matter, right? If you build it, will they come? So we have some funnels that convert extremely well, but the client won’t run ads to it. They just won’t turn it on or whatever. They don’t have budget, whatever the case may be. And it’s very unfortunate. So that’s why I said, the client that I mentioned earlier is a perfect client for us. 

Mario Fachini [57:51]

Yeah. And a lot of the times it’s the intangibles. Because I’m pretty forgiving and have some leeway. And Lord knows I’m using it, use it, and have used it between clients, VIP guests – thank you again – and even with my team, and just everyone. It’s like, no one’s perfect, stuff comes up, relax a little bit about it. We’re all going to be here in ten years. That’s at least my philosophy on it. And I’m thankful because, like I said, there’s been many times I’ve used it and there’s many times I’ve given it. So it all works out. So just be a good person is what I’m hearing. I’ll leave it with that without going too comedic and academic. I have thoroughly enjoyed this and it’s so great seeing you again. Thank you for sharing with Expert Authority World. 

Joel Louis [58:45]

Thank you. Thank you for having me on. It was great to have this conversation and go really deep so I appreciate that. 

Mario Fachini [58:52]

Yeah. It went really well. And I can’t wait to start telling more people about you. There’s actually someone I thought of in the middle of it when you were saying,” I don’t do the ads.” Well, I know some people that’s all they focus on. 

Joel Louis [59:05]

Awesome. I’m always looking for partners. 

Mario Fachini [59:06]

So I’m happy to make introductions there too. All right. Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here. I’ll see you on tomorrow’s. Have a great day and God bless. 

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www.EAInterviews.com [1:00:09]

Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.