From Failing SMMA to $250,000/yr with AI in 5 Months

if you're kind of trying to get started in the smma space it is so my number one advice would be take it over to AI my whole entrepreneurial Journey started with social media marketing agency so I just felt like I was sprinting and eventually I slipped and I fell off and uh that company went bankrupt you've become an expert level of what A4 million dollars worth of compensation per year or up to that within one of these roles within the space of a few months you literally have an engineer in your title never been an engineer before I finally found a way to create things create uh voice Bots within 15 20 minutes I and I became an expert in that

field hello everyone welcome back to the channel and today we have a very special guest will member of my accelerator who's gone from a college drop out with a struggling smma with zero coding experience to Landing a job as the chief Solutions engineer at one of the top AI voice startups in the world so well thank you for coming on today and looking forward to digging into your story it's a pleasure uh to be on here I've always been someone I looked up to so it's really it's really nice to be able to connect to you one-onone yeah it's awesome nice to beet you man um we can jump into things straight away and get into how you've gone from where you were just a couple months ago to Landing this role um so start off with your story really how did you get into the space your SM days I think everyone's going to want to hear that transformation because there's so much interest in the space of can I go out of an older vehicle like into this so let's just jump in there uh yeah it's never

really been a question of can I it's just if I will so I knew that there was an opportunity out there for me and I knew that all I had to really do was just dedicated myself to go get it and um my whole entrepreneurial Journey started with social media marketing agency given the fact that it was like the biggest thing and you couldn't go on social media without seeing a startup social media marketing agency um so I went ahead and I did that and I had relative success I did it for just around uh two years and um I watch it grow gradually um I always think of social media marketing kind of like uh pedaling on a treadmill because you're always trying to keep up with your clients and they'll always seem to like run away from you so the better your social media marketing agency gets it's just like the higher level that the treadmill is going so I just felt like I was sprinting and eventually I slipped and I fell off and uh that company went bankrupt I sold all My Equity um and from there I was kind of lost I didn't really know what to do I was kind of back at square one um and square one's just like the worst place to be because you don't know what fork in the road you want to go so um I thought to myself you kind of have to be an idiot not to know that AI is taken over and everyone talks about it so why not utilize it was using a little bit of it um as I mentioned it's hard to look up uh AI on YouTube and not see your face so um of course you showed up on my feet yeah exactly it's really hard not to right not to see you and just like uh everyone else in the network um it's really hard to say no to your offer as well when I came across your network uh just because of how powerful it is how many people there are with similar interest and uh um I joined your network I started learning my AI skills and uh it's I make it sound simple but it it's just nights of not knowing what you're going to do pulling out your hair and thinking that this way too hard and you have to learn a new software and it's definitely I make it seem simplified when I say it like this but uh I contined to learn new softwares and

I learned uh how to do low code and that kind of developed into high code and um I started using a software called thly and uh when I used that software I um I used it for my own agency and from there I created Partnerships within your community and with in thle and it kind of blew up into this deal of becoming a cheap solutions engineer um at thle that's something I could touch on a little bit too but in a in the broad scheme of things that's pretty much what happened to me on this roller coaster of the last three years yeah and I think the most amazing thing to me about your media is just how quickly you've done you said online business for 3 years but the this little St you've done in the AI space is what only 3 to four months since you what was since you got into the accelerator or since you started watching my content approach the AI space in general so what are the timelines on all this you sold me quick L I it's I think I only had to watch your content for it only took me a maybe he sell it no three days I think I watched your videos and then I was like right I can't just go with the YouTube I need a deep dive into his into more of his content into his Network and talk to the people that he knows um so yeah I went ahead and I got enrolled into to your network and it's the fastest my business has ever grown um I I've started more businesses in social media marketing I've always been like an entrepreneur so I was when I was a kid I used to sell my candy on Halloween so like I've done I've done businesses my whole life I've tried businesses and never is everything ever growing this quick on me so um uh it's crazy how the AI space kind of uh kind of changed my life at such a rapid Pace I don't even my family couldn't even keep up with it I would see my cousins and like two months ago they didn't even know I was in the AI space and I'm like oh yeah I'm moving to New York because you know I'm a chief Solutions engineer at a software company so that must I mean it must

be hard for you didn't even understand it literally like a lot of the time I as entrepreneurs we will be working very hard for a long time we see the changes in our life and we go well they like of course I'm here but even in this casee it's been so quick for you it must be shocking so imagine that for your family it's just most like impossible for them to grasp just like how quickly um like a two months three months ago he was talking about this AI thing and now he's got a job at a startup in New York so we dig into that a little bit more and I think people want probably want to know about what this Chief Solutions engineer role is um people if you've never heard of forly before it's one of the top AI voice agent platforms that's out there um they've reach out for multiple times the team seems lovely over there really glad that you You' led up with them and I know they've already got some really great stuff on their hands so I'm excited to see what you can do in that position but can you tell us a little bit more about what your role is there and how you've been able to transfer over what you've learned from running your own AI automation agency selling these voice Solutions now essentially being that head agency owner within uh within thle yeah luckily it wasn't too big of a transition for me simply because uh I was already providing the solutions that they want to provide uh within my own agency so all of the solutions that I was doing creating voice Bots and automations using make. com and zappier is something that they're looking for in a chief Solutions engineer who's pretty much just going to be looking over all of the operations within their white Club service and making sure that uh that their High ticket clients are getting the services they deserve so um all of the services I was providing is now something that I could utilize within another business and um it kind of goes to show that even on the days that you think that you're not making any progress you're kind of just sculpting your character into the thing that you need to be in order uh to get what you want so um just learning that software inside and out just paid off for me in such a great way to where I could sustain a agency and then take those Services into uh into the actual uh software company and of itself yeah I think the another key part

of this the story for people who are looking to get into starting an agency is one the fact that you have no development experience and you've been out of go and now get a achiev Solutions like you literally have an engineer and never been an engine before so I think that's just a great example of the AI space in action and how much opportunity there is here and how low the the perceived experience is that you need to have in order to get these kind of roles is like in the AI voice space it's only really been a thing for the past six months or so you you've become an expert level of what a quar million dollars worth of compensation per year or up to that within one of these roles within the space of a few months because you are one of the top0 point 1% of users of these platforms so can you give for people who are looking to and this is kind of part of my strategy and recommended strategy forness getting started now is to pick one area one tool or one Niche or one platform and become very good at it and that's how you can get your you can become the top 1% on top 0. 1% within a small area or within one platform get noticed by certain people and be the be voice authority within the space of a couple of weeks or a couple months so how were you able to learn this platform so quickly as someone who's not a development who doesn't have the Bop background and do you have any tips on well firstly what was your process for learning this um and then what would you recommend for anyone else who was in a similar position to you want to get started on a certain tool and get deep and become an expert absolutely um

to touch on that first question that you answered there uh what was like kind of the process of learning the system so um I wasn't one to I mean when I watch your videos I know you're supposed to Niche down and you're supposed to find a certain Niche and then provide a certain service I was one of those AirHeads who was like I need to attack everything I need to provide everything to everyone because that's the biggest market and uh you you'll quickly find a big Market you're not wrong you you'll Qui Market you'll quickly find out that if you try giving to everyone uh it's very hard to reach the amount that you want to so if you Niche down you'll be able to get a select few that are meet your criteria but um as I started to Niche down I started um I started kind of finding solutions that would be uh utilized well in my Niche so I started with just AI receptionist I want to take your leads from point A to point B and uh I did my research on a bunch of different platforms and I tried every platform I had a subscription to around six different uh accounts and uh some are still running I forgot to even cancel them but um trying everything is just so important if you just if you try one software or strategy and turns out it didn't work then if that's going to be your perceived value of the whole entire Mission ahead of you that's a tad bit huous but um I made sure to try absolutely everything and fall over a bunch of times and I made sure to find something I liked and then that considered that a step forward and of itself and um I came across thly and I absolutely loved it I know that they had a small team and I kind of had an idea of maybe like uh providing some value in the future but never anything that I thought would turn into this um and I learned that it's simple as learning the software um by yourself it's kind of those lone lonely nights where it's like midnight and you should be sleeping but you still have to like figure something out or you're still on like a puzzle that hasn't been completed um and uh I finally found a way to create things create uh voice Bots within 15 20 minutes I and I became an expert in that field my accolades even got notied from the guys over at thle they were talking about me in their office without me even knowing um and that also just goes to show with those nights where you think that there's no progression um turns out there was somebody on the other of computer just looking at the progression I was making watching your progress a little bit yeah um and I forgot that followup question as well but that's kind of how I got started in the whole th space that's cool I like what you said there about um people I mean the progress that you're making behind the scenes people typically think that that's something that like you're butting your head against the wall and you think you're not making any progress but you're still building up the skills of actually tackling those problems and like what you were saying about having to try all platforms that's step one in building up some kind of knowledge Gap and expertise right so if you're looking to become an expert in a certain space if you're looking to voice AI step one is to test them all as you can't be possibly be an expert if you don't have some familiarity with all the tools and understand which ones are good at different things there a videas that's popping up right now on comparing these different platforms so I step one in becoming an expert and go deep in a field is going to be testing those different uh tools out within a certain Niche so that's it's a great thing to show that you can go onto these no good platforms and become an expert and get hired to Lally become an engineer or as Chief Solutions engineer selling on a platform like that um I want to jump into now a little bit more of your success within the agency before you got into this role so can you run us quickly through um how you started your agency you said you've covered a little bit of it now but you can you go through the clients you signed in the short SP of time that you were runting just the agency and how you were C acquiring those clients as well because you as a as an EXs owner at this such an interesting space and I love seeing people come over to this opportunity because you're a great example of taking the skills that you buildt up in a very difficult vehicle where acquisition is an absolute challenge like you said it's a tread M and I mean I'm a lot of my friends are running these businesses as well and like I know firsthand how difficult it can be for them so for you be able to transfer alth those skills open into an area where acquisition is so easy because the offer is fresh um can you tell us a little bit more about how you were using your smma acquisition skills within the AI space

yeah uh I hope this resonates with if there's anybody who's watching this who's in smma space um if you're kind of trying to get started in the smma space it is so my number one advice would be take it over to AI smma is so saturated and I don't mean it to be like it's impossible to be successful in smma but it's so saturated and so hard to break through the noise the amount of emails I even get just saying like we could bring in a thousand leads um it's very hard to break through the noise in smma so um I was using zappier and uh some tiny some chap op Builders within um within my smma and it kind of pivoted into AI um I think uh I think you would kind of have to be blind or an idiot to realize that AI is not going to be taken over the future so um I thought what I could have two choices it's either I could work with AI or I could work for AI so I went ahead and I made the choice of working with AI um and I took all of my acquisition skills that I previously had in smma uh like LinkedIn Outreach um I used tripop file a whole lot um I would send uh Instagram DMS and I would also run Facebook ads so um with that I used those strategies and I found which one would work best with the ipace and I quickly found out that LinkedIn was the best way to do so I I capitalized on my drify campaigns and I kind of played around with a different copy and um I think the most valuable Insight I can give on um acquiring clients in this space is giving away free value um the Alex arosi method of jab cross give ask is something that I've used for a long time and I start by simply offering a free chap out or a free solution for their business completely deployed into their business absolutely free of cost and if uh I can guarantee that those uh messages aren't being delivered into their inbox completely offering a free service so I'm breaking through the noids right there from there I would create a partnership off of a free basis and then they would feel compelled to sign up for some more services given on the the expertise that I that I've shown in offering a free service so things kind of capitalized on that as

well so you're just rocking in there sitting up a d fight campaign excuse me Dri fight campaign testing a bunch of different uh different first messages and different copy you're saying hey look I build you free XYZ and you you're probably just looking these builds up on voice flow from a template or something right or something very basic or even like CH base or something yeah okay yeah I mean there's so many options there you you're just taking that doing it very quick and easy delivery for them as long as you're happy with it then you've got your foot in the door you've got some kind of Goodwill with them and this is go back to something that I'm I've got a bunch of videos coming on it but there's really three key things that we're noticing across the community of what makes a su successful agency and firstly it's technological a technical expertise on understanding AI understanding how it can help businesses understanding at least a couple of these tools and how you can use them to create value with AI secondly it's some kind of lead look and finally it's authority and credibility in order to get those deals closed right so in your case you're sending out the M you're showing you have the technical expertise to go on and build these chat BS uh the free ones that you offer them you've got the technical expertise there and also the technical expertise on Bly to UPS to other offers as well you've got the lead flow coming in through the Dy campaigns and you've also got the authority and credibility from the fact that you were delivering that free off first right so you T tackle all of those different angles um and one I love that and I think it's so exciting seeing SM people sudden and triple over here now um because I think in your case like you've already got all the skills it's like hzi talks about there's a ladder right so you've got I think a skills and beliefs and then there's like the vehicle is also a key part and for him with gym launch he' been working in the gym industry for so long and he just built up all these skills and excellent client acquisition strategies and operational skills he just didn't have the vehicle yet as soon as he had gym launch he was just able to shoot up and I think there's so many SM owners like yourself who can TR transition into the space and apply all those skills and just get in the right vehicle after beating the same dead horse for so long so abolutely we go into a little bit of the community aspect as well because you've come obviously very far very quickly and you said a community was a massive aspect of that and I've got the free community and the accelerator and you came into that and we're just absolute Superstar from as soon as you Leed so can you please give us a walk through on how you were able to did you was it strategic or were you just and they just really buzzing about it you do really have to think about it too much and how can people follow in your footsteps to get the same kind of value out of communities yeah absolutely I

think Dear Community in particular is um I join a lot of communities I always think um I always think of the best purchase you can get is requiring more knowledge so uh I always sign up for courses and communities and whatnot and I'm not saying this just because I'm having an interview with you but I truly believe that you haven't paid him to say this by the way he's always completely unscripted yeah no this is uh this is absolutely comes from the heart especially given this the current situation that I'm in and such a beautiful financial situation I have ahead of me I've never joined a community that has changed my life like yours that's what we love to yeah that's aome we love it it's truly is it truly is a blessing and um I came across your community and like I mentioned it didn't take me long to realize to see the value and to see exactly how this could potentially change my life so I went ahead and without even thinking even reading the descriptions of your community I kind of just signed up for it knowing that it was worth it I just had to watch that one video good intro by the way it really hooked me um but uh I got it I got it to the community and I instantly started networking I started doing the same strategies I just mentioned I started saying potential collaborations I'll build out free chat B stre clients um I'll see where our strengths kind of align uh where you where your weakness is where my strengths are will make Partnerships from there I reach out to just about everybody in that community and I just tried to find nice little uh Partnerships that I could create and I eventually came across uh an AI consultant in that uh networking program along with many others but um uh I came across a guy named Brad castanza if he's watching this uh he's a really great guy he's always bringing in clientele that he uh kind of consults for and he passes off the services to me uh so that was a way I could BR I brought in like five clients a month and I continuously bringing in five to six clients a month just from him punish ship yeah he's just uh he's kind of just setting him up for me and I and I knock him out so um it just talking to the right people is so important I find that to be the most important part out of all of it whether be uh you screw the Outreach screw everything else I think if you could create a partnership between somebody and dig your foot in the right door you're setting yourself up for Success so I always try talking to the right people always try reaching out to somebody that could bring me to a Next Level would you recommend first bringing something to the table in that equation so in your case it was a thought lead expertise and you can come and say hey look hey XYZ will make a post in the community reply to a message and say hey look just shot you a DM would like to chat um will you really focus on bringing that Value First in your case you're saying hey I'm good at this you're good at that um maybe we can do something here so how important do you think that is because I think a lot of people hearing that will say oh I don't have to actually learn chat I can just come in here and like hope that someone's GNA give me a hand out that it's still important for them to be getting some kind of value that they can bring to the equation

right absolutely I definitely don't mean to be I don't mean for people to be arrogant when they walk in there and just think that they uh that they can walk in and make money no everyone needs a everyone needs like to get a little something in return for another thing so um absolutely being able to provide something is extremely important and uh no matter what it is like we mentioned before if you're just good at that one thing there's someone in your community who needs that one thing yeah and just like that you create a partnership that can completely change your life um so yeah I think that's really important to nail that one thing and be really good at you one that the one little aspect and that from there you could utilize that to create Partnerships and you can if you go narrow initially like Amazon started as a bookstore as the quote like you can go narrow and like in your case you've gone from a non complete non n developer to uh understanding these worst platforms and now backing out to more like proper traditional code and getting the solutions gig so you start narrow and because it's easier to become an expert in the narrow area especially when it's new like thei space you go narrow first and over time and just experience of working with cents you will be able to You'll encounter problems as you're trying to deliver them for clients and you might have to become a little bit more technical on the traditional side and say okay well here's you get these little micro challenges and little problems this is the exact same as when I got into the space and all the videos that I did early on I would I had like this narrow understanding of the certain area and then I over just all of the videos and client projects we did I had to slowly expand my knowledge and understanding so that it's a lot more broad now and that's how the really the most straightforward way of building a broad understanding of the topic is to start narrow and just work your way out the definitely the best way to overwhelm yourself is to look at the big picture top of the mountain instead of the step in Fria is the best way to overwhelm yourself if you were to try to take in zappier and voice Bots and chat Bots and everything that comes with it you're just overwhelm yourself completely AG it's good that you we mentioning this top because I've actually got a video that I've just finished planning which is probably going to come out sometime next week um and it's on five different ways to start an agency I it's because I know there's different routes there's the voice route there text based agent route there's becoming an automation specialist there's using the zap your ecosystem there's all these different starting points or starting blocks you can choose within your AI Journey right now and it's basically which narrow area do you want to focus on First and get good at just so you can and I'm trying to give a like a five or six set process of hey for the next three months just follow the sequence and you will already be narrow narrowly smart and a narrow expert in a certain area and I'm going to get all of you here on the channel a I think five or six different ways to get started and you can choose between them so if you haven't already subscribed you can subscribe for that cuz that video is coming out next week uh but to wrap things up I want to talk a little bit about your future now you're going over to thle moving from Florida back to well not back to New York but back up north and closer to close to in Chicago now go to New York back to the cold to some degree tell us a little bit about what you expected from this role um and where this fits into Will's Journey over the next I know 3 or five years is this uh longterm position I know you've got some ownersh now on the company as well so all it's all very exciting man I'd love to hear more about what your thoughts are absolutely I think uh nothing but up from here um of course there's going to be some Rocky Mountains but um I think that this is just an absolutely huge step forward I moved out to Florida with no clue of what I wanted to do I just needed to get away and break the noise and kind of separate myself um so I was in that isolationist period and that's kind of what I needed um and uh from there Landing that gig and New York I promise i' never go back to the cold but here I am I'm packing my things up going back to the cold um I think that it's it's not at that like I made it moment yet of course not um that's a follow-up question I wanted to ask you too if you've ever had that moment but um it's definitely like I'm in the right position at the right time and I know that I'm on track for something great and um yeah I got my apartment it's overlooking the city the skyline so uh I'm gonna have to start the YouTube channel brother yeah GNA stop talking about this stuff more we need you on the space as well absolutely that's

definitely something that I'm getting involved in as well um I the personal branding is something is a learning curb in and of itself but like everything just takes time and you can become professional at it but uh a followup question I wanted to ask you is if you've ever had that like oh crap like I I made it like this is it or has it always been like next step Next Step it's very interesting you asked that man um it's nice to have a question coming back my way once but uh yeah it's I see it in your eyes and I completely understand the feeling that you have right now and I think that's the not the holy grow that's the the end point or the ideal point that we are trying to get to as on sprs and for me it's been more recently in my career that I've reached that point of feeling like a little bit of like weight off my shoulders after 5 years of just constant hustle and constant Stress and Anxiety about like am I is this thing going to just explode overnight and just crumble in My Fingers um I say it's the example of when you're trying to grow a business and you don't know what leave to pull to grow it you might do 10 things and only like you have to work 10 out of 10 let's say 10 things in a month or year you have to be at a 10 out of 10 output for only one of them to work maybe yeah but once You' found what works you found vehicle might be your agency and you found that LinkedIn works you can okay I can just the next three months if I just scale my LinkedIn I know exactly that's going to bring in more clients and I can hire more developers and when you've got a clear path of okay now out of every 10 things I do I knew that nine of them are actually going to be something that grows in business and actually what's moving us forward you have this level of certainty that means you don't have to work at a 10x output you can work at a much more like just a regular output but everything that you do counts rather than one nine out of 10 things being wasted so for me in my business it's been a bit of a Coming of Age moment morning side the accelerator and aent finally getting into the point we're happy with it so I'd say over the past couple of months me man has been um one of those moments and uh it's a it's a glorious moment and that's really seeing it in your eyes and hearing from you is exactly what I'm trying to get I've felt this from the AI space I've justen by had all the guys out there and theyve all got that same spark in there I would have foundly thing they're happy in their position that the business is hard but it's hard in a good way that you know that you're struggling and sacrificing for something that's going to work long term and that you're getting some positive reinforcement from it as well so that's what I my the whole point of the channel is to get as many people to have wins like in your case where I'm like it's all up like I know it's up from here I found that found the opportunity and this space as you've discovered is just absolutely full of opportunities like that so that's really my mission on this channel is getting as win people winning in the Ws andway I have and that you you've just found as well yeah you mentioned an interesting point there too you just said you said for like the past five years just constant weight on your short shoulders how everything's just like crumbling down and you think everything's just going to fall apart um that touches into the point that entrepreneurship isn't like the sexiest thing in the world um everyone thinks entrepreneurship is just like be my own boss and I'm gonna cruise on yachts and then I'm gonna have Lambos and um yeah it couldn't be far it couldn't be farther off you're going to have to go maybe five 10 years of that crushing pain on your shoulders but uh you start falling in love with that pain you know you start almost so much that when the P when that Pain's taken off you're kind of like all why is it like it's a it's weird I was just going to say you go through it you gets like by the time you've gotten used to it to the point that it doesn't hurt anymore that's when it suddenly comes off your shoulders and now you're like I've just completely changed my entire psyche and everything in my life was just buil around dealing with the stress and the situation and now I have a good more free time when now I can do it's I've been going through a weird period of my life where I'm having to reevaluate like how I SP my time and what I prioritize and things like that um so yeah it's been an interesting period but I'm very grateful for the AI space and the rapid rise that me and my team have had over the past year and a half and that's what I'm trying to get too many people else to experience as well so well been an absolute pleasure mate I'm extremely excited to hear the updates on the thought the end um we'll leave a link defaultly down below now that you're on the team and your co-owner to sunry uh we' got a use the channel to help get you guys more users but I we to love the platform anyway if you guys have some interesting collabs that you want me to do I'm more than happy if you got some cool use cases you want me to drop on channel um I'm one happy to share things I mean you're doing the chief Solutions engineering now you can send me if these cool use cases with Bly um and I can put in a video then uh then we can do something like that as well absolutely I

would love that and it's an absolute pleasure uh just to have your endorsement um and it's a great talking to you as well once again looked up for you for a long time and just to be able to be in my uh in my care predicament where I get the opportunity to officially thank you for that uh for that big jump on my life but it's uh my absolute pleasure all the work was you like I say you guys do all the hard work I just talk about it here on the channel and you guys actually have to go out there and apply it every day and take those budges to the face in your business uh but it obviously all works out at the end if you put in the work in your case so um well wait I'm looking forward to hearing the updates on the story and as thanks you being part of the community and we really appreciate you here so I look forward to having some sort of update call later down the live absolutely thank you very much l