Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have.
I'm now at $20,000 per talk. Five and six million.
He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Yesterday, you guys heard me talk to Cam Doody. He's 30 years old, and he's making 450 grand, not per year, not per month, but per week from a small Tennessee town. All right, Top Tribe, our guest today is James Hickey. He's a top leader in the internet marketing industry.
He provides his clients and students with a proven internet marketing business model for retail businesses. James is currently looking for retail businesses in San Diego or globally that want to grow their business using the internet.
He also created his own special internet marketing consultant training program for use by business owners and individuals looking to start a career with internet marketing. James, are you ready to take us to the top?
Yes, I am. Thanks, Nathan. Thanks for having me on.
You are welcome, but I'm a little offended. You started in the pre-call by calling me basic. No, just kidding. He said these questions seem basic, but James did have a tough night, guys. Top Tribe, good morning, good morning. Hope your jog's going good or your morning commute. James said he made the mistake last night of installing Microsoft, what'd you say, or Windows 10.
Windows 10, yeah.
And it is crashing your computer.
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Chapter 2: How much revenue can internet marketing generate for businesses?
Hey, that's a really good way to think about it. I'm sure Microsoft appreciates that. Okay, James, walk us through what you're focused on. People hear internet marketing, they immediately get turned off. They go, oh, it's this internet marketing thing. You're the real deal. Walk us through what you do.
Well, what I've found when I talk to people lately is they ask me what I do. I just say I specialize in lead generation. And I kind of leave it at that.
Emails specifically or phone numbers or anything specific?
Yeah, well, it's all internet-based. So I basically, I'll say, I specialize in lead generation for businesses with websites. And then I'll be quiet because I know that every single business out there needs more leads and sales and traffic from their website. So I already know that they, I have what they need. I have the knowledge of what they need. So I've kind of led with that.
I used to lead with, I'm an internet marketing consultant or a social media marketing consultant. And you could tell people looked really just like, oh yeah, another one of those guys, you know? So I think my, my new opening, I'm a lead generation expert, lead generation specialist has really turned a lot of heads.
So you're working with retail clients. Help us understand what is your typical contract with a retail client look like?
Very good question. It varies. My client, my contracts range between 750 a month up to 5,000 a month. So that's about the average. Anything over 5,000 is a little more high in consulting and less fulfillment. But most of my accounts cover a lot of social media. But they also cover some SEO strategies or building up their links and backlinks.
It covers a lead generation system, sales funnels, capture pages, email follow-up system.
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Chapter 3: What strategies does James Hickey use for lead generation?
And then it can also include the bigger contracts, video marketing strategies and blogging strategies and web traffic strategies.
So if I run, just to break that down real quick, James, if I run Latka's Cufflinks in San Diego and I need help online, I find you, what are you proposing to me specifically that you're going to help me do online? Is there something specific?
Well, what is, you'd have to tell me a little bit more about what cufflinks is.
Uh, cufflinks like that, that men put in the, in their suit, in their button down suits at the end. Yeah. Those cufflinks. So that's all I sell.
Sorry. We have a networking, big networking group out here called cufflinks. So I was, so I was kind of like, uh, what does that mean?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So what would you do?
I've got an Etsy shop that I sell some of these through. I sell some on eBay. I have a little basic website. I want more people visiting my store. How can you help?
Right, right, right. Well, something like that I would definitely use social media to target people. Make sure you had a really solid Facebook page, a lot of likes on your page, a lot of content about your cufflinks, why they're good, why they're great, how they look, how women like them. Maybe some funny videos or funny posts about your industry. I would kind of use social media
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Chapter 4: What does a typical contract with a retail client look like?
I can do either or it depends on the clients. So either I work with someone else's marketing department, I work with their whole team, or I have my own team that works under me. So this, the 2014 and 15, I've been doing more working with other people's marketing departments. But occasionally, if I see the right fit, I will take on someone and actually handle their fulfillment. And I have a few...
students of mine who have gone through my course, who I know that I've trained already, who helped me with the fulfillment. So I have a small team under me.
Okay, so I want to dig in. You just mentioned a course. I want to dig into that in a second. But first, how many clients are you currently working with that are in the retail industry?
I have about between six and eight. Some of them are like straight trade that I work on. So barter.
Mm-hmm.
But I probably have about six, seven clients. I have four dentist offices. I have a big weight loss company with three locations.
So physical, physical locations is really your specialty then not necessarily retail.
Not really. I've done everything from mobile app download strategies for 120 military bases. I had 16 steakhouses in Kansas City. I worked with Verona Casino before. It's a big Indian casino out here. So I'm not limited to anything. Great.
Well, I have to ask, I'm holding this back, but I know I can feel the listeners wanting to know this. Anytime I hear someone go, I'm not limited to anything. I think, well, wait, how are they going? How are they like the best at any one thing?
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Chapter 5: How does social media impact business growth?
So like you just mentioned dentists, restaurants, like if people are going to hire you to do like one thing better than anyone else in the world, what is that one thing?
I would say the one thing that I really feel I deliver, I know I deliver to my clients is a form of lead generation and accountability and analytics that show that the services that I'm providing to them are valuable to them so that they want to keep paying me the same fee or more and they don't want me to go away because I know if I go away, then their business will fall.
Got it. And so walk me through, you've got six to eight clients paying you between $750,000 and $55,000 a month. How big is the team that you have on those clients?
How big is my team?
Yeah, your team. Yep.
Right now, I've got two, three people. I've got two girls that help me with posting and fulfillment and setting up accounts, basic setup. And I've got an SEO guy that helps me with all of my SEO and any website design and any website build need to be done.
Okay, got it. And so I wanted to transition back over. You mentioned a course that you have. Tell me more about this course. What's it cost and why'd you launch it?
I'll tell you why I launched it. It's actually a fun little story. I didn't really get to tell my story in the beginning of this of how I got started in this industry. But in a nutshell, I don't know how much time we have, but in a nutshell, with the course, I got hired by a social media agency here in San Diego to train and oversee all their accounts.
So I couldn't commit to work full-time for them because I'm an entrepreneur. So I committed to work part-time for them. So I was training their whole staff. I had six to eight people under me, and I was training them on Google AdWords and sales funnels and social media marketing, Twitter marketing, LinkedIn, all this. I was training this whole staff, and I talked to my mentor.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of having a mentor in business?
By the way, I'll link to him, his stuff in the show notes at nathanlockett.com forward slash the top five, seven. I think that's a really important lesson, James.
So what happened was I was telling him, so I was telling Jay, I'm like, he's like, what are you up to, Jim? I was like, well, I'm working for this agency. I'm training like six to eight people on digital marketing and social media. He goes, if you're doing it for six to eight people, why don't you create your own course and do it nationally and globally and train people globally?
And the first thing I was just like mad, like, why didn't I think of that? And that's sometimes why you have to have a mentor because they see things that you don't see. So that was December 2010. January 2011, I just dug in and created the training center. I created a 12-module course.
Well, this is what it's up to now is 12 modules on how to get started, business compliant, online branding, finding your clients, servicing your clients. fulfilling analytics reporting. So it's a 12 module course with action steps. So it's almost like a mini college course. Then I back it up with 45 to 50 training videos on everything that I've been talking about here.
I have a training video that explains how to do it for a business owner.
And real quick, before you go into all the details, it's because I want people to have perspective. What's the price point on this?
The price point, the digital product is $295.
One time or is that annually or something? One time fee. Okay. Is there a physical component? You said you were very specific about saying digital.
On the physical component, I have group coaching, where if you want to come in for three months and be part of a group coaching, it's $1,000 or $9.95. And if you want one-on-one coaching with me, it's $2,000. For three months, you get me one-on-one. And I actually will work with you on all your first several accounts and really just hold your hand through coaching.
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Chapter 7: How has James scaled his online course and coaching program?
So when you launched this in January 2011, you're creating it. I imagine you launched it sometime in Q2 or Q3 of 2011. How many people jumped in? And then my next question is going to be how you got those people.
A lot of, right away, I mean, of course, you know, it's almost like you remember your first sale, you know. Yeah, tell us that story. You put your dollar bill on the wall. It was actually someone who was part of that Pro-U company that I was with who knew that I was still part of Pro-U. But I was with Jake Kubizak, but everybody in there knew I was doing local business marketing.
So they had seen me and they were like, wow, we were wondering, you know, how you got started with local business marketing. Now you've created something to show everyone.
So how many people bought that first course? Let's say even to date, how many people have gone through it?
I've probably close to 300.
Okay, got it. And of 300 people that buy the 295 digital course, how many of them choose to do the physical option as well?
Well, for the first couple of years, I didn't even have the digital option. So you had to buy the whole course and have me coaching you. So the first couple of years, the first probably 100 or so, we're pretty much all one-on-one people. But what I realized, I couldn't scale it that way. It was too many people and my bandwidth just couldn't handle that many one-on-one calls.
So I had to scale it down and make a digital version and then do a group coaching and then one-on-one for the people that are more serious.
So outside of the agency side, again, where you have six to eight clients that pay you up to five grand per month, you've done this $300 course, which you've put 300 people through, so about 90,000 bucks in revenue over the past five to six years. Why do you do that? Do you do that because they become then monthly retainer clients?
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Chapter 8: What are the pricing options for James's coaching services?
The thousand dollar personal, the stuff.
Well, for the first two years, probably the first 100 people are 150. So that's 150,000 right there.
I see. I see. Okay. Sorry, that was a gap I had missed. Okay, great. Well, again, you have a funnel that was cranking for you. It started off with your agency consulting, doing six to eight clients between $750,000 and $5,000 per month. You then, using your coach, said, holy cow, why don't I put a membership, some course together with 50 videos in it. You've put hundreds of people through.
and then upsold them into physical and one-on-one coaching. So you're sitting on a rocket ship, James. Thanks for sharing your story. Okay, Top Tribe, I want to give you more brain juice this month totally free. If you're loving this episode, text the word NATHAN, N-A-T-H-A-N, to 33444. for your chance to win a prize on an upcoming show.
The next prize is a pack of 14 business books valued at 250 bucks if you bought them on Amazon. And these books are the ones that Mark Zuckerberg thinks every entrepreneur must read.
We're about to get into my favorite part of the show.
Do you know what's next?
No, go ahead. I forgot all your questions already. Come on, James.
Dude, it's time for the famous five. It's time for the famous five. You ready? All right. Give me number one here, James.
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