Dec. 8, 2020

How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency and Crush Facebook Ads

How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency and Crush Facebook Ads

Interview with Kevin Urrutia of Voy Media and the Digital Marketing Fastlane Podcast

Starting a digital marketing agency is one of the fastest ways to become a digital nomad. Today's guest and founder of Voy Media and the Digital Marketing Fastlane podcast will tell you how. 

Plus, what everyone needs to know about Facebook ads, how to start a successful online business in any industry, and the real story behind how Netflix started. 

WHAT ELSE YOU'LL LEARN: 

  • How to find your first customers online: Why "if you build it, they will come" doesn't work. 
  • Why you need to learn Facebook ads - especially if you’re a solopreneur or freelancer.
  • How to make a living selling Facebook ads and how much you can charge per month.
  • How to unlock your golden handcuffs: Change your career and ignore sunk costs holding you back.
  • Tips for ranking at the top of Google. 
  • What the most lucrative affiliate industry is. 
  • Pros and cons of running digital agencies
  • How to pitch and land big clients.
  • How to manage creative projects remotely.  
  • Work from home productivity techniques.
  • How to live in Taiwan with the Taiwan Gold Card long-stay visa for remote workers. 

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Transcript

Sneak Peek:

 

Kristin:    00:00:00    When you learn Facebook ads yourself or or Instagram or these other types of ads, and then you get the basics down, you get your product right and then you outsource that to someone else because you don't wanna be the full-time Facebook ads person in your company, then you know if they know what they're doing. And so how many of us have like hired someone to do something and then you realize like you're better at it than they are and it's demotivating. But you gotta know the basics so that you can find talent and know if they know how to do their job well. 

 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

 

Kristin:    00:00:53    Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 84, I believe of Badass Digital Nomads podcast. I have such a fun interview today with Kevin Urrutia, the founder of Voy Media, which is one of the leading digital marketing and Facebook ads agencies in the world with nearly 200 million in revenue. Kevin is also the host of the Digital Marketing Fastlane Podcast, which has an astounding 437 reviews and a 4.9 star rating and the Apple Store. So we got some catching up to do. Guys, <laugh>, shout out if you've left a review for this show by the way, but get ready to take some notes today and capture your ideas during this episode because you're gonna learn a lot. You're gonna learn and you're gonna laugh according to Edher one of my listeners. You're going to learn how to make money with Facebook ads, whether it's for yourself and your online business, or yourself as a solopreneur or for future clients in case you are interested in learning how to make money.  

 

Kristin:    00:02:09    Running a small business digital agency yourself. Kevin, takes you through how long it takes to learn the skills that you'll need to use Facebook ads for your business or to help other people how to find your first customers and how much you can expect to make per client per month if you're running their Facebook or Instagram ads for them. He also gets really candid about the pros and cons of running a digital marketing agency and how to know whether you should scale it or keep it small. We also cover a lot of his ninja gorilla marketing tactics, like how to rank at the top of Google, some of his SEO secrets, and also what we think the most lucrative affiliate industries are. And in the lightning round you'll learn some of the tech tools that Kevin uses to manage his company and creative projects with remote teams.  

 

Kristin:    00:03:10    The one book he says everyone should read and also some of his top productivity tips and how you can live and work in Taiwan with the Taiwan Employment Gold Card. Something I had never heard of before. Bottom line. I really loved this unfiltered conversation with Kevin. He shares a lot of his unconventional marketing tactics and strategies with us, including who he blatantly copies. And he takes us behind the scenes of how he and his digital nomad partner, Wilson have built multiple successful businesses and a lot of random industries with absolutely no background, no experience, and no related college degrees. So we're talking everything from phone apps to a cleaning company and now one of the top digital agencies in the world with clients like Lacoste and Zumba. Kevin has a really interesting perspective on business and remote work because he's been working remotely since he was 18 years old. He's a serial entrepreneur and he has experience with tech companies and startups in Silicon Valley. 

 

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Podcast Interview:

 

Kristin:    00:05:07    Well, welcome so much, Kevin to the show. How is everything there in New York City right now?  

 

Kevin:    00:05:13    It's good so far. We're talking earlier. It's very gloomy today. Very gloomy day. So trying to get the energy to be excited. But yeah, it's good so far.  

 

Kristin:    00:05:21    That's why I got a standing desk. Yeah, because I feel like it's given me so much more energy. And I just saw, I actually copied my brother who is a surf photographer.

 

Kevin:  Oh, nice.

 

Kristin: And he's had a standing desk for years, and I'm like, but you don't even have a chair at all. And he's like, no. Yeah. And um, I started doing like 10 or 20% per day standing up and now I'm up to like 80 or 90% per day. And it definitely, definitely helps, but sometimes when I'm really not feeling like working, I feel like it makes me spend more energy and so then I just have to sit down <laugh>.  

 

Kevin:    00:05:56    Yeah. Which one do you have? So I have a standing desk too. I'm sitting right now, so when I'm doing like calls or like sales calls, I'm usually standing 'cause yeah, like you said, it just gives you more energy. You're like in that mode of talking and then you can like move your feet. You can like kind of like pretend you're talking to somebody and Yeah, I, I have a standing desk too and I have like a Do you also have the pad?

 

Kristin:  Yeah.

 

Kevin:  Is that what you're--

 

Kristin:  Yeah.

 

Kevin:  Okay. Yeah. You need the pad. Yeah. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:06:18    So for everyone listening, you can get my exact standing desk and the footpad in my Amazon store. Just Google Traveling With Kristin, Amazon and there you have it. We'll link to it in the show notes. But I got the riser that goes on top of the desk. But I kind of wish that I got just the electric one that goes up and down. Because it's not that much more. But I think I was thinking like if I'm gonna move it around to different apartments and different houses, I wanna have one that's easier to carry. So <laugh>, it's like my hybrid model here. And then have you been in New York the whole year?  

 

Kevin:    00:06:53    Yeah, so I've been here the whole year so far. So I mean I was basically in January and February I was like in, I was in like Taiwan and Japan for like a month or two and then I came back to New York, uh, because we have like a, we have like our, our, at least for a company here, boy media, it's half a remote and half are local. So we're kind of like always in this weird situation of local plus remote. But even though for us, for our company, we would have some days where we just were fully remote because half our team is remote and like half is local. So we want to, at least for us internally we would say like, Hey, we want the local people to know how it feels. We remote because it's such a different workflow and we wanna make sure that they know like, hey, if you're not next to that person next to you, how do you communicate effectively?  

 

Kevin:    00:07:35    How do you sort of say like this thing needs to be done. And that's sort of like kind of how we were always mixing it up. That's why like even the here during this pandemic, it's in fine because we already kind of preparing for it. Like me and Wilson were always in this like, so Wilson's other part of the agency, he's always been remote. He's, he travels like every three or four months. So we were always in this mix of what type of company do we wanna be? And it's always like, I'm here. So we have some people here, he's always there and he has like other employees remote with him. So it's kind of like we're always like, it's like we didn't, we didn't know, right? So we, we always try to implement this stuff but at least for me and Wilson it's like we were always remote type of workers before because we were always like Wilson was a designer, I was a programmer so we were always kind of doing this no matter what. But like you probably know like some people have never worked remote and it's like so crazy for them that you're doing this. And for me I'm just like, how is that weird? I've been doing this since I was like 18 or 19. Yeah, yeah,   

 

Kristin:    00:08:27    Yeah, yeah exactly. I feel like a hundred percent the same way because it's been possible to work remotely for 50 years. And so a bunch of us just kind of organically adopted that style of working because we could. And when I think about going from real estate to working from home and at first I rented an office 'cause I thought I needed to have an office, but then no one ever used it. It's like we were all in the same town in Costa Rica within a five or 10 minute drive from each other and we had an office in the middle and everyone worked from home <laugh>.

 

Kevin:  Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kristin:  And that was in 2011.

 

Kevin:   Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kristin:   And I loved it because working in the real estate office, it was like this giant beautiful office but very echoey. Yeah. And everyone's desks are in there. So every time someone was on a sales call, like you can hear everything. And I'm thinking back like how did I ever focus on work or concentrate. Once you go remote you never go back. And now I see people on Twitter from San Francisco. They're like oh it turns out that um, it's cheaper to just rent a really nice house. Yeah. And use that as an office or everyone work from home and it's just like way better than working in cubicles and like commuting somewhere. Yeah. And I'm like, yes finally.  

 

Kevin:    00:09:41    It's so crazy because we had an office here in in the city. We actually still have it because obviously you probably know when you get an office, at least in the city it's like three year leases. Yeah. So we're still paying for that. And it's crazy because we're paying 10K a month for no one to be there. And of course obviously you're trying to like figure out what the landowner like hey what can we do to like get out of this clause? Right. But you probably know back then there was this whole like an open office. Yeah, pretty much like at least for our office it was just like rows of tables with like people working next to each other and we then installed like these things called Room. I'm not sure if people have heard of it. It's like ROM. It's like a startup that was basically saying like, hey, because we know this open office is a big thing now here's a cubicle that you can install that's soundproof so that way people can--

 

Kristin:  I saw that.  

 

Kevin:    00:10:23    Yeah. It's like the craziest thing. And we actually had one for our office. 'cause like people were like I can't work, I need like a quiet room. So then we installed these into this, it's like the reverse, like before it was like everybody gets desks or sort of like uh, offices and then it's like no that's not collaborative. Let's all do open office. And it's like whoa, I can't work here because it's too, too many people. It's so crazy how within so many quick years, like the mindset shifts of what's the perfect work environment, where should you work? And I think personally it's like kinda what you said before, working from home, it's like your own space. You can do whatever you want. You organize whatever you want. No one can like judge you. What do you have on your desk? What are your plans? It's like this is my sort of mo place I can work and be efficient. At least for me, I just got like these perfect lights. I got like my understanding desk, my chair, my mat. I'm like this is what I want and how I need it. Whereas like in an office it's kind of feel weird if you have too much stuff. Like why do you have all these plants? Right. It's like this little weird. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:11:15    I actually just saw a video last night by Lost LeBlanc. He's a travel blogger with like, I think he has like 2 million subscribers on YouTube and his home base is in Bali but he hasn't been able to go back there all year. And he was saying on this video, I think he was in Dubai when he filmed the video, it was just like talking to the camera and he's like, I miss my home base so much. And I just wish I could go home to my desk and my chair and just with my laptop and my display and sit there for 12 or 16 hours. And I was like, I really relate to that because it's so annoying to be in like hotel rooms and Airbnbs working on your laptop when you have this whole office set up. And that's something that I think the remote workforce, we haven't really figured that out completely yet.  

 

Kristin:    00:12:03    I used to go to coworking spaces during after hours because they had all kinds of different monitors and displays and I would go there at night and work and edit videos from a display because they were used up by people during the day. Yeah. And it's like you just have to have your, your comfortable workspace. But yeah, it's definitely a pet peeve of mine that now all of these headlines are coming out with Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, which a lot. I wrote a viral article about that because I was so pissed off <laugh>. Yeah. That Facebook was becoming the poster child for remote work. I was like it's Mark Zuckerberg's fault. Yeah. That everyone's in open offices to begin with and he's the one who's been saying this for a decade that everyone needs to be in these open offices. And now all of a sudden he's like the work from Home Guru. It's like all the corporate CEOs who were like, oh, remote work won't work for our company. They're now being quoted in like the titles and headlines of these mainstream media articles. I'm like, these people don't know. They don't know what they're really talking about.  

 

Kevin:    00:13:02    I know <laugh>. And that's the thing too, like I, I think it's funny you said that because I was thinking about who my friends, like all these big corporate companies are like, no, you can't work from home. It's not possible. And then I'm just like, you're doing it right now and why wasn't it possible before where it is now? It's the same thing and it's like--

 

Kristin:  Mindset.  

 

Kevin:    00:13:17    Yeah. It's the craziest like concept. And I think it's kinda like, you probably know Kristin too, it's like working from home. I think people relate to like relate that to back in the day where people were like, oh you're just not gonna do anything. Yes, of course there's people that are gonna do anything, but that's at any place you can literally go to an office and not do anything. And you probably had employees, I've had employees too that you literally will see 'em in the office and they still don't care about it working <laugh> and

 

Kristin:  Oh yeah.

 

Kevin:  Yeah. So I think people were like very like, oh if you work from home you're not gonna do anything. I'm like, yeah, then let those people go because then they're gonna have to eventually Wow, I actually have to work like to make money. Right. So it's like interesting. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:13:52    My friend Richie Norton has a podcast and I catch it every so often when I'm on a walk, as you were saying, phone calls and podcasts while I'm on a walk. And last night the one that I heard, he was saying this is an opportunity for people who used to work in offices and in corporate environments to really stand out through action and results. Yeah. Because before, it was the whole political climbing, the corporate ladder thing. And now it's like everyone's kind of on a equal playing field. I mean there's definitely pros and cons, but if you really get stuff done and get results, you're gonna stand out. Not because people saw you in the office working late, but because you actually got results that you can see in black and white on the screen <laugh>. So that's opportunity for anybody listening that if you ever felt like you were left out of let's say the good old boys club or out of the politics of the office now you can kind of make up for lost time and have an edge without having to have that face time with the boss or with so and so.  

 

Kevin:    00:14:55    Yeah. And and it's exactly, I think it's so important. 'cause even for us here like boy we're like 25 people, it's so obvious for us about who's working or not working, especially when it's remote because it's just output. It's not just like what you said. It's like oh, if you see them a lot or like, hey it's okay lunch. And you're kinda like, they're kind of friendly like yeah. You know, it's like we're friends. You know, stuff like that. It's very easy now to just sort of see who's working or not working and it's cra crazy how obvious it is sometimes. Especially when you're like, at least for us for like an agency, right? Stuff is like deadlines if you actually have to like meet deadlines. But yeah, I think exactly what you said, it's much easier, better to stand out because you can actually like show people like, Hey look, I actually know what I'm talking about versus being at the office and people just like by just showing up, people think like, you do great work,  

 

Kristin:    00:15:38    Right? Just by like blending in in the back of the staff meeting or something and you don't get any time to talk or whatever. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. But tell us, let's get in a little bit so that people can get to know you better into your backstory. Give us kind of your elevator pitch bio because you have a really diverse background and it's very similar to how my clients tend to find their way when they're trying to transition from the job that they thought that they were supposed to have or the area of study that they thought that they were going into. And then throughout the first few years and sometimes first few decades of their career, they realize something's wrong and they wanna go in a different direction. But then there's all of these sunk costs that they, they already have this degree or they already have this on their resume. So yeah, give us a little bit about your background and how you ended up as a CEO of Voy Media.  

 

Kevin:    00:16:34    Yeah, so my background, yeah, like I do marketing now, but my background is actually in computer science. So growing up I always wanted to do programming, video games, you know, this is like when I was like, what, maybe 10, 15 years ago. Uh, I'm 31 now. I've always grew up wanting to do like video games. So then at this time I was like, okay, how do I make video games? So then I started learning about this thing called programming and that led me into learning about programming and startups and just like making your own entrepreneurship, making your own business. 'cause then that led me into reading like stuff like TechCrunch, Tech meme and just learning about this whole like Silicon Valley thing that I was like, grew up in New York in Long Island and I kept reading like all the startups are in Silicon Valley.  

 

Kevin:    00:17:12    So that kind of, I kept reading about that and that's sort of like something I've always wanted to do. So when I went to college in upstate New York, my dream was always to get this computer science degree and move out to Silicon Valley because that is what I wanted to do. And even then, during this time I've always wanted to just build stuff. 'cause it's a programmer. I, I like making things. I started my own like web development company in college with Wilson. And we were making like iPhone apps, web apps. Uh, at this time I was learning Ruby on Rails. That was like a really big programming language that just came out. And I was like, whoa, this is a game changer. Like I can make websites so fast. And I was like building a bunch of stuff. I remember building this website called like Monday.Me, uh, 'cause I saw Quora, that question answer website came out. So I saw it and I was like, oh I want to build one like that for colleges And that, because going back to what is about Mark Zuckerberg, I was like, oh, how did Mark Zuckerberg start? Oh he built this for colleges so I'm gonna do like the same like strategy and make a question answer for colleges. So that's where that came from.   

 

Kristin:    00:18:05    That's a cool idea.

 

Kevin:    00:18:07   Yeah, I've always like kind of like make things then I guess it comes from programming. Like I just like wasn't afraid to just make things even though like I just never got him to work. At least for me I was like kind of, I always felt like, hey, I'm learning something. And I really wanted to get into like Y Combinator. I'm not sure if you heard of it's like that.

 

Kristin:  Yeah. Oh yeah.

 

Kevin: So I, me and Wilson applied and we didn't get in but that was like a thing I've always wanted to get in because I was like, oh I gotta keep building stuff. I was reading all their stuff. It's like they're Kool-Aid. It's like you could believe what they're saying. 'cause it's like, anyways, I eventually went out to San Francisco. I got a job at Mint.com, like that TurboTax company.  

 

Kristin:    00:18:36    Yeah, it's a finance website.  

 

Kevin:    00:18:38    It's a finance website. Yeah, for like personal finance. So within a month of working there, I always tell people like I knew I didn't wanna work there at that moment. They just got acquired by Intuit. So it got like really corporate and for me it wasn't that dream I had of, oh, I'm gonna work at a startup, it's gonna be crazy exciting. I'm gonna work nine to 10 every day. When I was there it was like literally like nine to five every day. You never work at night, you never worked there on weekends. And at this time I was like, oh 22. And I tell people all the time, like this would be the perfect job if it was like 50 or 60 <laugh>. Like I just like wanna work on stuff. I was like, I've been working on stuff my whole like college career about startups, ideas.  

 

Kevin:    00:19:17    Honestly, I tell people all the time like, and you probably tell people all the time, like I just feel like I wasn't gonna learn anything and I didn't wanna get stuck in that phase of just being complacent with the skills. And that's sort of even for me when I was like applying for jobs after college, I would go to an interview and sometimes I would be like, oh wow, that interview was so easy and I got the job offer. I'd be like, I don't want that. If it was too easy, I just felt like I'm not gonna learn more. I'd rather be challenged. And that's sort of how I was like always been thinking about things. So within a month of the Intuit, uh, sorry, Mint, I knew I wanted to quit. And of course like you tell your friends like Hey, I'm gonna quit.  

 

Kevin:    00:19:51    They're like, why? It's such a good company. Like yo, these benefits. But I was just like, I don't wanna do that thing that people do for two years and then they're like two years. I'm like, that's a lot of life for a place that you don't like. Right? Yeah. And it's like, it's not that I didn't like it, it just, it wasn't for me. I think you, I kinda what you said earlier, if it isn't for you then you gotta do something else because it's your life, your decision. No one else is living it for you. Like people can tell you you want, but you're the one that I see you to wake up every day and go do that thing. I think, I think that can applies to like mostly anything in life too where everybody's got an opinion and ultimately it's your decision.  

 

Kevin:    00:20:21    Right. But basically after six months I quit and then went to work for a startup called Zarli. And then I was there for two years because that is like if you look at the Silicon Valley type of HBO show, that was exactly kind of how it was there. It was like so much fun working all the time working in new ideas. We were VC funded, we were like going out together, we were like hanging out. It was like everything I read happened and I was like, this is exactly what I was like working for. Right. So--  

 

Kristin:    00:20:44    Like Silicon Valley, like the show.  

 

Kevin:    00:20:45    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. <laugh>. So everything that I read was like what it was there great friends there, super smart people there. Ultimately the company like is still running but didn't work as well as we wanted to. But that experience really still cemented into me what I wanted, like to do my own thing. I was like, oh I still wanna do my own thing. This was still so exciting for me. And then that's kind of when I left to back to New York and started my, my first company, which is my cleaning company called Maid Sailers. And this came out of, because all this stuff I was doing, I was building things and I was trying to figure out how come I'm building all this stuff but I'm not getting customers <laugh>. Eventually you realize I need customers. Right? Right. And then the thing for me I always tell people is like, why didn't I think about this earlier?  

 

Kevin:    00:21:26    Because I think this goes back to sort of when I was like first learning about tech and startups and what I kept hearing all the time was like, Hey, if you have a really cool product or cool service customers just find you. And I really like believed that at that time because during the time companies like Dropbox, Gmail came out, it was like the first time something unique like them came out and it was like, whoa, this is so crazy. Like how did this thing happen? And if you look to like the founders like Drew Houston, they're like, yeah, when you have a good unique product or you need service customers just find you. So I was like, oh, I need to make something like that. But obviously it turns out that story is just marketing in itself because you want people to believe like, oh you're not getting marketed to them. You're just a, this product's just a great product.

 

Kristin:  Right.

 

Kevin:  It's like similar to Slack nowadays people are like, oh my god, Slack grew so fast and like everybody used to Slack. And then you tell people like, yeah it's such a great crazy organic growth. But if you look at Slack like uh, jobs, they have like 50 marketers. You're getting marketed all the time. But they've done such a good job to make you believe that you're not getting marketed to them.

 

Kristin:    00:22:24    And that it's the only option that everyone has to have  

 

Kevin:    00:22:27    It. Exactly. So like I think that is great marketing because if you believe that then it's like, wow, you, you really, they did a good job. And I think it's similar to like, um, I was reading this book by the Netflix co-founder,  and I forgot what it was called. But basically the founder, obviously everybody knows Reed, which is like the current CEO. He always has that story why he started Netflix and it was because obviously you probably heard it too. It's like Hey, because Blockbuster charged me a late fee and I saw that, right? Yeah. And the original founder was like, that's not how Netflix started at all. He said he thought of an idea in a car while driving with Reed while they're trying to think about startups to build. Really? Yeah. So that story is comp. He said it's completely false, but they say it so many times now that everybody believes that's story. And Reed doesn't like deny it. He doesn't say it's true. He just says, yeah, that's our story.  

 

Kristin:    00:23:14    Because that's their brand story.  

 

Kevin:    00:23:15    Yeah. 'cause that's their brand story. Aw. So like the original guy, I remember his name was really smart book, I forgot what the book was called. Uh, read on Amazon. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. And he's actually a marketer that started Netflix. Reed was like an investor that invested into his company. And then after a year, it's crazy. It's kind of a crazy story. Kind of like the Facebook story where the original guy created Netflix after a year. Reed was like saying like, Hey, I don't basically said like, Hey, I don't think you're running the company really well. I'm gonna kick you out. I'm gonna take over. And pretty much that's like the real story of Netflix in the book.   

 

Kristin:    00:23:45    Whoa, I gotta read that.  

 

Kevin:    00:23:46    I'll trying to find it and we can put it in the show notes. Yeah. But it's a really interesting story because obviously everybody knows Reid now and he credits Netflix for Reed. But like he was the original idea of Netflix and Reed was just like an investor that invested in them and then took over and of course made it to its what now? But that brand, it goes back towards it's called marketing the brand story. It's all these big companies you probably hear have a story that someone's made up and they say it so many times that then even eventually everybody believes it. Like everything you see right now, right.  

 

Kristin:    00:24:12    And that's a way more interesting story about Blockbuster. Yep. Because it's got like the underdog and the competitive stuff and like the old company that had the monopoly on the market. And yeah, that's just way more memorable than like two guys driving in a car and one was an investor and they were trying to think of business ideas.  

 

Kevin:    00:24:29    <laugh>. Exactly. And that's exactly what it is. It's, it's a, that whole story in like basically he says like in in one or two sentences you have like the pain point, the competitors, the underdog, everything you just said. You have it in like two sentences--

 

Kristin: The Whole circle.

 

Kevin:  Yeah. And you're like, oh yeah. Like Oh yeah, the story arc. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The whole story arc in one, two sentences because everybody's like, oh yeah Blockbuster, I hate those late fees. So like you feel that pain, you are like, oh yeah, yeah. So about that. Yeah.   

 

Kristin:    00:24:54    So you go back to New York, you're like, okay, I'm gonna quit this job, go back to New York. Then you start building the cleaning company first. Or were you like, oh, I'm building all this stuff with no customers so let me go back to basics and figure out what's the problem I'm solving for people and how do I communicate that I can solve it for them?  

 

Kevin:    00:25:12    Yeah. So at that time when I was starting the Maid company, I built a website. And in the beginning I think like anybody, I was doing it like custom coding, custom programming 'cause my background's programming after like a month or two. I was like, I didn't wanna get to that phase. Like where I thought like the program or like the website development was the most important. I thought I was realizing, hey, getting customers is more important. So after a month or two I switched to Wordpress because WordPress made it so much easier to like just drag and drop stuff. And I was realizing that no one cares what your website's made in how it's coded, it's can you get people to that website? And I think sometimes people would, back then I was like very in that mindset of like, oh, I wanna really clean website.  

 

Kevin:    00:25:46    I wanna do Ruby on Rails. But like really customers don't care. They don't even know what anything's built these days. So it doesn't, it doesn't matter.

 

Kristin:  Yeah.

 

Kevin:  Yeah. So then I started learning using some other tactic skills that I learned. So I was reading about like Airbnb story and I was like, how did Airbnb get customers? And I saw that they were posting on Craigslist. So then I posted on Craigslist too. So for me it's like a mix of like stuff I was reading from like other companies, right? So I was posting on Craigslist, Hey we have a cleaning company, you can call us. And that's how I got my first clients. Um, and then we also use that tactic to get maids as well to work for us. So we were hiring them as contractors saying, Hey look, we don't have any jobs right now, but I wanna bring you on board to like our platform.  

 

Kevin:    00:26:23    And then when you have jobs, we would call them and tell them like, Hey, we can do it this time. So that's how we got initial customers. And then like at I probably, you know, two like after a while, like you're not getting too many customers so then you're just like googling how to get customers or how to get free traffic. And then that's what I learned about like SEO. And then that got me learning more about SEO and sort of how to optimize your website. I started reading like MOZ.com Rand Fishkin, really big SEO blogger trying to realize like everything that was going on there. And, and then during this time, I think right now everybody knows like Google Maps have like the listings of like food places or restaurants. When I was first starting my cleaning company that was, that just came out.  

 

Kevin:    00:26:57    So we were able to get into, onto that train really early and we wrote to like go, go on those rankings and that's how we got a lot more customers. And that's when I realized, oh wow. Like SEO's actually pretty powerful. Let me learn more. And then I started doing obviously ranking for my cleaning company. But then I started learning about like, what are people else doing to make money online with SEO? And that's when you learn about like Amazon affiliate marketing, right? And you're like, so then I started, I started learning all these like affiliate marketing stuff. And I always tell people like sometimes learning, even though I was running the cleaning company, I was still interested in seeing like how other like nomads were making money. Because I was like, there's some tactics in there that you can probably take for your own company.  

 

Kevin:    00:27:34    Even though I was like, wow, these guys are making so much money running this. Like affiliate websites, content websites. Like what can I take from that to apply to my cleaning company that I'm building here locally in New York? So I think sometimes it's useful to sort of see tactics in other industries that you can potentially make because people, so that's sort of like how I started doing more SEO and marketing that way. And that's where I learned about like this whole like crazy space of like marketing and like affiliate marketing and all these travelers just making tons of money just like selling these websites and stuff like that. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:28:04    For sure. I love that story because you just kept following your curiosity, which I talked about. I think it was in, I don't know when this episode will go out, but I did an episode on 8 Skills you Need as a Digital Nomad. And one of them was curiosity and learning. Yeah. Like you have to be like, I don't know most things. But I have the tools to figure it out because I have a brain and I have the internet. Yeah. And when you combine those two things, magic happens. And all the stuff I'm doing right now I didn't know how to do two years ago. Yeah. When I bought a camera, I bought a GoPro, like the most basic GoPro the hero. I think it was like a little square. Oh yeah. I didn't even know how to record it. It's a one button.  

 

Kristin:    00:28:46    Yeah. Yeah. It's like on and off <laugh>. And um, I had a camera for like a year. I didn't even know I needed a microphone for it. So like all my original videos were really crappy. And so when you look back and see like how much you could learn, I didn't know anything about SEO. Yeah. And now tons of my stuff ranks number one on Google. Yeah. And a lot of it was accidental. And then I'm like, how did that get there? And then I had to figure out what, what was I doing right. To get that to rank there and then pulling things from I, I'm still to this day an online gambling affiliate. Yeah. So just whatever I learned in that, which I got into because I started a relocation company for poker players. <laugh>. Yeah. And I started understanding how the gaming industry works and like those people are making a ton of money. I wish I was more interested in that because I think it's the most lucrative affiliate. Oh yeah. Networks that you can be in is online gambling. And I went to some of their conferences and like Barcelona and--  

 

Kevin:    00:29:41    Oh you did, lucky, Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:29:43    And cool places. Yeah. And I was just trying to figure out like, do I wanna get into this? Do I wanna compete with these people <laugh>? And I decided I am, I'm not even that into gambling. Yeah. So I'm not gonna go for it. But, but what I learned from that, I have now applied to travel and my content that I'm doing now, unfortunately the commissions are way smaller-- 

 

Kevin:    00:30:03    Oh way less. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:30:04    But still, it's like, you know, you're applying those skills to each thing. And um, it's funny that you came up with the concept of creating a media agency, like a digital agency because that's what Gary Vaynerchuk did. He didn't have a background in marketing. He has a background in liquor stores and wine. Yeah. But when he learned how to promote his business the same way that you learned how to promote your cleaning business, he realized I have all the skills of a digital marketer. Yeah. And then to start doing that for other people. And that's actually kind of in my like, like my 10 year plan. Yeah. I'm like, I would like to have a digital agency that's making videos and doing that sort of thing for other companies. But I'm like, well let me um, yeah. Do my stuff first <laugh> and before I'm doing it for everybody else.  

 

Kristin:    00:30:53    Yeah. So I've seen a lot of these kind of ads. I'm sure everybody listening has, it's all of these people who are trying to make online courses or webinars or some sort of funnel that's teaching people how to make money online. And that thing is doing Facebook ads for people. Yeah. <laugh>. So I always wonder why are those people, are they making more money off of telling people how to make money online than they are actually running their own digital agency? Because I feel like that's such a scalable business model. Why wouldn't you just build a bigger agency and get bigger clients and do more volume on ads? Why would you distract from your core business to go tell other people basically how to compete with you <laugh>? Yeah. So yeah, what are your thoughts on that?  

 

Kevin:    00:31:46    Yeah, there's so many of those people, and I've actually thought about this too, but even for us, like here at Voy Media we're 25 people and me and Wilson at one point had an idea of like, Hey, let's grow the company to 200, 300 people. And now that we're growing the company, slowly we're realizing that it's just like very hard to maintain the same quality of work. But also not just that, it's also just like managing people is very hard. And I think a lot of people don't wanna do that. Um, when you work with a team that's small, like five to 10 people, that's very easy. But even for us like 25, it's like you just run into things that like, I'm not even thinking about like, oh, like hey, that's my vacation policy. Or I'm taking vacation days today. I'm just like, oh, it's like not a good time today.  

 

Kevin:    00:32:31    It's like you gotta like think about stuff. You have to think about more things that you weren't ready for. And when you have a smaller team, it's just easier. That's why I, I always tell people, like these guys teaching it, they know that they can just be one or two people like digital nomads essentially and have more residual income doing like coaching all of this stuff. 'cause it's just easier. And also running an agency, I think the biggest thing that people don't realize is they don't teach you in these courses is dealing with clients and how emotionally draining that is. And that is probably the reason why people start agencies and then they quit agencies. Because I've talked to people like they have a client call every week and they're like, I'm so stressed out thinking about a client call because the results aren't bad.  

 

Kevin:    00:33:14    And that is like, so for people it's like anxiety building. So they don't teach you that in the courses. They gonna say, Hey look, it's so easy to get clients. But I'm like, the weekly calls when things aren't going well, that is not a fun call to be on.

 

Kristin:  Right.

 

Kevin:  So I think a lot of them realize that like, hey, like I don't wanna be doing this forever. Let me just make a course because I have had some, like anything, I've had some success, but I can teach that small success to other people. But that, that's sort of where my, I think about it, it's growing an agency, it's like similar to like the Maid company growing. It is great, but we just need to hire more cleaners, more staff. Just growing a team is much harder than it. I think people sometimes realize and when they're actually are growing it, they realize, oh wow, I actually wanna be smaller.  

 

Kevin:    00:33:56    Because you kind of lose a lot of that freedom because you're not thinking about just yourself anymore. Like your two, three people you're thinking about like, even for me, like I have 25 people, like, I'm like, whoa, my payroll's massive. Like I gotta like think about this every time where like you lose a client, it's like, whoa. Like that's actually like, okay, let me go check my p and l. Okay. We're still good for the next, you know, X amount of months.

 

Kristin:  Right, right.

 

Kevin:  Just like a different mindset I think. And, and I think it's like, it depends on where you wanna be. Like for me as a, like for me, I want to grow to big company, but I know other people that are like, oh, I would never want to be where you're at Kevin. 'cause it's like too much thinking. I'm like, that's okay. Like you can just be three, four people and be happy because you can make a lot of money and sometimes that's just better. But for, at least for me, I don't know, I wanna be like much bigger. And that's sort of like my, my goal, right. So.  

 

Kristin:    00:34:41    Yeah. Yeah. I think about that sometimes too because I used to feel self-conscious actually when I was traveling through, let's say the Delta Sky Club or something. And here I am a digital nomad and let's say it's like 2013, still no one knows what digital nomads are at that point. And I'm just like a solopreneur traveling around the world doing whatever I want. Making like a solid six figures. Yeah. A year. But like complete freedom. Yeah. Like people call me, they're like, Hey, come meet me in Manila or meet me in Paris. And I just would fly over there. Yeah. And yeah, just like hundreds of thousands of airline miles and like really just having a good time, but also feeling like insignificant in a way. Because I would go through the Sky Club and I would see all of these really important people, or seemingly important people on these phone calls and their suits.  

 

Kristin:    00:35:37    And I'm just wearing like jeans and a T-shirt and a hoodie. And I was like, am I doing it wrong? Like should I have a bigger company or should I, I don't know. I was like, I don't really have any of these kinds of responsibilities that all these people are talking about loudly and obnoxiously on their phone calls. And so yeah, I always would, would think about that. And I think it's because, you know, we're bred so much in the US to have this achievement mentality and always bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I try to keep myself in check because sometimes I'll look at bigger YouTubers and some of the people who I know, like I know they're making six figures a month off of just AdSense alone. Yeah. But yet they hustle so much. Yeah. Like I can tell they're working a lot because there's no limit to what they want.  

 

Kristin:    00:36:27    Like they wanna have like millions of dollars a month in income coming from all of these different ways. And I just wonder if they're gonna wake up one day and be like, wow, for the last 10 years I could have done whatever I want and traveled wherever I want and had like seven figure year income. But instead I just was behind my computer the whole time. And then I looked up and I'm like 40 or 50. Like it's like, oh. And now there's a pandemic and you can't go anywhere. Go anywhere. Yeah. So I just kind of wonder like, where's that line for people? Yeah. I think that's something for everyone to think about because what is the whole, whole point of working is like to create things in the world, but then also you have to save money so that you can retire one day. But it's like, what if you could just have a comfortable life and have income and have that ultimate freedom without having all of the stress that comes with being like a Fortune 500 CEO. Yeah. Or running all these businesses. So I think that's a question for, for everyone to ponder. <laugh> and maybe some years of life are different than others. Maybe you go through a phase where you're like, you just wanna work all the time. And then you're like, you know what, I <laugh> I'm gonna take a break.  

 

Kevin:    00:37:34    I think that's exactly what it is. It's even for me, I think about it sometimes because I talked to Wilson about this all the time and he kind of travels a lot and he kind of just does whatever he wants. But like, he was traveling for like a year. I, 'cause he like technically retired. He was like, what, 27? Right. Like, but after that year he kind of felt like, what am I doing with my life? Right. That's when we started Voy Media was because he was like, I just wanna like--

 

Kristin:  Have a purpose.

 

Kevin: Build something. Yeah. Have a purpose. Build something. Yeah. Like work with a team. And so that's kind of like, yeah, everybody, everybody goes through phases and it's like you have to like just balance it out. Um, because I think everybody wants to have like some sort of purpose and, but again, there's people out there that I know that are just perfectly fine saying like, yeah, I just travel and make like 300K ayear.  

 

Kevin:    00:38:14    Not even think about it. But that, that's like, everybody's different. And like I get jealous of that too. I'm just like, oh man, I wish that was me. I know that my mindset's just a little different than theirs. So Yeah. At least for me, when I was like kind of first doing this, and maybe you would, I was always thinking like, why isn't everybody like me? But I realized like everybody's a little different. Like I'm different. You're different. Like the way you think is different. The way we sort of think about problems is different. And I tell people are like, I always tell people like, this is why there's so many, like for even for cleaning companies, there's like hundreds of cleaning companies. What makes mine different than others? This is the way I thought about it is different than the way you're throwing you think about it. Same thing with like every podcast or like even my agency, right. Why is your agency different? And like, we're different because my life experiences, I started this. Right. Everybody's unique in a way. Right. So yeah. I, yeah. I think sometimes people go, I I it's like anything, it's like it's your life or decision. It's so cheesy, but you gotta do what makes you happy and then you'll figure it out eventually I think.  

 

Kristin:    00:39:02    Yeah. Like there's people who want to be the president Yeah. Or the prime minister of a country. I do not ever want that. And then there's people like Gary V who wanna buy a football team. Yeah. I couldn't care less. And then there's people who wanna live in Thailand for $10,000 a year and that's great too. Yeah. Like they would be completely content just like having enough money to live in paradise for a while. Yeah. So everyone, there's everything in between. And now we're seeing that there's this global market of unique human beings who are all offering something different. And the one thing that everyone would do good to realize is that what they have to offer is completely unique in the world and will never be replicated again. So it's like whatever you're bringing into fruition in the world, that's your thing. No one else can copy it.  

 

Kristin:    00:39:47    Even if you copy elements of what other people are doing and put it together, your brain is the only one with that. Uh, those thoughts and your life experience to put that together. But it is interesting about the agency concept because like you can have it as a really small agency. Yeah. And then you can make it really big. So would you say that this is like for somebody who knows nothing about digital marketing, but they're interested in having a revenue stream that allows them to work from home? Or travel, like how long would it take somebody to learn Facebook ads, for example, to a level where they can go out and get 1, 2, 3, 5 clients a month, make like a thousand or whatever per month? I don't know what the pricing is. Yeah. I guess it depends on like what, how many ads they're buying and stuff. But is that realistic for, for people to do?  

 

Kevin:    00:40:40    I think it's very realistic to do within like at least two to three months if you like study YouTube, get courses and it's like anything, it's like you just need to know a little bit more than the client you're pitching. And yeah. I think sometimes people think that like you need to know like so much more advanced stuff and yeah, you do if you're pitching like these huge, bigger clients. But if you work in a lot of smaller businesses that have like, maybe like, like a lawn mowing business, those people have no clue what Facebook is. And you probably know more even just by basic knowledge of like Googling what is Facebook ads and you just need to just present yourself in a way. But within two to three months, I think you can go and get that. And even for these small businesses, you can charge 'em like $500 a month. So you just need like two to three. You're already making 1500 a month. And the best thing about these smaller ones is that like you basically just need to do maybe one or two calls like a month. 'cause you're not, like, there's not that much results that you're gonna give them. It's like, Hey, you're getting leads. Okay, great. Bye. Like--

 

Kristin:    00:41:29    And they're probably getting more than they were before without having those ads so.  

 

Kevin:    00:41:34    Yeah, it's like, it's very possible. And that, that, and that's why going back to like what we were saying before the course, that's why these people make these courses because it's so lucrative to be like to say, teach that and people do have results because it's so possible. Like all you need to do is just reach out to local people. And I think about it, like when I was doing SEO uh, back then there were so many local SEO courses of like, Hey, rank and rent. You've probably heard of rank and rent websites where like you would rank a website for let's say like Lawnmowers Long Island. And you would make a website there that you would rank to number one. And then you would call every business below you and say, Hey look, my website's number one, I'm gonna charge you per lead whenever I give you a call of 20 bucks. So then like you, you would just redirect a number to the person you just sold a lead to and they, and they would pay you 20 bucks per call and. 

 

Kristin:    00:42:18     Oh wow. I didn't even know about that.  

 

Kevin:    00:42:20    So that's like a, that's like a different model where people teach all the time too. It's like rank your website number one and then sell. It's like affiliate marketing for like local people because when, because they don't have any programs. Right. But you're selling phone calls essentially.  

 

Kristin:    00:42:32    Right. Yeah. And then how did you guys get your first clients at Voy Media? Because at that point you had, I mean you could just go on Craigslist, you could literally just look on Google Maps and be like, who's around me? And start cold calling businesses and be like, Hey, I can bring you leads. Like that guy who is that guy in California, he has so many online court. I like see him on Facebook all the time. You know what I'm talking about.  

 

Kevin:    00:42:55    Oh, is it, um, oh, is it Billy Gene or no, Billy Gene. Yeah, Billy Gene. I was like  

 

Kristin:    00:42:59    Billy Gene. They true what he does. Right. Like he just has a massive Facebook ads agency that now does online courses. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah. How did you guys get your first clients then?  

 

Kevin:    00:43:09    So for us, while we were doing Voy Media, I was still doing SEO for Voy Media. So we were ranking like top three for like Facebook ad agency or Facebook ad agency at that time. And so basically we did Voy Media, but we weren't working on it. We just kind of like, I was kind of thinking about it as like an SEO experiment. I was like, oh, I wanna see if I can rank an agency website. And then I started getting leads. I was actually in like Mexico on vacation and I was just like, wow, I actually have a lead. And I was just like, and then I talked to Wilson, I was like, do we wanna do this thing? Like, you know, it's like it's working. Yeah. It's like, it's, yeah, it's like, it's like it's working. Do we wanna do this thing? And we're just like thinking about the business model, you know, like obviously not thinking about it too much.  

 

Kevin:    00:43:48    We're just like, I think we can make money. And then we're just like, let's do it. And then that's really like how it worked, <laugh>. And then, uh, because yeah, so then we started like that, that's how we got our first client was through like SEO people just found us. 'cause if you think about like agencies or something like this, it's like, that's why like something like this is great to be like top 10 for like SEO because people are just looking for options. So they're gonna call like everybody on that list. So it's ver versus like other search terms, like if either you're one or two, you're not gonna get called. But for like agencies or even for cleaning companies, that's something I learned. It's like no matter what you are, like on the first page, people just wanna know the prices. So they're gonna call every single person. So that's kind of like, uh,  

 

Kristin:    00:44:30    Interesting on the first page, not the second. 

 

Kevin:    00:44:32    Yeah,  definitely not, definitely not the second page. Yeah. But like, uh, but you know, too, like if it's like an informational query of like how to, you know, make ice cream, it's like the first or two, first one or two results are the ones that're gonna look like no one caress about third or four, but Right. When it's like a, when it's like a high ticket service, like an agency, they're like, oh, I gotta talk to everybody. Right? Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. So it's like, kind of like going back to like, just like marketing or like search intent. You think about the intent of the user, like what would you do? Right. Some people like, what would you do if you were searching for this? You probably wouldn't just be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go with the first one. Like, lemme call everybody because like, I wanna see who's good. Right? Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:45:06    And now I saw online, is this still accurate? It said that you guys are spending $1.2 million a month on ad spend on Facebook or on all the platforms?  

 

Kevin:    00:45:15    Yes. So right now we're doing about 2.5 a month. Okay. So we're, we're also like a Facebook preferred marketing partners for us. Like we want to get like really big, so like one of our big clients we work with like cost that clothing company. So we manage all their campaigns on Facebook, Canada, TikTok, and Snapchat. So for me, that's what I wanted to do because I was like, oh, like for me it's a, a conscious, like I've never had a marketing degree or background, but like I wanna work with these big brands and how do I get there? Right?  

 

Kristin:    00:45:37    Yeah. Yeah. And so they basically found you as you were doing a good job and ranking on Google.  

 

Kevin:    00:45:43    Yeah. So they found us  

 

Kristin:    00:45:44    And getting on all these lists, like top ad agencies and  stuff.

 

Kevin:    00:45:47    Yeah. They found us through there. And then like I say, it was like we pitched them like, like, you know, a few month pitch of like, basically when you're pitching these companies, it's like, at least for us, we're like looking, okay, how do we pitch this? Like <laugh>, because I, it's like these big companies, it's like, why are you different than a small business? Right? So because they're looking for, they're looking for stuff very different, but at the same time, this wasn't the first time we pitched a company that size. We pitched other ones and we've lost. And for me, we paid consultants to help us with those pitches. And at least for some people they may be like, oh wow, it's a waste of money. But I'm like, no. Now I know for the next company what to do in order to win them. Yeah. It's always great to think about like, what can I take from that loss that's gonna help me win the next one? And that's how kind of like, I always think about it because I'm like, okay, now at least I didn't pitch them the first time. This is like my third or fourth pitch of a company this size. And now I can know now I know what they're looking for because what they're looking for is very different than like some smaller brands. So it's like different.  

 

Kristin:    00:46:40    That was another skill I had in that, in that podcast was persistence and it's just accepting that you're probably not gonna get it right the first time. And maybe not the first five times. Yeah. Or the first 100 times, but eventually you're gonna get it if you just keep going. So yeah. What would you say, so we talked about the opportunity for people who wanna become digital nomads or just have extra revenue to work from home. Like this is definitely a learnable skill. The same way you could learn how to set up like a drop shipping store, you know, e-commerce, whatever. What are the opportunities for freelancers, online business owners to like learn the skill so that they can run their own Facebook ads to their business or their services? Because a lot of people are always asking me like, how do I get clients? Part of it is hitting the ground, but part of it is also leveraging these technologies.  

 

Kevin:    00:47:28    Yeah. I think I always tell people this all the time, like, if you have a business service-based business, online business or any, anything that like you think market's doing. I think for any business, marketing's important. So I, I think it's a core skill they need to learn. Because if you can't market it yourself, then I think going to somebody else, like even for us, people come to us all the time, Hey Kevin, I want you guys to run my, run my ads for me. And I'll be like, Hey, have you done it yourself? And I'll tell 'em no. Like, I can't do it for you because right now you're in this phase of trying to see does your product or service, uh, make sense to the customers that you think are your customers? And sometimes this is for experience, they'll come to us and they'll be like, oh, like you can't get me customers, you suck. But in my mind I'm like, no, it's like your product sucks, like <laugh>. 

 

Kristin:    00:48:13    Right.  No one wants your product.  

 

Kevin:    00:48:15    Yeah. Yeah. So like, that's why I always tell people like, you need to do this first, like 5 to 10K budget of testing yourself so you can actually see and feel that pain yourself before you go to an agency. Because if you spend 10K, no one's getting customers, you'll quickly realize it's not the agency, it's myself. Right.  

 

Kristin:    00:48:32    Yeah. That's such good advice. 



Kevin:    00:48:35    Yeah.  And going back to what I said before, you can learn Facebook ads in two to three months. You're not gonna be like, what we do here at Voy Media is maybe tweaks and optimizations, but the core skills is what we're gonna be doing too. Like adding your audiences, adding your creatives, adjusting the budget. It's like, that's not like a hard sale. That's like, that's like the basics of Facebook ads. And again, going something like Facebook or Google or even YouTube, they're making it even easier than ever before to put ads up because they want more businesses on their platform. They don't want it to be like this very crazy technical thing that people are like, oh, I don't know what to do. Because if they make it super technical, then small businesses like ourselves, we can't advertise on there. And they, they make more money from small businesses versus like the big fortune 500.  

 

Kevin:    00:49:17    So yeah, they're spending tons, but it's like the 80/20 rule, right? 80% of revenue comes from like these smaller businesses that rely on Facebook. It's goes, it kinda goes back to like, you know, during the pandemic and during all this like political climate and we were, I was talking to like the Washington Post and they're like, Hey, like how are your clients reacting to the bans of like Coca-Cola or these big companies? I'm not sure which ones not. I'm like, yeah, these companies are happy. They need Facebook. Like that's their main revenue. So for them it's like these stuff doesn't matter to them because this is really how they make money. And Facebook knows that like yeah, one of these big brands pulls out 2 million. Every other company's like, great, I'm gonna put more money now because results are cheaper for me. Right. It's such a, a crazy thing that these tech companies that Google and Facebook just, at least for small businesses, it's kind of like a hostage in a way because you need them and it, it's tough. So Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:50:03    Yeah. Yeah. That's good advice too about like trying it yourself first before you hire someone else. Because I learned editing videos, for example. Yeah. And then I went to all of these companies that are like, we'll edit unlimited videos for you every month. And I tried two or three of them in a row and after the first month I just fired each of like, I, I was like, I'm just gonna use my, my same editor that you know now he's been working for me for two years because I know good editing. Yeah. And I know how to edit. And I could see exactly where they were cutting corners and what they were doing wrong. And it's like, I'm going back into the video after trying to fix it up and like polish it and I was just like, I'm not even a video editor, I just know how to edit video.  

 

Kristin:    00:50:49    So it's like, why am I better than the video editors that I'm hiring? And when you learn Facebook ads yourself or or Instagram or these other types of ads, and then you get the basics down, you get your product right And then you outsource that to someone else because you don't wanna be the full-time Facebook ads person in your company then you know, if they know what they're doing. And so how many of us have like hired someone to do something and then you realize like you're better at it than they are and it's demotivating. But you gotta know the basics so that you can find talent and know if they know how to do their job well, especially with all of these yahoos like and hacks. Yeah. On the internet being like, yeah, I know how to do, yeah. Facebook ads and it's like they only know how to set up the audience and like run the ad that you did, but they don't know how to optimize it.  

 

Kristin:    00:51:34    They don't know how to a/b test it. You can also go now Facebook, Google, like all these companies have basically free online courses of how to use their products and services. You don't have to pay someone else thousands of dollars to learn how to use these platforms when they even have like calls and videos and you can get like a rep to help you set things up. So everybody should take advantage of that. But then what are you guys focusing on when it comes to your ad spend? Are you still doing most of it on Facebook or like you mentioned Instagram, YouTube, like how are you distributing kind of the budgets of these companies?  

 

Kevin:    00:52:16    Yeah. So yeah, I think what you say is so important. Learning yourself and I think goes back to, people always ask like, oh, then why do I need an agency? And really, it's kinda what you said too before, it's like you need agency because you don't wanna be that full-time person managing everything and being the, 'cause there's so much, I think like you probably know, and sometimes when people first start a business, they think that like a business is like not just one component. There's like 20 other things that you're doing that accounting finance like, like sales, like talking to people, customer service e it's like there's so much more. And like you come to an agency like us because it's like, Hey, this is working, I just can't do it myself. I need to focus on growing my own and team internally. Right. So that, I think that's where like--

 

Kristin:  Yeah.  

 

Kevin:    00:52:52    But at least for us, when we're managing campaigns, we're mostly doing everything like on Facebook mobile and Instagram mobile desktop is great, but the mobile sort of experience is just growing so much more. And even for us, uh, like stories are just getting so much more views and traffic now. So we're really focusing on like mobile ads. Unless it's like, like e-commerce is a lot of stuff we do. So like mobile is great, unless it's like a high ticket thing, like a course or like a $10 thing. Desktop is still much better for that because people still wanna kind of like browse more or like they feel like wanna commit more through like a desktop. Desktop. It's like a different type of experience versus like a phone. It's like, oh, okay, whatever $20 widget, I'll buy it and check it out. Right.  

 

Kristin:    00:53:30    So Right. Yeah. Fake eyelashes on Instagram or whatever.  

 

Kevin:    00:53:33    Yeah, no, lemme just try these leggings again. Like, ah, whatever. It's like I'll return it if I don't like it. Right. But it's like you're buying like a 10,000 course. It's like, all right, lemme go Google Review. It's like blah, blah, blah. Review. Right. Something like that. Yeah. Right.  

 

Kristin:    00:53:43    Yeah. And then is your team, so you have about 25 people on your team. They're distributed, like no one's in the office 'cause of Covid. What is the extent of the creative work that you guys are doing? I mean, are you just taking what the brands give you from their in-house marketing team and then adapting it? Or are you actually creating from scratch the ads, the videos, that sort of stuff? And then how Yeah. How do you manage that remotely?  

 

Kevin:    00:54:10    So for us, we, we do both. So a lot of times clients will just give us their assets, uh, what they have, and then we'll make them into ads or creatives. But then we're also doing our own photo shoots and video shoots and content shoots as well. So again, we have like a, a studio on Slovenia where we do all our content shoots and video shoots there. Oh, cool. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So we get clients who just mail us the products there. And usually how it works is our creative director is based outta New York. So what we'll do is our creative director will think about like a creative pitch and then we'll sort of make all the scripts. It's kinda crazy because like we make all these videos, I'm like thinking about like, you're kinda of like making like a little mini movie. I was like, 'cause you're looking for scripts people.  

 

Kevin:    00:54:46    And I was like thinking about it recently as just like maybe comedians or like writers that can't find jobs now because there's like no places to perform, but they should go work out ad agencies because for us we're always looking for like scripts that are funny that are sell. So I was like, that's a pretty interesting niche that like even for us, we just recently hired a comedian to make an ad for us. He's like, oh, this is great. Like, I didn't realize I could do ads. I'm like this. Yeah. It's like, it's like kind of like interesting. I'm like, oh, this is kind of like a new job for, for people that like people before are like, oh, you're never gonna have a job. I'm like, ad people want to stuff now. Like I'm looking for writers all the time. 

 

Kristin:    00:55:15    Yeah.  Light bulb. Yeah. Yeah. I just had a girl in my Facebook group ask that, like, how could she find more writing jobs? And like, I was trying to think of unique ways. Yeah. That, I mean that's a skill that's applicable in everything. Yeah. And I always think about that too when I'm writing video scripts and, and outlining podcasts and writing medium articles and then recording voiceovers. Yeah. I'm like, I'm basically my own movie studio <laugh>.  

 

Kevin:    00:55:39    But yeah, it's, and the thing about it, I didn't get that. I didn't get why you probably watch shows and it's like credit's like these writers, I'm like, why do you have so many writers? Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, now it makes sense. Like yeah, because the person talking isn't the person using the writing. They're just reading what someone else wrote. You look at someone like Jimmy Fallon, right. He doesn't write his stuff, but he is a, he has a comedian writer write all his stuff and then he's the funny one, but the writer's the one that's actually making the jokes for him.

 

Kristin:  Right.

 

Kevin:  Yeah. It's like, ah--  

 

Kristin:    00:56:04    I wonder what it's like to just have one job. Like,  

 

Kevin:    00:56:07     Yeah. Yeah.

 

Kristin:    00:56:07    That  must be so easy.  

 

Kevin:    00:56:08    Yeah. Yeah. So it makes sense because like you probably hear like rappers and artists are like, oh, you don't write your own songs like someone like Drake. But like if I were like someone like Drake, I'd be like, yeah, like I would pay like 20 writers to just make me the best rap songs and then I'm the one singing them because it's like my dance. So I was like, it makes sense now. Right. That's why like--.  

 

Kristin:    00:56:25    Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Those big DJs, they have Russian producers. Yeah. Writing their tracks. They're not producing electronic music tracks while touring in different cities every day. No, yeah. They're barely like awake <laugh>.  

 

Kevin:    00:56:37    Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's sort of like, just like this concept of even for like nomads or people like that are working remotely, outsourcing your work is great because you can make it so much better. And then you could still be the face of the company, like a podcast for example. So as you start learning more, you're like, oh, that job makes sense now. I was like, oh, that's why there's so many writers there. <laugh>. Like that makes so much sense to me because when I'm doing a podcast too, when one of my person writes my stuff for me, I'm like, this is so easy. I just talk and I don't have to think about it. <laugh> like, yeah,  

 

Kristin:    00:57:03    I just started outsourcing my podcast pages, like the show notes. 'cause I was spending a lot of time on that and I was like, why am I doing this? 'cause I'm already writing the podcast, finding guests, doing the interview, doing the research, listening back to it like two times. And then I'm like, okay, I need to cut myself off at some point. Well I have a question for you about that with productivity, but first, so, okay, so you've got all these different remote teams in different places, different countries. Where are you guys communicating? Are you using Slack? Are you using project management tools? Or how are you managing those projects? And then how do you find time to do your podcast and your written content and your YouTube channel after your day job?  

 

Kevin:    00:57:47    So work-wise. So we use Slack a lot. It's probably the one number one tool that we use. But before that we were using Dropbox paper. I'm not sure if you heard about that. It's basically kind of like Dropbox has like obviously the file storage, but they had this, this paper thing that's kind of like a document that you can do more than Google Docs. And the reason why we used it was 'cause my, my roommate in San Francisco was on the team that did developed it. So he told me, he's like, oh Kevin, can you guys try this? So he is my rolled roommate, his name is Adam. So he works at Dropbox and the accused us for, so I was like, oh, we'll use it. And then we really liked it because it was kinda like very flexible. But as we got bigger, people were like, I don't think this is like a proper project management tool.  

 

Kevin:    00:58:25    <laugh>. Right. So then when, so when I hired, she was like, we need to use Asana. So then we started using Asana more and then we hired somebody else and then they took it to like another level of like templates and structures and assigning people. And I tell people all the time, it's like, it's great to like bring a project when it's a tool, but then the hardest part is making sure everybody uses it. And that's like another initiative of like, and it sucks because it's like, no, stop messaging me about this, this way. You gotta use do it in Asana.

 

Kristin:  Right.

 

Kevin:  That's like another thing that uh, a skill that you need to develop for your team too whenever you bring in like new systems because it's great. Everybody's excited for that work one day. But I'm like, no. Like that's not what we're doing anymore. You gotta switch. So, yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:59:04    Do you have a project manager? Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend who has a multimillion dollar online business and she manages the whole thing through like WhatsApp messages. And I was like, you are insane.   

 

Kevin:    00:59:17    That's so crazy.  

 

Kristin:    00:59:17    She's like, yeah, but nobody wants to use Asana. No one wants to use, no one wants to learn Monday. And I'm like, you're just losing so much productivity because like they're your employees. Like you say like Don't message me. Put it in the system so everyone can look at it and see what's going on.  

 

Kevin:    00:59:34    You need to just develop that thing internally. Because we were also like that Slack was like for everything and Slack's great, but it's so hard to track due dates, track when stuff's done. And I, I can't even imagine how you're doing that with WhatsApp. I'm just like, it's a stream of,  

 

Kristin:    00:59:47   like asking people--  

 

Kevin:    00:59:48    Stream of content. Yeah, yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:59:49    Where is this? What is, and then the voice memo is like, you can't tell what the content is in the memo. I'm like, you're insane.  

 

Kevin:    00:59:55    You see the voicemail, you're like, oh God, I don't wanna click it. 'cause then they'll know I read it. I I've been like, <laugh>. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:00:01    It's like five minutes long. You're like, are you kidding?  

 

Kevin:    01:00:03    Yeah. It's like, oh yeah. Um,  

 

Kristin:    01:00:05    So that's good. So you have, you and your co-founder are in different countries right now?

 

Kevin:  Yeah.

 

Kristin:  Where's Wilson?  

 

Kevin:    01:00:11    So Wilson's in Taiwan.  

 

Kristin:    01:00:12    Taiwan, okay. Yeah. Oh cool. So you've covered both time zones and then you have your project manager. Yeah. You've got mostly everyone putting their stuff into the system. And then I guess it's all branding for your business, but it's also personal branding as well. 'cause you're like the face of the company.  

 

Kevin:    01:00:29    Yeah. So for me, podcasting like this, it's kind of like I just like have assistant who just sort of helps me schedule my podcast throughout the week. So like we have like a my, she has access to my schedule, but then for my own podcast we record every Friday at like 1:00 PM and that's when we record. And it's just like a thing we've been doing for the past like year or so and like it's like anything productivity or or anything in general. It's just like being consistent helps. Like I, I know I always record every Friday so I know I have to have something and it's like, versus like what I used to do before and it's like, oh, I'll record one one episode this week and like you wouldn't have it put anywhere and then like you would forget and it's like, oh yeah, I'll just do it Saturday. And it's like, oh Saturday I kinda would just hang out on Saturday. Yeah. So yeah.   

 

Kristin:    01:01:10    Yeah, I do all my calls on Fridays now. Like, well we did this one today because I had to cancel our other call. But I usually have podcast interviews and consulting calls baked into my calendar on Friday. So I just know what I'm doing that day. Yeah. And then you get in the mode and you can stand and walk around and just be on the phone all day. Yeah. And then I kind of feel burnt out at the end of the day, but it's way better than doing calls every day.  

 

Kevin:    01:01:36    Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:01:37    And that's also been kind of fun as you were saying at the very beginning of the interview through all the places that you've lived. Like you could be in Taiwan or Portugal. Yeah. I used to be walking on the beach in Costa Rica. Yeah. And there's like two cans in the background. Yeah. Or I would be walking on the beach in Florida and it's like the sound of the ocean and the birds. People are always like, where are you? Yeah. I'm like, I might as well get my 10,000 steps in <laugh> while I'm talking to you.

 

Kevin:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Kristin:  So yeah, that's good. Batching. Batching is very, very good.

 

Kevin:    01:02:05     I think it's very important. Yeah. And like just setting time to just even blocking out a full day just to work on stuff. And I think that's so important. If you can't, it's another thing I tell my teammates to do is, I'm not sure if you heard of like the Pomodoro Technique is pretty effective. Yeah. So a Pomodoro Technique. I think a lot of people real don't realize how much work they can get done in like a 25 minute block of just pure work time. I tell people like, this is probably like the basic productivity technique. And then if you want more go, go and do more. But with anything like that, at least for you probably are the same way too. Like if I see myself doing something more than once, I will then go to Google, like, I keep doing this thing. How do I like not do it over and over again? Right. It's like, which is so funny because I tell people that all the time. They're like, I would never think about that. I'm like, what? Like I see myself copy and pasting and short cutting all this crazy shit. I'm just like, I'm like, okay, I'm taking a screenshot, I'm dragging it here. I'm like, how do I do this in like one move? And then I'm like, oh, this is the move. I'm like, all right, great. I save so much time. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:02:59    Totally. I'm always googling those kinds of shortcuts and things. Yeah. And because I'm like, why am I, why am I doing this over and over again? Yeah. Like a robot.  

 

Kevin:    01:03:07    Yeah, exactly.  

 

Kristin:    01:03:08    But yeah, work from home productivity or remote work productivity is really, I think it's like a lifelong challenge. And I mean everyone who works from home, 99% of people according to some of those corporate research studies, they never wanna go back to the office because like why would you, I mean maybe sometimes or maybe to coworking spaces or maybe for events and conferences, but like for the most part, you know, even though there's pros and cons of working from home or working from anywhere, like it's still better than commuting to cubicles and stuff unless there's some specific reason to go that day. But some of the things I've been, I guess, experimenting with is, I like the Pomodoro Technique, but depending on the work, because sometimes if you need to do like focused deep work, you need to get in flow and that's gonna take you into like this 1, 2, 4 hour period.  

 

Kevin:  Yep.

 

Kristin:    01:03:56     And so for everyone listening too, like I've kind of been balancing the Pomodoro technique. I've done something called like my Power Hour <laugh> Gotcha. At the end of the day. Yeah. Where I just try to do like 15 minute increments of tasks that I haven't done yet. And I just try to knock them out really quick because otherwise a task fills expands to fill the time that you give it. But then there's other things I've been doing, which a guy and my mastermind and I have been doing where we pick one task to work on for the whole day. And that's also really productive because you don't have to be like, okay, I have like two hours to work on this and then I have a phone call and then I have a Zoom meeting and then I'm gonna eat lunch. And then you answer email. It's like your brain gets split up. But if you have like a really intense task, like let's say like editing a video, it's like something that can take many, many hours. <laugh> like it can take 10 hours to do. I'm like, I'm just gonna work on this video all day until it's done. Yep. And then go play or whatever. So that's I guess my tip to piggyback off of what you said. And then you just keep doing it until it stops working. <laugh>. Yeah.  

 

Kevin:    01:05:01    Yeah. And then you're like, oh, I want a different technique. 'cause you got tired of that technique and you look for something else. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:05:07    Yeah. I wanna ask you one more thing before we get into like some of like the lightning round. You've done a lot of case studies on different companies that I've seen when I was Googling you <laugh>. Yeah. From Squatty Potty to like Magic Spoon Cereal. And I've listened to some of your podcasts and interviews. So like it, it brings me back to business school doing these case studies. But do you find that that has been helpful in inspiring you, inspiring in your creative company? And what are some of the insights that you've gotten from breaking down the marketing strategies of these big companies?  

 

Kevin:    01:05:47    Yeah, I think for like we, yeah, we do a lot of breakdowns of like some of the other marketing companies and really it's, for me it's just because I like learning to see what they're doing, but also it's helpful for me to sort of like a lot of times these brands that you work with, they're looking for like what makes other brands different. And then showing these sort of cases and breakdowns allows me to say, Hey look, this is what makes Squatty Potty different than what you're doing. Like, like really it's like your brand's very boring and why does this company stick out? Because they're very unique and this is what they're doing. And sometimes for me it's as a way to tell other founders, people saying like, Hey, like you're being very like vanilla, like the companies are sticking out are doing this and that's why you like them.  

 

Kevin:    01:06:28    And I, I'll show them, Hey look like what companies do you like? I just like usually ask them and I'm like, then I'll do a case study. They're like, oh by the way, I just did a case study on this brand <laugh>. And it kind of like helps me. Like it's like anything, any big brand that you see right now, there's a reason why it's 'cause they're probably controversial. They're different. They're unique and I like to sort of use these case studies to show them too. And also just like for my own team to uh, think about creative ideas that we can do. Um, because it's sort of, it doesn't help as just like a YouTube video, but it's also for like internal training, uh, videos that uh, our creative team can watch say, Hey look, this brand is really good. Here are the videos we're running, here's how they're thinking about it. That's kind of like how we think about it there. Because I try to think about like what would make a client basically change their mindset of like how they think about their brand. And a lot of people are just very conservative about their brand, even though there's like no brand, right? It's like, like you have no brand, but like, okay, hey look at the ones that you look up to and then go check there.  

 

Kristin:    01:07:17    Yeah. And that's another good argument for people to look up from their work sometimes. Because when you're filling every hour of the day with something on your to-do list, you don't have that time to kind of reflect and just think and wonder and daydream and strategize and and just go down the rabbit hole of what other people are doing instead of looking at them as competitors. Even. Because a lot of companies are always jockeying for position against their competitors. It's like looking across industries at what different companies are doing. And like, I don't have a cereal company. But I really like Magic Spoon's simple, clean website, their colors, their call to action. Like as a e-commerce site, if you wanna get people to buy cereal, it really works. And it gives me ideas where I look at my website and I'm like, oh my God, <laugh>, I need to redo everything. So I would recommend people to do that. And I also recommend people to, if there's like a company that you're interested in to look for interviews with the CEOs of those companies because you can usually get lots of gold that you're not gonna find in a Forbes article or  

 

Kevin:    01:08:28    Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:08:29    something like that.  

 

Kevin:    01:08:30    I think it's such a great tip because that's what exactly what I do. Like the great thing about podcasts too is if you go to like all these like entrepreneurship podcasts with the founders, the founders will tell you like everything they're doing and like it just comes out. 

 

Kristin:    01:08:41    They have  no filter.  

 

Kevin:    01:08:41    Yeah. It just comes out. But versus like writing an article, they'll be like more like, okay, let me put that

 

Kristin:  Sensor

 

Kevin:  Yeah, yeah. But say, yeah, I think what you said, it's such a great tip. Like for example, like I like looking at the brand that I really like nowadays is I just did a case study of them HIMS, like Ed Pill. And if you look at like the founder, I think it was like, I forgot his name was, and I just went to the iTunes director and searched for his name. And there's so much good stuff about how they grew the company, how they thought up the company, how they got ad placements. I was like, whoa, like this is crazy. Like this guy's so smart. And it just gives me ideas. And I tell people like, I like listen to this stuff too. Because when I'm talk to potential founders or prospects, I'd be like, oh yeah, remember that from this podcast. Let me say this and like think it's a unique idea. Right. <laugh>. So it's <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. So I love like learning. Yeah. 

 

Kristin:    01:09:26    Yeah.  That's a great way to learn. And I actually shout out to one of my consulting clients, her name's Ava. She is starting her own Instagram ad company basically, or like an Instagram management company. I've been working with her for a few months and I told her, I gave her the names of some Instagram TV people who I had seen speak at conferences and even looking at LinkedIn or you know, looking at who's working at the company in the departments that you are building a business off of. So it's like you wanna look at the employees of that company and who's the head of marketing or who's the head of Instagram reels or whatever. Yeah. And then try to Google them, Google find articles or interviews or anything that they've done where they're dropping value bombs basically. Because probably 0% of people are doing that. And you can just get a lot of info. So great tips. All right. Well let's get into a little bit of a lightning round here. What is your favorite leisure travel destination and what is your favorite remote work destination?  

 

Kevin:    01:10:33    Oh, I like, so my favorite leisure one, I probably like going to El Salvador, which is where my family's from. Uh, so that's like Central America. Uh, I used to go there all the time growing up. Uh, so I like going there just to visit family and just kind of like relaxing It kind of like, just very different than New York City. So when I travel, I'm pretty used to like a lot of these places that's been very different than U-United States because I was like, always was there. But my favorite works place to go. I really love Taiwan. I try to go back in December. So I just applied for like the Taiwan Gold Card so I can go in during the pandemic. So I'm, I'm hoping, I just actually just got it. So I'm gonna go to the consulate to like get my visa or whatever.  

 

Kristin:    01:11:09    Oh, what is that? I haven't researched that yet.  

 

Kevin:    01:11:12    It's called like Taiwan Gold Employment Card. And it basically allows you to go there even during this pandemic and you have like, it's like a seven year employment visa. Um, you need to meet, meet some qualifications like the economic qualifications, uh, which is like making over 60K a year and then that's it. And then you pay $200 and then within a month they're like, okay, cool. Come. 

 

Kristin:    01:11:30   I  gotta do a video on that <laugh>.  

 

Kevin:    01:11:32    Yeah. Yeah. So Wilson was like telling me about it. He's like, oh, you should come. And I was like, I can, he's like, oh, you should do this thing. And I was like, and I, and he's like, and then he researched it for me and then he like told me all the stuff and I was like, I did it within a month I got approved and now I just gotta, I can go travel and obviously I'm not gonna go now, but like in December I wanna go for like a month or so.  

 

Kristin:    01:11:50    Nice. Yeah. And then in El Salvado, uh, which city do you stay in or do you go to the beach?  

 

Kevin:    01:11:55    So our family grew up in this place like called like El Volcán, which is like about 20, 30 minutes away from San Miguel, which is like the metro center. So that's kinda like more of like a city. But we usually, sometimes it's like more like, kinda like a very like Portish town, which is my grandma lives there like a, kinda like a little farm there. But usually we like to go to like San Salvador, which is like the capital 'cause that's like more like a city when like I would think any of these countries, like as now they have internet, they have Wi-Fi and better places like to go and a little bit safer now with like the new government there. So.  

 

Kristin:    01:12:27    Yeah, I know I, I used to live in Nicaragua in 2008. Yeah. And I could <laugh>, I always laugh. I could see El Salvador from my house. Yeah. But I could literally see Alaska from my house. Yeah. Or what's their name say I could see Russia from my house. Yeah. But um, I could see the, the volcanoes and the mountains there and that bay Right between Nicaragua and El Salvador. Yeah. And took some boats <laugh> up there, but it was dangerous about at least, I guess that was 12 years ago now. Geez.  

 

Kevin:    01:12:54    Yeah. 'cause El Salvador is right in the ring of fire. So they have like five volcanoes. I think two are active. So we live going up one of the active volcanoes. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, it's the last time, like there was like something was I think 2012 and it was just like ashes and smoke. But it's like we told my grandma like, uh, it's like someone was asking me like, oh, would you ever move out there? I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't live there. But like the people that live there would never move there. 'cause even my grandma, she's like, I grew up here, I'm never leaving. She's like, if I die, I die. I'm like, all right. Like coming to you. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like that like mentality because like you are never gonna force 'em to leave like their hometown. Right. So it's like Right. It's a, yeah. So, but it's interesting.

 

Kristin:    01:13:30     It's a different world these days. Yeah. Is there anywhere on your bucket list after Taiwan?  

 

Kevin:    01:13:35    I wanna go to Bali. I've never been there. So yeah, it's like one of the places I really wanted to go.  

 

Kristin:    01:13:40    Hopefully it reopens in 2021. We'll see. Yeah. And can you recommend some marketing books or, I know I've seen a lot of your reading lists and book lists online. Um, do you have any favorites that you can recommend to our listeners?  

 

Kevin:    01:13:54    Yeah, so my favorite book, which I think every business owner should read is DotCom Secrets by Brussel Brunson. I think it's, yeah, it's the best book. It teaches you everything you need to about funnel building traffics. And just like, it's not a, sometimes people want these books are very like how to do this on Facebook ads. It's more of like a general mindset type. A book of how to think about building traffic and funnels and bringing customers. And that's why I think it's so useful because it's very different than what most people teach online. And Russell has done it over and over again. And I think it's, yeah, I think it's probably one of my favorite books.   

 

Kristin:    01:14:25    I have that book here on my bookshelf. I have not finished it yet, but I just had a call with one of my friends in Amsterdam. We do like a quarterly mastermind and um, just check in with each other. He's a writer and has an online business and he read all of that. It's like a trilogy of books. And he is like, you need to read these. Like-  

 

Kevin:    01:14:44    It's the best books. Yeah. Yeah. Doc like yeah. It's so good.  

 

Kristin:    01:14:47    Nice. And do you have any technology remote work tools that you use on the road? Or are you just kind of like an iPhone and a laptop person?  

 

Kevin:    01:14:55    Yeah, mostly iPhone, laptop, Slack apps. That's pretty much it. That's pretty much, yeah. Most of the stuff like my MacBook. Yeah. Nothing else I think. 

 

Kristin:    01:15:03    Yeah.  Minimalist. Yeah. I'm gonna plug my store again 'cause I have a minimalist digital nomad set up in my Amazon store too. 'cause less is more.  

 

Kevin:    01:15:12    Yeah. You don't need too much. Like, plus like, just causes unnecessary stress. If you can't do everything on your laptop, then me, maybe you need to figure out like softwares or tools are available online. That way you're not like carrying all this other stuff.  

 

Kristin:    01:15:23    Yeah. You don't wanna have a lot of luggage. I know from experience <laugh>, I always over pack. Yeah. And so how can people connect with you and um, maybe get some of your services through Voy Media or also find your analyses on digital marketing and your podcast? Give us the list.  

 

Kevin:    01:15:40    Yeah, so my website, I guess Voy Media's website is VoyMedia.com. That's VOY. Uh, Voy is actually going Spanish. So wanted do something that was like Hispanic, like my family. So I just randomly made it up. Like I was like, okay, lemme just do this. So you can just go there, Kevin, at Voy Media. And then for our podcast, our podcast is called Digital Marketing Fastlane. And then you can search for that on iTunes, but also for the YouTube videos you can just search for my name or Digital Marketing Fastlane. And that's pretty much where you can find that stuff too.  

 

Kristin:    01:16:10    Awesome. Well thank you so much Kevin for sharing your secrets with us. Yeah. I'm definitely inspired to clean some things up in my business, <laugh> and refocus on this. 'cause I haven't been using Facebook ads lately this year. But thanks so much for, uh, your tips on building an agency business and everything. And we will see you somewhere. We'll see you online or in Taiwan.

 

Kevin:    01:16:33     I  hope so. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I, I can't wait. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    01:16:36    Stay safe up there.  

 

Kevin:    01:16:37    Thank you.  

 

Kristin:    01:16:43    Thank you so much for listening. And remember to leave a review for the podcast wherever you listen and share this episode with someone you think it might help. 



Kevin UrrutiaProfile Photo

Kevin Urrutia

CEO and Founder of Voy Media

Kevin Urrutia is the CEO and Founder of Voy Media. He worked for tech companies like Intuit and Zarly amid the biggest tech rush in Silicon Valley. Inevitably, he sought more opportunities and found his true lifelong passion in e-commerce. He has built brands across multiple industries and earned the title of 4X e-com entrepreneur, generating $50M in revenue a year. Most recently, he was part of developing the Shopify app Metrics Box and published a guide for aspiring digital marketers called Digital Marketing Made Easy. He is also the host of the hit marketing podcast Digital Marketing Fastlane.