AI transcript
0:00:05 Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits Collection.
0:00:09 What’s up, what’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because
0:00:14 the rat race doesn’t need any more rats. Super interesting business model to share with you
0:00:20 today, and that’s white labeling someone else’s software tool. This is basically putting your
0:00:25 brand, your sales and marketing, and your frontline customer support on top of a software product that
0:00:32 already exists. And it comes with a lot of the benefits of SaaS, software as a service, namely
0:00:38 recurring revenue, good profit margins, without the upfront development time and expense to build
0:00:42 that thing in the first place. To make it work, you’re essentially playing matchmaker, finding
0:00:47 a common problem, and then pairing that with an already existing software solution. To help me
0:00:53 learn more about this is a self-described recovering engineer who started a marketing agency as a side
0:01:00 hustle eight, nine, 10 years ago, which has evolved into a multi six-figure white labeling operation
0:01:07 called Reputation Igniter. Through ignite.reviews, Chris Lelini helps small businesses earn more positive
0:01:12 reviews for their work. To help you brainstorm some potential white label niches for yourself,
0:01:17 I put together a list of 20 software and service niches and some examples of the corresponding software
0:01:22 tools you might be able to resell in each of those. You can download that free listener bonus file
0:01:27 at side hustle nation.com slash white label, or through the link in the episode description of
0:01:32 your podcast app. Again, side hustle nation.com slash white label. I’ll be back after the chat with
0:01:42 Chris. Ready? Let’s do it was an evolution for sure. I started an agency. I was part of a B and I group
0:01:47 business networking international chapter. And I was trying to sell all these different marketing services
0:01:51 for about two and a half years before I wised up for a presentation. I was like, wait a minute,
0:01:56 I really need to go more commodity type driven. I have to really give that sort of insight,
0:01:59 that idea to my incredible, amazing, insightful wife. And she’s like, you know, you just need
0:02:04 something that’s a little bit more easy to wrap your head around and sell that so that people can just
0:02:09 sort of, they can sink their teeth into it and they can move forward as opposed to your long sales
0:02:13 processes and, you know, their lengthy contracts and all that kind of stuff. So again, the insight that
0:02:18 she’s provided along my journey has been invaluable for sure. That’s why she’s my number one business
0:02:22 partner. All right. So something easier to wrap your head around. This is the call to
0:02:29 niche down, make it something easy to explain, which is ignite.reviews. This is, we’ll help you get more
0:02:34 reviews for your local service business. Yeah, exactly. That’s, that’s my, that’s my tagline really
0:02:40 is, you know, it’s reputation igniter. The, I got crazy with the, uh, the new TLDs that were coming
0:02:44 out and I was like, Oh, you know, my website will be ignite.reviews. I can’t tell you how much I’ve paid
0:02:52 for that sin over the years, but how so? Uh, well, just cause people like, uh, ignite.reviews.com.
0:02:59 No, no, no. It’s just ignite.reviews.com. No, no, no. Just, yeah. So you, you get the picture,
0:03:03 right? Um, so trying to explain my email address and, and, you know, there’s still a lot of forms
0:03:07 that don’t even accept that as an email address. Right. So, but anyways, yeah, it’s called reputation
0:03:12 igniter. And my tagline is more reviews, more customers. It’s like, Hey, how much more simple
0:03:16 can you get than understanding that? Hey, if you get more reviews online, you’ll get more customers.
0:03:20 And so, yeah. Okay. So what happens after that? So it sounds like you’re giving a presentation at
0:03:26 this networking group on how to get more reviews. You get people raising their hand in the audience,
0:03:30 coming up, handing you business cards, signing up on the spot. How does reputation igniter find its
0:03:35 first customers? From the agency side, this was a service that I was already offering. I just wasn’t
0:03:40 calling it a, you know, kind of a separate DBA. So as those contracts were kind of terminating for
0:03:45 the overarching marketing services, I just, I retained a lot of them for that specific service. Right.
0:03:50 Um, and in preparation for that, you know, event that that’s where I kind of rebranded myself.
0:03:54 And I would say there was quite a few people. I actually, after that BNI meeting is like,
0:03:59 Oh, I get what you do now. Like we should have a conversation. I was like, Oh my gosh,
0:04:04 maybe I’ve Eureka. I’ve found it kind of thing. And so, yeah, that led to quite a few clients
0:04:07 actually within the group. Obviously the whole goal is not to sell to the group, but sell through
0:04:13 the group. Right. But it made it way more easier for people to make referrals to me, recommend me,
0:04:18 uh, because they could articulate effectively kind of what, what I did in the value proposition that
0:04:23 more reviews were, I would say that I’m, you know, not as much as before, but, you know, still trying to
0:04:28 educate people on the power of reviews. I would say it’s more of the professionals like, you know, uh,
0:04:32 dentists or doctors who might kind of be stuck in old ways of like, well, that’s just not how you
0:04:37 build, you know, my type of a business. Right. But I would say far and wide, most people understand
0:04:41 that. And so that’s, that’s what I did is I just kind of let all that other stuff go, which by the
0:04:46 way, was a total blessing because I was just like, man, all that stuff is moving so fast to like try
0:04:51 and keep up on all of it and be effective at it. It was a little bit more of a burden and it turned my
0:04:56 side hustle into just a grind that didn’t look like there was any escape from it. To be honest with
0:04:59 you, I was like, this was the whole reason I got out of being an engineer. So, yeah.
0:05:04 Yeah. The last thing you need is a second job that becomes such a drag. You’re like,
0:05:08 why did I get myself into this? This is not what I signed up for. Now, how did you arrive at
0:05:15 the, okay, this is the niche that I want to focus on collecting more reviews. And then how do you
0:05:20 figure out, well, there’s got to be something else that already does such a thing. I just need to
0:05:25 find it and put my brand on it. Like that’s a, an interesting connection to make.
0:05:29 I kind of had the aha moment, obviously with the nudge from my wife, but then kind of going,
0:05:33 wait a minute, what’s the lowest common denominator here of all my clients? And I realized that the
0:05:37 clients that were getting good results versus great results, the ones who were getting great results
0:05:44 were actively pursuing and building reviews online. And so I was like, aha. Okay. So now the question was,
0:05:50 okay, what I had sort of failed at in this, this first iteration of my business was it was way too
0:05:56 sort of me intensive, right? It was taking way too much of my time, my consulting. How do I move more
0:06:00 towards like a software as a service that I know is scalable because I’ve seen lots of tech companies
0:06:05 do it. And that’s how I’d kind of identified the opportunity there. And so I was just more like,
0:06:10 okay, I’m going to put this at a price point that leads to an expectation that it’s not a lot of my time,
0:06:15 a lot, not a lot of my brain power per se, but just access to a tool or a platform that’s going to
0:06:19 facilitate and accelerate their business. And so that’s where I kind of came out with the initial
0:06:24 sort of price point of like, it’s 97 bucks a month, which most people were like, oh, well,
0:06:29 yeah, I can pay that. Right. Cause most of my proposals were like $1,500 at a minimum. Right.
0:06:33 Cause they needed to include all this stuff that I was recommending for them. And so, you know,
0:06:38 the drastic difference was powerful. So if I’m thinking, okay, this sounds interesting. And maybe
0:06:45 I’m starting with a pain that I’m familiar with as a small business owner, or even as a consumer,
0:06:51 or maybe a, a pain that has come out of conversations with business owners, where am I going to look for
0:06:57 potential software to white label? I think we underestimate the expertise that we all innately
0:07:03 have through the repetition of doing our job, right? Like there are no doubt, you know, headaches
0:07:09 or challenges that your clients are sharing with you that you can easily identify, right? Or,
0:07:13 or maybe there’s something that you’re offering that there’s just a gap. Like you’re like, Hey,
0:07:17 this is good. But man, if, if we just put this on top of it, that would be really great.
0:07:22 I would just take your expertise in the area that you’re in because you’re interfacing with all these
0:07:27 different clients. And now this obviously might be a B2C thing. It might be a B2B thing. It’s,
0:07:33 it’s all obviously dependent on your, your experience, but identifying what might fill that gap.
0:07:39 and then just going out there and finding it. And I’ll be honest, there is probably something that
0:07:43 people need that’s actually out there provided by somebody. I mean, somebody is making an app for
0:07:50 something, right? And the question is, is like, can you find them in time to bring whatever they’ve got
0:07:55 to market fast enough to build a business for yourself and to, uh, to keep that person, you know,
0:07:57 or that, that business, you know, uh, float.
0:08:03 Yeah. So I just Googled white label marketplace. I think I landed on that company.
0:08:09 dot com slash marketplace. And they’ve got a bunch of different categories here. CRM software,
0:08:15 content calendars, reputation management software, white label client port, like all this different
0:08:20 stuff. It’s interesting to see that active campaign is on here. This is like the email service provider
0:08:26 that I’ve been using for years. It’s like, Oh, I could resell active campaign. It slapped my
0:08:32 Nick’s amazing auto responders. I don’t know what it would be, but, but there’s a whole bunch of tools
0:08:38 in here. I guess maybe if you’re, if your idea agnostic, okay. You know, typically I would say,
0:08:43 you know, start with the pain first and then try and figure out the solution to that. But if you’re
0:08:48 like, well, I don’t know, you know, here are some examples of different potential problems that you could
0:08:54 solve with, with some apparently software that’s available for white labeling. So one place to start
0:08:58 would be, would I guess be this directory. We’ll link that up in the show notes for you.
0:09:03 Awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, and that’s, I think again, it’s, it’s probably much more accessible
0:09:08 and easy or than people think. And really what you’re able to do is you’re able to market your
0:09:14 expertise, right? Cause yeah, is active campaign and incredible tool and platform super, you know,
0:09:19 versatile with like all these things. Yeah, absolutely. But most business owners, to be honest
0:09:23 with you, they know how, how to install HVAC. They don’t know how to run a, you know,
0:09:28 a marketing automation campaign. So again, there’s a lot of opportunity out there as long
0:09:33 as you can package what you have in a way that people understand it and can digest the value of
0:09:39 it. Yeah. The sky’s the limit. Okay. So you’re, so for example, if I go to the reputation management
0:09:44 software in here, I imagine, I don’t know if it’s one of these that you’re using, but there’s
0:09:51 a handful, a handful of options there. Yeah, I’m sure they’re charging you a set price per month per
0:09:55 customer. And then you’re turning around and selling it at 97 a month. Are you comfortable
0:10:01 sharing like how that math works or how you approach those margins? Absolutely. Yeah. So,
0:10:05 I mean, my lowest package is 97 bucks a month. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of a mom and pop shop.
0:10:10 Who’s like, you know, uh, we don’t use any other software. Like you’re the first software we use
0:10:14 other way, you know, and they’re like, but you know, we do get phone numbers and name and emails
0:10:20 occasionally. Right. And so they’re like manually typing it in. Right. I would say that more so I’m
0:10:27 at least at 150 bucks a month. Most times I would say what I’m selling more of now is about 300 bucks
0:10:31 a month. And that’s just because there’s, you know, different components to the technology now that’s
0:10:37 making it more of like a, an all in one sort of solution for people. And so, uh, how does the math
0:10:41 work out? Well, first off, usually what it works is you have to buy a kind of, and this is just my
0:10:47 own experience. You’ve, you have to buy a minimum of so many seats. That number of seats is usually
0:10:54 like, you know, you got to buy 10 seats at 40 bucks a seat. Right. And then usually there’s discounts
0:10:58 as you go beyond that. Cause they want to incentivize you obviously to grow your agency and allow you more
0:11:03 and more profit margin. Right. But your markup is really whatever you can charge, you know, whatever
0:11:07 the perceived value is to the client. Right. So for me, if, if it’s a client where I’m kind of like,
0:11:12 well, I don’t know if I necessarily want to do a lot for this person. And there’s maybe not as much
0:11:18 marketing budget, then maybe it’s a 97 bucks a month. But if I just give you an example, I just
0:11:24 recently signed up a, an ENT doc out of Houston and they’d been kind of struggling for years to,
0:11:30 to get more reviews. And within, you know, their first 30 days, they got 34 five-star reviews and they
0:11:33 were like, this thing is incredible. I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re doing it. Right.
0:11:38 That’s a lot of value, especially when, you know, a sinus surgery can cost, you know, 10,
0:11:41 10, 15 grand. It’s like a roofer. Right. Kind of thing. But they’ve actually, they’re actually doing
0:11:47 volume to justify that stuff. So yeah, it’s just, it’s based off of the seats and the more that you do,
0:11:51 the cheaper that they are. I mean, sometimes people will do, you know, Hey, for 300 bucks a month,
0:11:55 it’s unlimited. I mean, that’s really where I started. And then, you know, what I would say,
0:11:58 Nick, you know, if I was going to have a word to the wise, if somebody’s doing something like
0:12:04 this is I would make sure that you focus on building relationships with your clients,
0:12:09 them understanding that you have a certain level of expertise enough that they trust you that,
0:12:14 you know, let’s say that the platform you’re using gets sunsetted because somebody else buys them.
0:12:18 Cause that’s, what’s happening out there, right? Is a lot of these little things are being consolidated
0:12:23 on these bigger brands. It’s just the nature of the beast out there. And so, you know, that was a
0:12:30 lesson that I, I learned maybe midway through my sort of business where my initial software got
0:12:34 bought up by a bigger company. And I mean, that’s, let’s just say there’s a lot of sleepless nights
0:12:39 there. So, and it was just because I hadn’t necessarily prepared or positioned myself in a way
0:12:44 that, Hey, this is a newer platform that we’re moving to. And it would be super awesome. And it’s
0:12:47 going to be way better and more efficient than people would be like, Oh yeah, I’m totally on board.
0:12:51 Whatever you, whatever you think, Chris, like you’ve been doing right by us for, for years,
0:12:55 right? I would just make sure that you’re, you’re keeping and maintaining that relationship and that
0:13:01 capacity. And if not you, your, your account managers, just so they don’t just one day log in
0:13:06 and see that the interface is all changed and they say, what’s going on? Like it just creates questions
0:13:12 for you. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, Hey, what, what happened or what is this? Or, you know,
0:13:17 I can’t log in, right? Like, cause there’s gotta be a transition period of moving to that new one
0:13:21 and learning the ropes of the new software and stuff like that. So yeah, that would be my only
0:13:27 emphasis. And I use, I use a couple of softwares that I provide for my clients just based on what
0:13:33 their needs are. And so I guess in a way I’m somewhat platform agnostic because if something were to happen
0:13:36 again, I could, I can move everybody to this platform or I can move everybody to this other
0:13:41 platform or I know a couple of others that I might explore that are always kind of on the radar
0:13:46 potentially if, if something were to go, you know, weird or screwy, right? Cause I would say
0:13:51 the biggest thing is I’m moving off that $300 a month unlimited platform. I moved to a platform that
0:13:55 was like, okay, that’s cool for the first year since we bought these guys, but now we’re actually
0:14:02 going to charge you 20 bucks per seat. And I’m like, okay, guys, you realize that my monthly bill
0:14:08 for you just went from 300 bucks to about 2,400 a month. And I was like, yeah, that would just
0:14:14 cripple my agency. Right. But instead I was able to talk it down to $10 a month. Now I think I was
0:14:18 the cheapest one because I had the best relationship with the people and I was able to kind of get
0:14:22 through that somewhat unscathed. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maintaining those relationships,
0:14:28 everything is negotiable in some way. And when things shift, you know, the customer, you’ve sold the
0:14:33 solution. The customer is kind of convinced that this is a problem at this point and they trust you to
0:14:38 provide the solution. If the back end of that solution needs to change slightly from one provider
0:14:41 to another, as long as we’re still getting the results, like you said, I think that’s still going
0:14:48 to be okay versus completely being married to one solution. And then it, all of a sudden it stops being
0:14:56 effective anymore. And then you’re kind of in trouble there. What’s the conversation like with
0:15:01 prospective customers? Cause it’s like, well, if they could go directly to this software and pay
0:15:10 $14 a month versus 97 to 300 for you to run it for them, or I don’t know, like what’s the,
0:15:15 what’s the value add layer? I don’t know. I’m curious about, I’m curious, like, well, where does,
0:15:20 where does the margin come from? Chris’s response is coming up right after this. A lot of side hustlers
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0:17:39 conditions apply. Hiring. Indeed is all you need. So they sell it to us right at, you know, 10 bucks or
0:17:45 let’s just say what’s more reasonable, right? 40 bucks a seat, right? Well, their retail pricing at
0:17:51 a minimum is, is 117, right? So that’s what they’re selling retail because they realize like their cost
0:17:56 for, uh, you know, client acquisition or customer acquisition is, is X, right? That they’re putting
0:18:01 a lot of money on that side, right? A lot of these guys will do contracts. So when you sign with them,
0:18:06 and this is how really, to be honest with you, as a, you know, a solopreneur, you know, a side hustle
0:18:12 solopreneur or whatever you want to kind of call yourself where you can create value that makes your offer more
0:18:16 attractive is that I don’t do contracts. Mine’s all month to month, right? So nobody has like, feels like they’re
0:18:21 being pressured. And I always jokingly say in our, our kind of our sales call, if you will, I said, Hey, look, you know,
0:18:26 my goal is to make you so delighted with the results that we’re providing that you kind of, you kind of look at your
0:18:29 bill every month and you kind of laugh and you go, I can’t believe that’s all I pay this guy.
0:18:34 Right. That’s sort of my approach to it. Right. And I also say at the same time, like, Hey, if it’s not
0:18:39 a good fit and we’re not, we’re not having a good relationship, like let’s become friends amicably.
0:18:42 Like, I don’t, I don’t want to sour the relationship. I don’t want you stuck in a relationship that you
0:18:45 don’t like. Also, you know, if you’re not a good client, I don’t want to be in a relationship with
0:18:49 you either. Right. Kind of thing. And I say jokingly, obviously, but the idea there is like, Hey,
0:18:55 this is an open conversation, right? In that realm. And so where the margin is, is in what they
0:18:59 retail or charge it for. Right. So I’m always kind of keeping an eye on what that is. The powerful
0:19:04 thing is, is that I don’t have a lot of bloated overhead, right? I’m not paying for the software
0:19:08 development costs. Right. That’s the thing that really would eat up. Cause I’ve, I’d thought back
0:19:12 when I was a naive entrepreneur, I was like, well, I’ll just build this software myself. And I went out and
0:19:16 got it quoted. And I was like, just to get a baseline platform was going to cost me about 300 grand.
0:19:20 And that was to like, just get something to stand up. And then I was like, yeah,
0:19:25 but then what’s the ongoing maintenance to keep that thing relevant, especially in the digital world
0:19:30 where like, you know, browsers are changing all the time. Uh, all these review platforms are changing
0:19:35 all the time. I was like, yeah, you know what? The 10 bucks a month I’m spending per account seems like
0:19:39 a fair shake, you know, and I’ll just deal with the limitations of the platform.
0:19:46 What happens when something does break and customers are upset with you because for all they know,
0:19:52 you’re the guy you are the creator. Yeah. You know, I just, um, honesty and transparency is
0:19:58 the best policy. So my thing is just trying to communicate with them. Hey, maybe I, I, I give
0:20:02 them the belief that, you know, I’ve got a team of engineers, but usually I just say, Hey, the
0:20:07 engineers, you know, and I’m not saying my engineers, right. I’m not saying, you know, uh, bird eyes
0:20:11 engineers, right. Or whatever the case may be. I’m not saying that their engineers are looking. I’m just
0:20:16 saying, Hey, the engineers have this for action. They’re working through it. I apologize that it’s not
0:20:20 working. You know, this is a pretty, you know, big change on Google’s end and we’re trying to kind
0:20:25 of navigate it. And, you know, as you know, Google doesn’t exactly send out documents on exactly how to
0:20:29 cope with their changes to blah, blah, blah. And most people kind of go, Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
0:20:33 That makes, that makes sense. Right. So you just keep them, keep them in the loop. And most people are
0:20:38 pretty understanding. Right. I also don’t, you know, I’m not operating in the realm of heart surgery or
0:20:42 neurosurgery. Right. So, okay. I’m, I’m sorry. You didn’t get a review this week. Like we were
0:20:46 working through some stuff. Right. But you’ve gotten a review, you know, every other week.
0:20:50 Right. So things are pretty, still pretty good. Right. So yeah. Anyways, I guess it’s just,
0:20:55 just perspective. Right. If you have a little bit less in exchange for some of these benefits,
0:21:00 you give up a little bit of the control on, on the actual product. And so that’s,
0:21:06 that’s something to consider. Yeah. I mean, at the same time though, Nick, if you become a power user,
0:21:10 they listen to you for one of these platforms, I’m considered one of their power users and they listen
0:21:15 to me and I give them some feedback. Now, does it always get on the priority list in the order that
0:21:19 I’d like? No, no, it doesn’t. But you know, for one of the other ones, I’m kind of a reseller under
0:21:25 another bigger reseller, but that guy, they are constantly consulting with him to make these products
0:21:29 better. And I know that if I ever put a bug in JD’s ear, he’d just be like, Oh yeah, no, that’s a good
0:21:32 point. I need to think about that. You know, I’m going to, he’d say something like I’m a buster balls on
0:21:37 that one. Right. So it’s just one of those things that he will go to bat, you know, for you. So again,
0:21:41 you can always work your way into that status. Now, you know, if you’ve got three accounts,
0:21:45 like don’t expect that somebody is going to be like, Oh yeah, whatever that guy says goes. Right. So
0:21:52 yeah, but you can definitely have, have influence. What are the most effective prospecting methods
0:21:59 for you is just, I’m headed for like a reputation software company. Like, okay, I can go to Yelp and
0:22:04 like, just scroll down until I see like the two, three star companies and be like, Hey, you could use
0:22:08 some more positive reviews. Let’s let me help you with that. To be honest with you. I mean, that’s
0:22:12 where I started, man. I was, uh, you know, I had my engineering job building the Washington state
0:22:19 ferries and I would crawl into my car during lunchtime and watch my boss walk by me. And my car was my
0:22:26 first office. Right. And, uh, I would literally cold call chiropractors, painters, dentists, roofers,
0:22:30 plumbers. Right. And I would just go down my list. And I had this little kind of schtick where I
0:22:34 wanted to interview them for, you know, X, Y, Z, whatever. So I wanted to provide value on the
0:22:38 front end. Cause you come at anybody and you start attacking them. Hey, I’m calling because you got
0:22:42 really crummy reviews on Yelp. Like, you know, anybody who gets that phone calls, like you’re a
0:22:47 jerk, you know, get off my phone, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, taking a little bit more of a
0:22:50 subtle approach to kind of, you know, I’ll paint them in a good light.
0:22:54 Well, tell me about that. So what was that? You know, you mentioned I’m going to interview you.
0:22:59 What was that like? This is back when, you know, we were putting these little like graphics on the,
0:23:03 you know, recording. And essentially what I do is it’d be a Google hangout. We’d record it,
0:23:08 we’d put it on and like Google hangouts for whatever reason, a recording was just like
0:23:13 ranking like crazy. And so you could put this thing up and not really do anything to it. And it would
0:23:20 almost like show up within a couple of days in the search results for like, you know, HVAC company,
0:23:26 Seattle. Right. So it was like, it was such an easy, like value add to most of these guys were
0:23:30 like, yeah, sure. This thing’s going online and it’s more thing. And I, you know, I want to help
0:23:34 my customers, you know, find a good, you know, what are your five recommendations for finding a
0:23:38 good chiropractor? Right. And then, you know, after that, after that process, after we kind of close it
0:23:41 out, I just say, Hey, you know, obviously, you know, you clearly care about your customers.
0:23:45 Reviews are obviously an important piece to this. You know, what’s your strategy for getting more
0:23:48 reviews for your business? Right. Cause I would call on most people that, you know,
0:23:53 had kind of like low reviews or no reviews. Right. And so that was kind of my segue in and,
0:23:58 you know, did all of them bite now, but you know, I got a handful of them and was able to start
0:24:02 generating, you know, 2,500 bucks in recurring revenue, you know, in the first like six to 12
0:24:06 months. And I don’t know, that’s, that was pretty substantial and exciting for me. And so, yeah,
0:24:10 that’s, that’s kind of how that initially started. But, you know, to, to answer your kind of bigger
0:24:15 question, how do I kind of prospect now it’s through referrals and introductions. And the reason is
0:24:19 because I’ve done the cold emailing, I’ve done the cold calling, I’ve done all these different,
0:24:23 you know, I’ve done blogging, I’ve done Facebook ads, I’ve done, you know, all this other stuff.
0:24:29 And what I realized is that what most business owners pay attention to is their email inbox
0:24:33 provided that somebody they trust makes a recommendation for them to explore something.
0:24:38 And that’s what actually causes a conversation to really move forward amongst everything else.
0:24:44 I’ve just put my, put all my eggs in that basket and I just do a really good job of building a key
0:24:50 referral relationships. And yes, that, that requires, you know, this introverted weird engineer
0:24:54 to get out there and build social skills. So, you know, it’s been a long road of building and refining
0:24:59 those skill sets, but yeah, it’s, it’s been an awesome journey in that too. So.
0:25:04 Are you doing anything to systemize those referrals and introductions?
0:25:07 What I’ve actually found, I mean, this is even actually kind of recently as somebody is like,
0:25:12 Hey, you know, don’t ask for referrals, ask for introductions. Right. And that makes more sense
0:25:15 because most people don’t understand that like, you know, when they’re thinking about a referral,
0:25:19 they’re running through this whole sort of like mental calculus as to like, Oh yeah,
0:25:23 would this be person be good? And you know, they’re, they’re asking all these questions in
0:25:26 their head that, you know, they didn’t even have answers from that person. So really at the end of
0:25:30 the day, it’s just, you just want the introduction so you can start the conversation. Right. And you can,
0:25:33 you can kind of figure out if, if they’re a good fit or not, you’re going to get
0:25:39 introductions just naturally as a result of, you know, doing good stuff for your, for your
0:25:44 clients. Right. But I think also intentionally asking for those introductions can also be something
0:25:48 that spurs on, you know, people thinking of it and staying top of mind. Obviously, if you’re also
0:25:53 providing relevant value on an ongoing basis to kind of like educating your clients and just touching
0:25:57 base with them regularly, you create those opportunities naturally as well, as a result as well.
0:26:03 Yeah. I’ve definitely been on podcasts where the host makes a point of doing just that. Well,
0:26:06 who else should I talk to now that you know, the format of the show, who else do you think would
0:26:11 be a good fit? And it’s like, would you be comfortable making an introduction? Or even if
0:26:16 they kind of go through the archive list, be like, Oh, I saw that you’re connected to so-and-so
0:26:20 because that’s a lot easier than saying out of the broad universe of people that you might know,
0:26:25 you know, who, who might you be able to connect me to? It’s like, Oh, could you introduce me to
0:26:29 so-and-so? And then my usual process is to reach out to them first and say, Hey, you know, would it be
0:26:36 okay? I just talked to whoever it is. They wanted to connect with you for whatever reason. And you know,
0:26:39 if they say yes, okay, sure. Happy to. And then you can make that email introduction.
0:26:46 Yeah. No, we’ve heard this mentioned a few times on air, this strategy of content-based networking
0:26:51 that kind of cuts through the clutter in a really interesting way. And you say, I’m a local blogger,
0:26:57 I’m a local podcaster. I host this, you know, YouTube show or whatever. And it’s like, I had like
0:27:02 to feature your expertise and sure there’s, you know, it more likely to get a take rate than I want to
0:27:07 talk to you about your crappy Yelp reviews. We live in a very transactional world. If your
0:27:13 approach is to probe and interrogate, most people aren’t going to sign up for that, right? Nobody’s
0:27:17 going to raise their hand and be like, yeah, I’d love you to kind of sniff out my issues and my
0:27:21 problems and show them to me. And then, you know, use that to, to leverage into a sale of some sort,
0:27:25 right? I think if you come in and sort of adding value saying, Hey, you know, we’ve been talking with
0:27:29 all these people in the industry and here’s what we found are the main challenges and what our
0:27:33 recommendation is, you know, X, Y, Z, here’s a quick little white paper of a couple of case studies
0:27:38 that we’ve done that might be helpful for you. Right. I think that begs to begs the opportunity
0:27:43 for a relationship or a conversation to start, like you’re saying. So yeah, no, that’s, that’s,
0:27:45 that’s the way is just adding value from the beginning.
0:27:50 Now, given that it’s software, you don’t have to stay local to your geographic area. You could,
0:27:54 you could target customers all over the place. Is that something that you have found?
0:27:59 Yeah. Oh yeah. And that’s really one of the beauties of software as a service,
0:28:02 to be honest with you, is that, you know, you don’t have a brick and mortar storefront where
0:28:06 your catchment area is, you know, only within, you know, 50 square miles or something like that,
0:28:11 you know, people’s willingness to travel. And I’ve got clients, you know, down in California and Texas
0:28:15 and Florida and New Hampshire, you know, and Kansas, you know, they’re all over the country.
0:28:20 I don’t know how many of the 50 States I have clients in, but a significant number. And the power
0:28:24 two is like, you know, with everything being so digital, right. And in these conferences being
0:28:29 all over the place, I mean, I’ll just give an example. I got a painter client of mine who’s
0:28:33 local here, but he attends a mastermind group where there’s painters from New Jersey in it. And there’s
0:28:37 painters from, you know, Texas in it. Right. So that, that makes a referral to somebody in New
0:28:41 Jersey, that painter in New Jersey knows an electrician who knows a plumber. And I, it just sort
0:28:46 of organically spreads that way. And that’s really kind of the power of it, which is also,
0:28:49 to be honest with you, why it’s kind of exciting. You know, my wife and I have actually been kind
0:28:53 of, you know, contemplating moving out of the Pacific Northwest. Now that we’ve got two kids and
0:28:57 a, you know, that we’ve got a certain sense of freedom, right. Although I have a pretty
0:29:01 significant and established network here, right. There’s nothing stopping me from picking up and
0:29:05 moving to a different state because most of the relationships I’ve built, most people haven’t even
0:29:09 seen me. To be honest with you, it’s always fun when I meet them at a networking event and I’m like,
0:29:13 Hey, you’re actually a client of mine. They’re like, really? And I’m like, yeah. Do you remember,
0:29:15 do you recognize the voice? And they’re like, Oh my God. Right. So anyways,
0:29:20 that’s always kind of fun too. Yeah. That’s how you can, you can live the location independent
0:29:25 lifestyle at this point. Yeah. Exactly. Are you comfortable giving a sense of the size of the
0:29:30 business today in terms of revenue on a, I guess, monthly basis, if that’s how you track it?
0:29:35 It’s multiple six figures and the profit margins are extremely healthy. And so, you know, the good
0:29:39 majority of that goes right into my pocket. Right. And, you know, we have, we’ve been growing every
0:29:50 single year with the exception of 2020 where we, we were, you know, like 0.9% down. Right. But compared
0:29:54 to most businesses, that was, that was a, that was pretty, a pretty awesome year. So yeah. If you can
0:30:02 walk away from 2020, uh, essentially flat, like we’ll call that a win. Um, exactly. Okay. So, but,
0:30:06 but like, for instance, you know, last year we grew our MRR, our monthly recurring revenue by 50%.
0:30:11 My goal is to build, uh, to grow at another 50% because kids are expensive. I don’t know if anybody
0:30:15 told you that, but. I know everybody talks about saving for college. It’s like, no, you got to save
0:30:22 for like daycare and preschool. So you mentioned MRR. Is that among the metrics that you’re paying most
0:30:26 attention to? I guess churn would probably be part of that, but what’s, what do you look for in the
0:30:32 kind of a dashboard reporting? Yeah. Uh, monthly recurring revenue is really the key. The churn,
0:30:38 it just, it really isn’t there. I mean, I, I will lose a couple of customers, you know, some months I
0:30:42 don’t lose any customers. Right. But you know, it can be as much as like two, three in a month,
0:30:48 which is not significant. Right. For me. And so I’m just, I’m constantly always kind of replacing them
0:30:53 with, you know, with at least that and then plus some, right. So yeah, that’s mainly the metrics
0:30:59 that I, I, you know, follow. Do you ever play around with like prepay for the year for a little
0:31:05 discount or do you kind of like this month to month pricing strategy? You know, I have, and some people
0:31:08 do that cause they just, they like it or whatever, right. They just like paying lots of money for
0:31:14 things up front or something like that. I kind of shy away from it. Cause I just, sometimes it just,
0:31:17 there are stronger conversations with that person. Cause it’s like, well, I’ve paid all this money
0:31:22 up front. I don’t know, man. I just, you know, the discounts that people want to try and demand,
0:31:25 I just kind of go, Hey, you know, let’s just take it month to month. You know, if you don’t like it,
0:31:31 you can cancel it. It also causes like less fluctuations for me and my MRR, to be honest
0:31:35 with you. And that’s kind of really, like you said, that’s where I hang my hat and I track my growth
0:31:43 is based off of that. So. Okay. How do you differentiate between the 97 a month price point or some of the
0:31:48 higher tier price points? Like what do you add on to make somebody jump to the $300 a month plan,
0:31:49 for example?
0:31:54 So usually what it has to do is with the cost of the integrations for that client, right? So
0:31:59 it’s one of the platforms that I use. I mean, if I’m doing an, like an expensive, exclusive
0:32:06 type integration for like a, you know, a medical EHR, which is electronic health records, CRM, right?
0:32:11 I mean, those will cost me 50 bucks a month, right? So like, that’s kind of innately built into the
0:32:14 pricing that I have to price for them. With that being said though, usually there’s a little bit
0:32:20 more robustness with it. You know, my $97 a month, there’s like, it’s one sort of campaign that you
0:32:25 can run that you can manipulate and change the verbiage of with the other one. Like you could
0:32:30 have all these different types of campaigns. We also have included in that kind of what we call
0:32:36 the unified inbox. So like Google chats, Facebook chats, Instagram chats, email, phone numbers,
0:32:41 web chat, it can all be brought into one, which just creates a better customer service experience
0:32:46 on the front end and just allows them to actually increase their, their own deal flow. So there’s
0:32:51 a bigger like impact, I think on the bottom line. And then we’ve got some other sort of add-ons that
0:32:56 you can kind of create beyond the reviews and stuff like that. You know, we just launched a module that
0:32:59 allows people to accept payments through our platform, right? There’s another one that’s coming.
0:33:03 I mean, again, I’m not doing this, you know, somebody else is thinking up and coding all this
0:33:07 stuff, but appointments, right? Is another one like being able to book appointments through that,
0:33:13 but you can also do benchmarking against, you know, competitors. You can do surveys. Very rarely do I
0:33:17 get into that stuff because it’s just the more complicated it can get for your clients, the more
0:33:22 confused they get and the less like willing they are to engage. That’s why I always stick with
0:33:27 the reviews first and foremost. And then we kind of talk about, you know, using the unified inbox for
0:33:32 them to, to generate and streamline their, their sales and deal flow, so to speak. So yeah.
0:33:37 And a lot of that, it sounds like he’s dictated by the software itself versus, you know, what other
0:33:42 systems do you need this to talk to? Okay. That’s at a higher price point. And so we’re going to resell
0:33:47 it at a higher price point. More with Chris in just a moment, including a day in the life of a software
0:33:51 reseller and his biggest business surprise coming up right after this.
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0:35:08 number. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. What’s a day in the life if there is like a typical
0:35:15 day or week, you know, time required to manage this empire of clients all over the country?
0:35:23 To be honest with you, I was probably working 60, 70 hours a week probably two, three, four years ago,
0:35:27 but just started kind of, you know, I woke up to the fact that, you know, hey, you should actually
0:35:31 have some mentors in your life that had actually kind of figured out, you know, how to create the
0:35:36 life that you want because it was like, you know, I’d left a 40, 50-hour-a-week engineering job and was
0:35:40 working 60 hours a week in my business. And I was like, wait a minute, this still seems pretty similar.
0:35:45 Now, again, like I said, you know, lifestyle was much better because I was much more flexible. I could do
0:35:48 what I wanted to. I could work at nights, you know, all that kind of stuff. And just through
0:35:53 some prioritization and some sort of hard questions of like, you know, what activities are you doing
0:35:59 that don’t necessarily make sense? You know, now I probably work five to 10 hours a week and that’s
0:36:04 kind of including customer service and sort of, you know, follow-ups on referrals and sales calls and
0:36:09 stuff like that. And so, you know, like I said, it’s much more of a lifestyle business. I’m not here to,
0:36:14 you know, purchase the moon, so to speak, in that realm. And so bringing on this person who’s going to do
0:36:19 the customer support, I’ll probably keep it at the five to 10 hours a week, but just focus my
0:36:25 efforts more on the biz development side. So like, what’s the day in the life? I mean, I usually wake
0:36:30 up probably around, you know, anywhere between seven and eight o’clock. Got a little morning routine that I
0:36:34 typically do. Well, you know, my wife’s kind of getting up and she does her morning routine. You know,
0:36:40 today, this morning we went down, I made her waffles and chicken for breakfast. We ate that. Well,
0:36:46 my, you know, 21 month old son ate it. My four month old son was sleeping the entire time that
0:36:50 that was happening. And then I took my son out into the snow and we played in the snow for, I don’t
0:36:56 know, about 45 minutes and then kind of came back in here and putzed around and then got into the
0:37:02 shower and showered up for my very first appointment of the day, which was our call at 1045. Right. And
0:37:06 that’s usually my, kind of my rigmarole is, you know, usually my first kind of stuff isn’t anything
0:37:11 before 11 a.m. So that I can spend that time with the family. And then usually I’ll kind of kick off
0:37:16 at, you know, anywhere between one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, all depends. Usually I’ll
0:37:20 get a nap in there because that’s one of the reasons I built a business was I just wanted to be able to
0:37:25 nap on a horizontal surface because the naps I’d taken my car just weren’t as comfortable. So, you know,
0:37:30 your why doesn’t have to be big, right? You don’t have to cure cancer. Sometimes you just want to get a
0:37:34 good nap in. Right. But yeah. And then usually the afternoon spent taking the kids to the park or,
0:37:37 you know, running errands. And it’s just funny. My wife and I look at each other and we go,
0:37:42 I don’t know how people who have, you know, 40, 50 hour jobs, like how they keep everything together.
0:37:47 And it’s like, oh, well, no, I actually remember that. It was like Saturday was all adult chores.
0:37:52 Sunday, you just frigging, you know, late on the couch, exhausted from what you had just done,
0:37:56 dreading the Monday that was coming. And so, you know, for a season, you just kind of got to,
0:38:00 you know, put away all your distractions and stay focused on building yourself a life and
0:38:05 you can get there, but it takes, it takes discipline, especially when it’s not a job
0:38:09 and nobody’s, you know, holding your paycheck over your head to keep you motivated to get it done.
0:38:15 Yeah. It’s really, it’s cool to hear the flexibility and the lifestyle freedom that you have now after
0:38:22 front loading those 60 hour work weeks up front to get the referral wheel spinning in your favor and
0:38:28 kind of building this network and the monthly recurring revenue that you have. But yeah, if you can get there,
0:38:32 if you can, you know, hold your breath long enough through that sprint phase, then you’re going to
0:38:39 be in good shape down the road. And because of the recurring revenue element to it, you’re not
0:38:45 stressing about, well, where’s, where’s the income going to come from next month versus the freelance
0:38:50 business where it’s like, well, I got to go find another client to make the month or I got to replenish
0:38:54 my inventory next month. Like there’s lots of different, I don’t know, I can see lots of different
0:39:00 advantages to this business model and to do it in a, you know, relatively low risk way without
0:39:07 fronting the $300,000 for software development costs. But anything that you do differently,
0:39:11 I think you mentioned something that you, if you had to start over, you might accelerate the timeline
0:39:14 a little bit, but anything else that surprised you along the way?
0:39:18 I think I would have sought out the perspective from, you know, a couple of successful, you know,
0:39:23 entrepreneurs earlier on to just kind of help me navigate through. There’s just a lot of stuff
0:39:28 that you’re going to waste your time on. And part of it is just a rite of passage of just doing a lot
0:39:32 of like busy work, but, you know, just constantly asking yourself the question of like, Hey, is this
0:39:37 helping me move forward? Or is this just causing me to think that I’m moving things forward? Right.
0:39:43 There’s a book, uh, by Adam clear called atomic habits. And he just talks about the idea of like
0:39:49 motion versus action. Right. And our, our generation, I feel like as millennials love to be in motion. I
0:39:53 love reading and learning and doing all this stuff. I was like, yeah, but what are you actually doing?
0:39:58 That’s moving the needle forward in your life. And I think we can fool ourselves into thinking that,
0:40:02 you know, we’re moving forward when we’re really just getting ready to get ready to get ready.
0:40:06 And so I think that would be where I’ve lost a lot of time. It’s just a lot of like,
0:40:10 you know, just rabbit trails that I’ve gone down and going, Oh yeah, wouldn’t it be cool if I did
0:40:14 this, that, and the other thing it’s like, no, you know, what you need to do is go shake hands,
0:40:18 build a relationship, add value to somebody’s life. That’s really, you know, what’s going to move,
0:40:22 move the needle forward on things. And yeah, we’ve got a series on the show with Rosemary
0:40:29 Groner and her big thing is this relentless focus on ROI. You know, is the activity that I’m doing
0:40:36 going to move the business forward in some way, or am I just updating my about page for the umpteenth
0:40:41 time? It’s just, you know, thinking, thinking about that with the actions that you’re taking and being,
0:40:46 being honest with yourself. Like, is this a revenue generating activity or is it just busy work? It
0:40:51 feels productive so I can cross something off, but it really makes no impact either way. So Chris,
0:40:55 this has been awesome. What’s, where are you taking it this year? You got the, you know, five,
0:40:57 10 hours a week to spend on this. Where do you want to go?
0:41:02 We’re finishing off our ninth year in business on March 31st, which is cool. I mean, we’re almost
0:41:07 rounding the corner to, to 10 years, a decade in business, which I think it’s like 1% of businesses
0:41:11 make it that far. Right. So it’s, it’s a pretty big achievement. Right. And, you know, I’m not one
0:41:16 to celebrate or pat myself on the back too much, but hopeful that it’ll be around for another 10 years,
0:41:20 if not more. And I’m definitely not going to kill a golden goose. But, you know, for me, it’s like,
0:41:24 I just, I want to pay this forward. I don’t think that I’m the only one that deserves this type of
0:41:28 lifestyle. And that’s the bigger, the bigger goal. Cause I think that will give me meaning
0:41:33 into my life, well into my, my nineties and God forbid we get to a hundred.
0:41:38 Chris, this has been awesome. You can find him over at ignite.reviews, send him an email. If you
0:41:42 have any questions, Chris at ignite.reviews. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one
0:41:44 tip for side hustle nation.
0:41:48 Find somebody who’s gone before you and do whatever you need to do to earn their mentorship and their
0:41:52 guidance. Cause it will cut years off of your learning curve. So hopefully that’s helpful,
0:41:57 Nick. And, uh, it was a great opportunity to being able to share with your incredible audience. And,
0:41:58 uh, thank you for your time, sir.
0:42:03 You bet, man. Uh, again, Chris at ignite.reviews. Thanks so much for joining me and we’ll catch up
0:42:04 with you soon.
0:42:12 All right. I hope you enjoyed that chat with Chris. I took a lot of notes in this one. I think first up,
0:42:18 it’s the power of niching down, following his wife’s advice to pitch something simple to understand
0:42:24 more reviews, more customers versus trying to sell every possible digital marketing service.
0:42:29 Is there a way to simplify the offering in your business? So people instantly get it.
0:42:35 A couple of my original side hustles were more consumer facing. So I would use language like the
0:42:40 best price on your next pair of shoes, or it’s like Yelp for virtual assisting companies. Maybe for side
0:42:46 hustle nation, it’s case studies on how to make money in your spare time. In any case, making it easy for
0:42:51 people to understand what you do and who you do it for. So they can file that away either for their
0:42:57 own use later or to send potential customers your way. But you heard from Chris, the level of desire
0:43:02 in making something work when he talked about making cold calls from his car on his lunch break
0:43:07 took some serious effort. We talked about content based networking as a way to break through the
0:43:13 clutter, inviting your prospects to share their expertise, put the spotlight on them on a podcast or
0:43:18 in a video interview, rather than jumping straight into a sales call with you. I think you’ll get a
0:43:23 better take rate that way. We’ve got a couple episodes that touch on that in more detail, including
0:43:30 Josh Elledge in episode 361. If you want to go check that out with Chris, we talked about making a point to ask
0:43:35 for introductions rather than referrals. I thought that was an interesting reframe. And that’s actually how Chris
0:43:40 and I connected, my brother introduced us, but white labeling, essentially buying software
0:43:46 at wholesale prices and reselling it at retail. We’ve seen tons of examples of side hustlers doing this
0:43:52 with physical products and even with services. So it makes sense. You could do it with a digital product
0:43:57 like software as well. If this episode got your wheels turning a little bit, I want to encourage you to
0:44:03 download the free listener bonus I put together. It’s 20 software niches with potential white label products
0:44:09 that you can go out and resell. You can grab that at sidehustlenation.com slash white label or follow
0:44:15 the link in the episode description of your podcast player app. Again, sidehustlenation.com slash white
0:44:21 label. Big thanks to Chris for sharing his insight. Thanks to my brother, Chris, for the intro. That is it
0:44:26 for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you’re finding value in this content, the greatest compliment
0:44:30 is to share it with a friend. Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you
0:44:32 in the next edition of The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:09 What’s up, what’s up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because
0:00:14 the rat race doesn’t need any more rats. Super interesting business model to share with you
0:00:20 today, and that’s white labeling someone else’s software tool. This is basically putting your
0:00:25 brand, your sales and marketing, and your frontline customer support on top of a software product that
0:00:32 already exists. And it comes with a lot of the benefits of SaaS, software as a service, namely
0:00:38 recurring revenue, good profit margins, without the upfront development time and expense to build
0:00:42 that thing in the first place. To make it work, you’re essentially playing matchmaker, finding
0:00:47 a common problem, and then pairing that with an already existing software solution. To help me
0:00:53 learn more about this is a self-described recovering engineer who started a marketing agency as a side
0:01:00 hustle eight, nine, 10 years ago, which has evolved into a multi six-figure white labeling operation
0:01:07 called Reputation Igniter. Through ignite.reviews, Chris Lelini helps small businesses earn more positive
0:01:12 reviews for their work. To help you brainstorm some potential white label niches for yourself,
0:01:17 I put together a list of 20 software and service niches and some examples of the corresponding software
0:01:22 tools you might be able to resell in each of those. You can download that free listener bonus file
0:01:27 at side hustle nation.com slash white label, or through the link in the episode description of
0:01:32 your podcast app. Again, side hustle nation.com slash white label. I’ll be back after the chat with
0:01:42 Chris. Ready? Let’s do it was an evolution for sure. I started an agency. I was part of a B and I group
0:01:47 business networking international chapter. And I was trying to sell all these different marketing services
0:01:51 for about two and a half years before I wised up for a presentation. I was like, wait a minute,
0:01:56 I really need to go more commodity type driven. I have to really give that sort of insight,
0:01:59 that idea to my incredible, amazing, insightful wife. And she’s like, you know, you just need
0:02:04 something that’s a little bit more easy to wrap your head around and sell that so that people can just
0:02:09 sort of, they can sink their teeth into it and they can move forward as opposed to your long sales
0:02:13 processes and, you know, their lengthy contracts and all that kind of stuff. So again, the insight that
0:02:18 she’s provided along my journey has been invaluable for sure. That’s why she’s my number one business
0:02:22 partner. All right. So something easier to wrap your head around. This is the call to
0:02:29 niche down, make it something easy to explain, which is ignite.reviews. This is, we’ll help you get more
0:02:34 reviews for your local service business. Yeah, exactly. That’s, that’s my, that’s my tagline really
0:02:40 is, you know, it’s reputation igniter. The, I got crazy with the, uh, the new TLDs that were coming
0:02:44 out and I was like, Oh, you know, my website will be ignite.reviews. I can’t tell you how much I’ve paid
0:02:52 for that sin over the years, but how so? Uh, well, just cause people like, uh, ignite.reviews.com.
0:02:59 No, no, no. It’s just ignite.reviews.com. No, no, no. Just, yeah. So you, you get the picture,
0:03:03 right? Um, so trying to explain my email address and, and, you know, there’s still a lot of forms
0:03:07 that don’t even accept that as an email address. Right. So, but anyways, yeah, it’s called reputation
0:03:12 igniter. And my tagline is more reviews, more customers. It’s like, Hey, how much more simple
0:03:16 can you get than understanding that? Hey, if you get more reviews online, you’ll get more customers.
0:03:20 And so, yeah. Okay. So what happens after that? So it sounds like you’re giving a presentation at
0:03:26 this networking group on how to get more reviews. You get people raising their hand in the audience,
0:03:30 coming up, handing you business cards, signing up on the spot. How does reputation igniter find its
0:03:35 first customers? From the agency side, this was a service that I was already offering. I just wasn’t
0:03:40 calling it a, you know, kind of a separate DBA. So as those contracts were kind of terminating for
0:03:45 the overarching marketing services, I just, I retained a lot of them for that specific service. Right.
0:03:50 Um, and in preparation for that, you know, event that that’s where I kind of rebranded myself.
0:03:54 And I would say there was quite a few people. I actually, after that BNI meeting is like,
0:03:59 Oh, I get what you do now. Like we should have a conversation. I was like, Oh my gosh,
0:04:04 maybe I’ve Eureka. I’ve found it kind of thing. And so, yeah, that led to quite a few clients
0:04:07 actually within the group. Obviously the whole goal is not to sell to the group, but sell through
0:04:13 the group. Right. But it made it way more easier for people to make referrals to me, recommend me,
0:04:18 uh, because they could articulate effectively kind of what, what I did in the value proposition that
0:04:23 more reviews were, I would say that I’m, you know, not as much as before, but, you know, still trying to
0:04:28 educate people on the power of reviews. I would say it’s more of the professionals like, you know, uh,
0:04:32 dentists or doctors who might kind of be stuck in old ways of like, well, that’s just not how you
0:04:37 build, you know, my type of a business. Right. But I would say far and wide, most people understand
0:04:41 that. And so that’s, that’s what I did is I just kind of let all that other stuff go, which by the
0:04:46 way, was a total blessing because I was just like, man, all that stuff is moving so fast to like try
0:04:51 and keep up on all of it and be effective at it. It was a little bit more of a burden and it turned my
0:04:56 side hustle into just a grind that didn’t look like there was any escape from it. To be honest with
0:04:59 you, I was like, this was the whole reason I got out of being an engineer. So, yeah.
0:05:04 Yeah. The last thing you need is a second job that becomes such a drag. You’re like,
0:05:08 why did I get myself into this? This is not what I signed up for. Now, how did you arrive at
0:05:15 the, okay, this is the niche that I want to focus on collecting more reviews. And then how do you
0:05:20 figure out, well, there’s got to be something else that already does such a thing. I just need to
0:05:25 find it and put my brand on it. Like that’s a, an interesting connection to make.
0:05:29 I kind of had the aha moment, obviously with the nudge from my wife, but then kind of going,
0:05:33 wait a minute, what’s the lowest common denominator here of all my clients? And I realized that the
0:05:37 clients that were getting good results versus great results, the ones who were getting great results
0:05:44 were actively pursuing and building reviews online. And so I was like, aha. Okay. So now the question was,
0:05:50 okay, what I had sort of failed at in this, this first iteration of my business was it was way too
0:05:56 sort of me intensive, right? It was taking way too much of my time, my consulting. How do I move more
0:06:00 towards like a software as a service that I know is scalable because I’ve seen lots of tech companies
0:06:05 do it. And that’s how I’d kind of identified the opportunity there. And so I was just more like,
0:06:10 okay, I’m going to put this at a price point that leads to an expectation that it’s not a lot of my time,
0:06:15 a lot, not a lot of my brain power per se, but just access to a tool or a platform that’s going to
0:06:19 facilitate and accelerate their business. And so that’s where I kind of came out with the initial
0:06:24 sort of price point of like, it’s 97 bucks a month, which most people were like, oh, well,
0:06:29 yeah, I can pay that. Right. Cause most of my proposals were like $1,500 at a minimum. Right.
0:06:33 Cause they needed to include all this stuff that I was recommending for them. And so, you know,
0:06:38 the drastic difference was powerful. So if I’m thinking, okay, this sounds interesting. And maybe
0:06:45 I’m starting with a pain that I’m familiar with as a small business owner, or even as a consumer,
0:06:51 or maybe a, a pain that has come out of conversations with business owners, where am I going to look for
0:06:57 potential software to white label? I think we underestimate the expertise that we all innately
0:07:03 have through the repetition of doing our job, right? Like there are no doubt, you know, headaches
0:07:09 or challenges that your clients are sharing with you that you can easily identify, right? Or,
0:07:13 or maybe there’s something that you’re offering that there’s just a gap. Like you’re like, Hey,
0:07:17 this is good. But man, if, if we just put this on top of it, that would be really great.
0:07:22 I would just take your expertise in the area that you’re in because you’re interfacing with all these
0:07:27 different clients. And now this obviously might be a B2C thing. It might be a B2B thing. It’s,
0:07:33 it’s all obviously dependent on your, your experience, but identifying what might fill that gap.
0:07:39 and then just going out there and finding it. And I’ll be honest, there is probably something that
0:07:43 people need that’s actually out there provided by somebody. I mean, somebody is making an app for
0:07:50 something, right? And the question is, is like, can you find them in time to bring whatever they’ve got
0:07:55 to market fast enough to build a business for yourself and to, uh, to keep that person, you know,
0:07:57 or that, that business, you know, uh, float.
0:08:03 Yeah. So I just Googled white label marketplace. I think I landed on that company.
0:08:09 dot com slash marketplace. And they’ve got a bunch of different categories here. CRM software,
0:08:15 content calendars, reputation management software, white label client port, like all this different
0:08:20 stuff. It’s interesting to see that active campaign is on here. This is like the email service provider
0:08:26 that I’ve been using for years. It’s like, Oh, I could resell active campaign. It slapped my
0:08:32 Nick’s amazing auto responders. I don’t know what it would be, but, but there’s a whole bunch of tools
0:08:38 in here. I guess maybe if you’re, if your idea agnostic, okay. You know, typically I would say,
0:08:43 you know, start with the pain first and then try and figure out the solution to that. But if you’re
0:08:48 like, well, I don’t know, you know, here are some examples of different potential problems that you could
0:08:54 solve with, with some apparently software that’s available for white labeling. So one place to start
0:08:58 would be, would I guess be this directory. We’ll link that up in the show notes for you.
0:09:03 Awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, and that’s, I think again, it’s, it’s probably much more accessible
0:09:08 and easy or than people think. And really what you’re able to do is you’re able to market your
0:09:14 expertise, right? Cause yeah, is active campaign and incredible tool and platform super, you know,
0:09:19 versatile with like all these things. Yeah, absolutely. But most business owners, to be honest
0:09:23 with you, they know how, how to install HVAC. They don’t know how to run a, you know,
0:09:28 a marketing automation campaign. So again, there’s a lot of opportunity out there as long
0:09:33 as you can package what you have in a way that people understand it and can digest the value of
0:09:39 it. Yeah. The sky’s the limit. Okay. So you’re, so for example, if I go to the reputation management
0:09:44 software in here, I imagine, I don’t know if it’s one of these that you’re using, but there’s
0:09:51 a handful, a handful of options there. Yeah, I’m sure they’re charging you a set price per month per
0:09:55 customer. And then you’re turning around and selling it at 97 a month. Are you comfortable
0:10:01 sharing like how that math works or how you approach those margins? Absolutely. Yeah. So,
0:10:05 I mean, my lowest package is 97 bucks a month. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of a mom and pop shop.
0:10:10 Who’s like, you know, uh, we don’t use any other software. Like you’re the first software we use
0:10:14 other way, you know, and they’re like, but you know, we do get phone numbers and name and emails
0:10:20 occasionally. Right. And so they’re like manually typing it in. Right. I would say that more so I’m
0:10:27 at least at 150 bucks a month. Most times I would say what I’m selling more of now is about 300 bucks
0:10:31 a month. And that’s just because there’s, you know, different components to the technology now that’s
0:10:37 making it more of like a, an all in one sort of solution for people. And so, uh, how does the math
0:10:41 work out? Well, first off, usually what it works is you have to buy a kind of, and this is just my
0:10:47 own experience. You’ve, you have to buy a minimum of so many seats. That number of seats is usually
0:10:54 like, you know, you got to buy 10 seats at 40 bucks a seat. Right. And then usually there’s discounts
0:10:58 as you go beyond that. Cause they want to incentivize you obviously to grow your agency and allow you more
0:11:03 and more profit margin. Right. But your markup is really whatever you can charge, you know, whatever
0:11:07 the perceived value is to the client. Right. So for me, if, if it’s a client where I’m kind of like,
0:11:12 well, I don’t know if I necessarily want to do a lot for this person. And there’s maybe not as much
0:11:18 marketing budget, then maybe it’s a 97 bucks a month. But if I just give you an example, I just
0:11:24 recently signed up a, an ENT doc out of Houston and they’d been kind of struggling for years to,
0:11:30 to get more reviews. And within, you know, their first 30 days, they got 34 five-star reviews and they
0:11:33 were like, this thing is incredible. I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re doing it. Right.
0:11:38 That’s a lot of value, especially when, you know, a sinus surgery can cost, you know, 10,
0:11:41 10, 15 grand. It’s like a roofer. Right. Kind of thing. But they’ve actually, they’re actually doing
0:11:47 volume to justify that stuff. So yeah, it’s just, it’s based off of the seats and the more that you do,
0:11:51 the cheaper that they are. I mean, sometimes people will do, you know, Hey, for 300 bucks a month,
0:11:55 it’s unlimited. I mean, that’s really where I started. And then, you know, what I would say,
0:11:58 Nick, you know, if I was going to have a word to the wise, if somebody’s doing something like
0:12:04 this is I would make sure that you focus on building relationships with your clients,
0:12:09 them understanding that you have a certain level of expertise enough that they trust you that,
0:12:14 you know, let’s say that the platform you’re using gets sunsetted because somebody else buys them.
0:12:18 Cause that’s, what’s happening out there, right? Is a lot of these little things are being consolidated
0:12:23 on these bigger brands. It’s just the nature of the beast out there. And so, you know, that was a
0:12:30 lesson that I, I learned maybe midway through my sort of business where my initial software got
0:12:34 bought up by a bigger company. And I mean, that’s, let’s just say there’s a lot of sleepless nights
0:12:39 there. So, and it was just because I hadn’t necessarily prepared or positioned myself in a way
0:12:44 that, Hey, this is a newer platform that we’re moving to. And it would be super awesome. And it’s
0:12:47 going to be way better and more efficient than people would be like, Oh yeah, I’m totally on board.
0:12:51 Whatever you, whatever you think, Chris, like you’ve been doing right by us for, for years,
0:12:55 right? I would just make sure that you’re, you’re keeping and maintaining that relationship and that
0:13:01 capacity. And if not you, your, your account managers, just so they don’t just one day log in
0:13:06 and see that the interface is all changed and they say, what’s going on? Like it just creates questions
0:13:12 for you. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, Hey, what, what happened or what is this? Or, you know,
0:13:17 I can’t log in, right? Like, cause there’s gotta be a transition period of moving to that new one
0:13:21 and learning the ropes of the new software and stuff like that. So yeah, that would be my only
0:13:27 emphasis. And I use, I use a couple of softwares that I provide for my clients just based on what
0:13:33 their needs are. And so I guess in a way I’m somewhat platform agnostic because if something were to happen
0:13:36 again, I could, I can move everybody to this platform or I can move everybody to this other
0:13:41 platform or I know a couple of others that I might explore that are always kind of on the radar
0:13:46 potentially if, if something were to go, you know, weird or screwy, right? Cause I would say
0:13:51 the biggest thing is I’m moving off that $300 a month unlimited platform. I moved to a platform that
0:13:55 was like, okay, that’s cool for the first year since we bought these guys, but now we’re actually
0:14:02 going to charge you 20 bucks per seat. And I’m like, okay, guys, you realize that my monthly bill
0:14:08 for you just went from 300 bucks to about 2,400 a month. And I was like, yeah, that would just
0:14:14 cripple my agency. Right. But instead I was able to talk it down to $10 a month. Now I think I was
0:14:18 the cheapest one because I had the best relationship with the people and I was able to kind of get
0:14:22 through that somewhat unscathed. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maintaining those relationships,
0:14:28 everything is negotiable in some way. And when things shift, you know, the customer, you’ve sold the
0:14:33 solution. The customer is kind of convinced that this is a problem at this point and they trust you to
0:14:38 provide the solution. If the back end of that solution needs to change slightly from one provider
0:14:41 to another, as long as we’re still getting the results, like you said, I think that’s still going
0:14:48 to be okay versus completely being married to one solution. And then it, all of a sudden it stops being
0:14:56 effective anymore. And then you’re kind of in trouble there. What’s the conversation like with
0:15:01 prospective customers? Cause it’s like, well, if they could go directly to this software and pay
0:15:10 $14 a month versus 97 to 300 for you to run it for them, or I don’t know, like what’s the,
0:15:15 what’s the value add layer? I don’t know. I’m curious about, I’m curious, like, well, where does,
0:15:20 where does the margin come from? Chris’s response is coming up right after this. A lot of side hustlers
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0:17:39 conditions apply. Hiring. Indeed is all you need. So they sell it to us right at, you know, 10 bucks or
0:17:45 let’s just say what’s more reasonable, right? 40 bucks a seat, right? Well, their retail pricing at
0:17:51 a minimum is, is 117, right? So that’s what they’re selling retail because they realize like their cost
0:17:56 for, uh, you know, client acquisition or customer acquisition is, is X, right? That they’re putting
0:18:01 a lot of money on that side, right? A lot of these guys will do contracts. So when you sign with them,
0:18:06 and this is how really, to be honest with you, as a, you know, a solopreneur, you know, a side hustle
0:18:12 solopreneur or whatever you want to kind of call yourself where you can create value that makes your offer more
0:18:16 attractive is that I don’t do contracts. Mine’s all month to month, right? So nobody has like, feels like they’re
0:18:21 being pressured. And I always jokingly say in our, our kind of our sales call, if you will, I said, Hey, look, you know,
0:18:26 my goal is to make you so delighted with the results that we’re providing that you kind of, you kind of look at your
0:18:29 bill every month and you kind of laugh and you go, I can’t believe that’s all I pay this guy.
0:18:34 Right. That’s sort of my approach to it. Right. And I also say at the same time, like, Hey, if it’s not
0:18:39 a good fit and we’re not, we’re not having a good relationship, like let’s become friends amicably.
0:18:42 Like, I don’t, I don’t want to sour the relationship. I don’t want you stuck in a relationship that you
0:18:45 don’t like. Also, you know, if you’re not a good client, I don’t want to be in a relationship with
0:18:49 you either. Right. Kind of thing. And I say jokingly, obviously, but the idea there is like, Hey,
0:18:55 this is an open conversation, right? In that realm. And so where the margin is, is in what they
0:18:59 retail or charge it for. Right. So I’m always kind of keeping an eye on what that is. The powerful
0:19:04 thing is, is that I don’t have a lot of bloated overhead, right? I’m not paying for the software
0:19:08 development costs. Right. That’s the thing that really would eat up. Cause I’ve, I’d thought back
0:19:12 when I was a naive entrepreneur, I was like, well, I’ll just build this software myself. And I went out and
0:19:16 got it quoted. And I was like, just to get a baseline platform was going to cost me about 300 grand.
0:19:20 And that was to like, just get something to stand up. And then I was like, yeah,
0:19:25 but then what’s the ongoing maintenance to keep that thing relevant, especially in the digital world
0:19:30 where like, you know, browsers are changing all the time. Uh, all these review platforms are changing
0:19:35 all the time. I was like, yeah, you know what? The 10 bucks a month I’m spending per account seems like
0:19:39 a fair shake, you know, and I’ll just deal with the limitations of the platform.
0:19:46 What happens when something does break and customers are upset with you because for all they know,
0:19:52 you’re the guy you are the creator. Yeah. You know, I just, um, honesty and transparency is
0:19:58 the best policy. So my thing is just trying to communicate with them. Hey, maybe I, I, I give
0:20:02 them the belief that, you know, I’ve got a team of engineers, but usually I just say, Hey, the
0:20:07 engineers, you know, and I’m not saying my engineers, right. I’m not saying, you know, uh, bird eyes
0:20:11 engineers, right. Or whatever the case may be. I’m not saying that their engineers are looking. I’m just
0:20:16 saying, Hey, the engineers have this for action. They’re working through it. I apologize that it’s not
0:20:20 working. You know, this is a pretty, you know, big change on Google’s end and we’re trying to kind
0:20:25 of navigate it. And, you know, as you know, Google doesn’t exactly send out documents on exactly how to
0:20:29 cope with their changes to blah, blah, blah. And most people kind of go, Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
0:20:33 That makes, that makes sense. Right. So you just keep them, keep them in the loop. And most people are
0:20:38 pretty understanding. Right. I also don’t, you know, I’m not operating in the realm of heart surgery or
0:20:42 neurosurgery. Right. So, okay. I’m, I’m sorry. You didn’t get a review this week. Like we were
0:20:46 working through some stuff. Right. But you’ve gotten a review, you know, every other week.
0:20:50 Right. So things are pretty, still pretty good. Right. So yeah. Anyways, I guess it’s just,
0:20:55 just perspective. Right. If you have a little bit less in exchange for some of these benefits,
0:21:00 you give up a little bit of the control on, on the actual product. And so that’s,
0:21:06 that’s something to consider. Yeah. I mean, at the same time though, Nick, if you become a power user,
0:21:10 they listen to you for one of these platforms, I’m considered one of their power users and they listen
0:21:15 to me and I give them some feedback. Now, does it always get on the priority list in the order that
0:21:19 I’d like? No, no, it doesn’t. But you know, for one of the other ones, I’m kind of a reseller under
0:21:25 another bigger reseller, but that guy, they are constantly consulting with him to make these products
0:21:29 better. And I know that if I ever put a bug in JD’s ear, he’d just be like, Oh yeah, no, that’s a good
0:21:32 point. I need to think about that. You know, I’m going to, he’d say something like I’m a buster balls on
0:21:37 that one. Right. So it’s just one of those things that he will go to bat, you know, for you. So again,
0:21:41 you can always work your way into that status. Now, you know, if you’ve got three accounts,
0:21:45 like don’t expect that somebody is going to be like, Oh yeah, whatever that guy says goes. Right. So
0:21:52 yeah, but you can definitely have, have influence. What are the most effective prospecting methods
0:21:59 for you is just, I’m headed for like a reputation software company. Like, okay, I can go to Yelp and
0:22:04 like, just scroll down until I see like the two, three star companies and be like, Hey, you could use
0:22:08 some more positive reviews. Let’s let me help you with that. To be honest with you. I mean, that’s
0:22:12 where I started, man. I was, uh, you know, I had my engineering job building the Washington state
0:22:19 ferries and I would crawl into my car during lunchtime and watch my boss walk by me. And my car was my
0:22:26 first office. Right. And, uh, I would literally cold call chiropractors, painters, dentists, roofers,
0:22:30 plumbers. Right. And I would just go down my list. And I had this little kind of schtick where I
0:22:34 wanted to interview them for, you know, X, Y, Z, whatever. So I wanted to provide value on the
0:22:38 front end. Cause you come at anybody and you start attacking them. Hey, I’m calling because you got
0:22:42 really crummy reviews on Yelp. Like, you know, anybody who gets that phone calls, like you’re a
0:22:47 jerk, you know, get off my phone, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, taking a little bit more of a
0:22:50 subtle approach to kind of, you know, I’ll paint them in a good light.
0:22:54 Well, tell me about that. So what was that? You know, you mentioned I’m going to interview you.
0:22:59 What was that like? This is back when, you know, we were putting these little like graphics on the,
0:23:03 you know, recording. And essentially what I do is it’d be a Google hangout. We’d record it,
0:23:08 we’d put it on and like Google hangouts for whatever reason, a recording was just like
0:23:13 ranking like crazy. And so you could put this thing up and not really do anything to it. And it would
0:23:20 almost like show up within a couple of days in the search results for like, you know, HVAC company,
0:23:26 Seattle. Right. So it was like, it was such an easy, like value add to most of these guys were
0:23:30 like, yeah, sure. This thing’s going online and it’s more thing. And I, you know, I want to help
0:23:34 my customers, you know, find a good, you know, what are your five recommendations for finding a
0:23:38 good chiropractor? Right. And then, you know, after that, after that process, after we kind of close it
0:23:41 out, I just say, Hey, you know, obviously, you know, you clearly care about your customers.
0:23:45 Reviews are obviously an important piece to this. You know, what’s your strategy for getting more
0:23:48 reviews for your business? Right. Cause I would call on most people that, you know,
0:23:53 had kind of like low reviews or no reviews. Right. And so that was kind of my segue in and,
0:23:58 you know, did all of them bite now, but you know, I got a handful of them and was able to start
0:24:02 generating, you know, 2,500 bucks in recurring revenue, you know, in the first like six to 12
0:24:06 months. And I don’t know, that’s, that was pretty substantial and exciting for me. And so, yeah,
0:24:10 that’s, that’s kind of how that initially started. But, you know, to, to answer your kind of bigger
0:24:15 question, how do I kind of prospect now it’s through referrals and introductions. And the reason is
0:24:19 because I’ve done the cold emailing, I’ve done the cold calling, I’ve done all these different,
0:24:23 you know, I’ve done blogging, I’ve done Facebook ads, I’ve done, you know, all this other stuff.
0:24:29 And what I realized is that what most business owners pay attention to is their email inbox
0:24:33 provided that somebody they trust makes a recommendation for them to explore something.
0:24:38 And that’s what actually causes a conversation to really move forward amongst everything else.
0:24:44 I’ve just put my, put all my eggs in that basket and I just do a really good job of building a key
0:24:50 referral relationships. And yes, that, that requires, you know, this introverted weird engineer
0:24:54 to get out there and build social skills. So, you know, it’s been a long road of building and refining
0:24:59 those skill sets, but yeah, it’s, it’s been an awesome journey in that too. So.
0:25:04 Are you doing anything to systemize those referrals and introductions?
0:25:07 What I’ve actually found, I mean, this is even actually kind of recently as somebody is like,
0:25:12 Hey, you know, don’t ask for referrals, ask for introductions. Right. And that makes more sense
0:25:15 because most people don’t understand that like, you know, when they’re thinking about a referral,
0:25:19 they’re running through this whole sort of like mental calculus as to like, Oh yeah,
0:25:23 would this be person be good? And you know, they’re, they’re asking all these questions in
0:25:26 their head that, you know, they didn’t even have answers from that person. So really at the end of
0:25:30 the day, it’s just, you just want the introduction so you can start the conversation. Right. And you can,
0:25:33 you can kind of figure out if, if they’re a good fit or not, you’re going to get
0:25:39 introductions just naturally as a result of, you know, doing good stuff for your, for your
0:25:44 clients. Right. But I think also intentionally asking for those introductions can also be something
0:25:48 that spurs on, you know, people thinking of it and staying top of mind. Obviously, if you’re also
0:25:53 providing relevant value on an ongoing basis to kind of like educating your clients and just touching
0:25:57 base with them regularly, you create those opportunities naturally as well, as a result as well.
0:26:03 Yeah. I’ve definitely been on podcasts where the host makes a point of doing just that. Well,
0:26:06 who else should I talk to now that you know, the format of the show, who else do you think would
0:26:11 be a good fit? And it’s like, would you be comfortable making an introduction? Or even if
0:26:16 they kind of go through the archive list, be like, Oh, I saw that you’re connected to so-and-so
0:26:20 because that’s a lot easier than saying out of the broad universe of people that you might know,
0:26:25 you know, who, who might you be able to connect me to? It’s like, Oh, could you introduce me to
0:26:29 so-and-so? And then my usual process is to reach out to them first and say, Hey, you know, would it be
0:26:36 okay? I just talked to whoever it is. They wanted to connect with you for whatever reason. And you know,
0:26:39 if they say yes, okay, sure. Happy to. And then you can make that email introduction.
0:26:46 Yeah. No, we’ve heard this mentioned a few times on air, this strategy of content-based networking
0:26:51 that kind of cuts through the clutter in a really interesting way. And you say, I’m a local blogger,
0:26:57 I’m a local podcaster. I host this, you know, YouTube show or whatever. And it’s like, I had like
0:27:02 to feature your expertise and sure there’s, you know, it more likely to get a take rate than I want to
0:27:07 talk to you about your crappy Yelp reviews. We live in a very transactional world. If your
0:27:13 approach is to probe and interrogate, most people aren’t going to sign up for that, right? Nobody’s
0:27:17 going to raise their hand and be like, yeah, I’d love you to kind of sniff out my issues and my
0:27:21 problems and show them to me. And then, you know, use that to, to leverage into a sale of some sort,
0:27:25 right? I think if you come in and sort of adding value saying, Hey, you know, we’ve been talking with
0:27:29 all these people in the industry and here’s what we found are the main challenges and what our
0:27:33 recommendation is, you know, X, Y, Z, here’s a quick little white paper of a couple of case studies
0:27:38 that we’ve done that might be helpful for you. Right. I think that begs to begs the opportunity
0:27:43 for a relationship or a conversation to start, like you’re saying. So yeah, no, that’s, that’s,
0:27:45 that’s the way is just adding value from the beginning.
0:27:50 Now, given that it’s software, you don’t have to stay local to your geographic area. You could,
0:27:54 you could target customers all over the place. Is that something that you have found?
0:27:59 Yeah. Oh yeah. And that’s really one of the beauties of software as a service,
0:28:02 to be honest with you, is that, you know, you don’t have a brick and mortar storefront where
0:28:06 your catchment area is, you know, only within, you know, 50 square miles or something like that,
0:28:11 you know, people’s willingness to travel. And I’ve got clients, you know, down in California and Texas
0:28:15 and Florida and New Hampshire, you know, and Kansas, you know, they’re all over the country.
0:28:20 I don’t know how many of the 50 States I have clients in, but a significant number. And the power
0:28:24 two is like, you know, with everything being so digital, right. And in these conferences being
0:28:29 all over the place, I mean, I’ll just give an example. I got a painter client of mine who’s
0:28:33 local here, but he attends a mastermind group where there’s painters from New Jersey in it. And there’s
0:28:37 painters from, you know, Texas in it. Right. So that, that makes a referral to somebody in New
0:28:41 Jersey, that painter in New Jersey knows an electrician who knows a plumber. And I, it just sort
0:28:46 of organically spreads that way. And that’s really kind of the power of it, which is also,
0:28:49 to be honest with you, why it’s kind of exciting. You know, my wife and I have actually been kind
0:28:53 of, you know, contemplating moving out of the Pacific Northwest. Now that we’ve got two kids and
0:28:57 a, you know, that we’ve got a certain sense of freedom, right. Although I have a pretty
0:29:01 significant and established network here, right. There’s nothing stopping me from picking up and
0:29:05 moving to a different state because most of the relationships I’ve built, most people haven’t even
0:29:09 seen me. To be honest with you, it’s always fun when I meet them at a networking event and I’m like,
0:29:13 Hey, you’re actually a client of mine. They’re like, really? And I’m like, yeah. Do you remember,
0:29:15 do you recognize the voice? And they’re like, Oh my God. Right. So anyways,
0:29:20 that’s always kind of fun too. Yeah. That’s how you can, you can live the location independent
0:29:25 lifestyle at this point. Yeah. Exactly. Are you comfortable giving a sense of the size of the
0:29:30 business today in terms of revenue on a, I guess, monthly basis, if that’s how you track it?
0:29:35 It’s multiple six figures and the profit margins are extremely healthy. And so, you know, the good
0:29:39 majority of that goes right into my pocket. Right. And, you know, we have, we’ve been growing every
0:29:50 single year with the exception of 2020 where we, we were, you know, like 0.9% down. Right. But compared
0:29:54 to most businesses, that was, that was a, that was pretty, a pretty awesome year. So yeah. If you can
0:30:02 walk away from 2020, uh, essentially flat, like we’ll call that a win. Um, exactly. Okay. So, but,
0:30:06 but like, for instance, you know, last year we grew our MRR, our monthly recurring revenue by 50%.
0:30:11 My goal is to build, uh, to grow at another 50% because kids are expensive. I don’t know if anybody
0:30:15 told you that, but. I know everybody talks about saving for college. It’s like, no, you got to save
0:30:22 for like daycare and preschool. So you mentioned MRR. Is that among the metrics that you’re paying most
0:30:26 attention to? I guess churn would probably be part of that, but what’s, what do you look for in the
0:30:32 kind of a dashboard reporting? Yeah. Uh, monthly recurring revenue is really the key. The churn,
0:30:38 it just, it really isn’t there. I mean, I, I will lose a couple of customers, you know, some months I
0:30:42 don’t lose any customers. Right. But you know, it can be as much as like two, three in a month,
0:30:48 which is not significant. Right. For me. And so I’m just, I’m constantly always kind of replacing them
0:30:53 with, you know, with at least that and then plus some, right. So yeah, that’s mainly the metrics
0:30:59 that I, I, you know, follow. Do you ever play around with like prepay for the year for a little
0:31:05 discount or do you kind of like this month to month pricing strategy? You know, I have, and some people
0:31:08 do that cause they just, they like it or whatever, right. They just like paying lots of money for
0:31:14 things up front or something like that. I kind of shy away from it. Cause I just, sometimes it just,
0:31:17 there are stronger conversations with that person. Cause it’s like, well, I’ve paid all this money
0:31:22 up front. I don’t know, man. I just, you know, the discounts that people want to try and demand,
0:31:25 I just kind of go, Hey, you know, let’s just take it month to month. You know, if you don’t like it,
0:31:31 you can cancel it. It also causes like less fluctuations for me and my MRR, to be honest
0:31:35 with you. And that’s kind of really, like you said, that’s where I hang my hat and I track my growth
0:31:43 is based off of that. So. Okay. How do you differentiate between the 97 a month price point or some of the
0:31:48 higher tier price points? Like what do you add on to make somebody jump to the $300 a month plan,
0:31:49 for example?
0:31:54 So usually what it has to do is with the cost of the integrations for that client, right? So
0:31:59 it’s one of the platforms that I use. I mean, if I’m doing an, like an expensive, exclusive
0:32:06 type integration for like a, you know, a medical EHR, which is electronic health records, CRM, right?
0:32:11 I mean, those will cost me 50 bucks a month, right? So like, that’s kind of innately built into the
0:32:14 pricing that I have to price for them. With that being said though, usually there’s a little bit
0:32:20 more robustness with it. You know, my $97 a month, there’s like, it’s one sort of campaign that you
0:32:25 can run that you can manipulate and change the verbiage of with the other one. Like you could
0:32:30 have all these different types of campaigns. We also have included in that kind of what we call
0:32:36 the unified inbox. So like Google chats, Facebook chats, Instagram chats, email, phone numbers,
0:32:41 web chat, it can all be brought into one, which just creates a better customer service experience
0:32:46 on the front end and just allows them to actually increase their, their own deal flow. So there’s
0:32:51 a bigger like impact, I think on the bottom line. And then we’ve got some other sort of add-ons that
0:32:56 you can kind of create beyond the reviews and stuff like that. You know, we just launched a module that
0:32:59 allows people to accept payments through our platform, right? There’s another one that’s coming.
0:33:03 I mean, again, I’m not doing this, you know, somebody else is thinking up and coding all this
0:33:07 stuff, but appointments, right? Is another one like being able to book appointments through that,
0:33:13 but you can also do benchmarking against, you know, competitors. You can do surveys. Very rarely do I
0:33:17 get into that stuff because it’s just the more complicated it can get for your clients, the more
0:33:22 confused they get and the less like willing they are to engage. That’s why I always stick with
0:33:27 the reviews first and foremost. And then we kind of talk about, you know, using the unified inbox for
0:33:32 them to, to generate and streamline their, their sales and deal flow, so to speak. So yeah.
0:33:37 And a lot of that, it sounds like he’s dictated by the software itself versus, you know, what other
0:33:42 systems do you need this to talk to? Okay. That’s at a higher price point. And so we’re going to resell
0:33:47 it at a higher price point. More with Chris in just a moment, including a day in the life of a software
0:33:51 reseller and his biggest business surprise coming up right after this.
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0:35:02 go to Quo.com slash side hustle. That’s Q-U-O.com slash side hustle. You can even keep your existing
0:35:08 number. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. What’s a day in the life if there is like a typical
0:35:15 day or week, you know, time required to manage this empire of clients all over the country?
0:35:23 To be honest with you, I was probably working 60, 70 hours a week probably two, three, four years ago,
0:35:27 but just started kind of, you know, I woke up to the fact that, you know, hey, you should actually
0:35:31 have some mentors in your life that had actually kind of figured out, you know, how to create the
0:35:36 life that you want because it was like, you know, I’d left a 40, 50-hour-a-week engineering job and was
0:35:40 working 60 hours a week in my business. And I was like, wait a minute, this still seems pretty similar.
0:35:45 Now, again, like I said, you know, lifestyle was much better because I was much more flexible. I could do
0:35:48 what I wanted to. I could work at nights, you know, all that kind of stuff. And just through
0:35:53 some prioritization and some sort of hard questions of like, you know, what activities are you doing
0:35:59 that don’t necessarily make sense? You know, now I probably work five to 10 hours a week and that’s
0:36:04 kind of including customer service and sort of, you know, follow-ups on referrals and sales calls and
0:36:09 stuff like that. And so, you know, like I said, it’s much more of a lifestyle business. I’m not here to,
0:36:14 you know, purchase the moon, so to speak, in that realm. And so bringing on this person who’s going to do
0:36:19 the customer support, I’ll probably keep it at the five to 10 hours a week, but just focus my
0:36:25 efforts more on the biz development side. So like, what’s the day in the life? I mean, I usually wake
0:36:30 up probably around, you know, anywhere between seven and eight o’clock. Got a little morning routine that I
0:36:34 typically do. Well, you know, my wife’s kind of getting up and she does her morning routine. You know,
0:36:40 today, this morning we went down, I made her waffles and chicken for breakfast. We ate that. Well,
0:36:46 my, you know, 21 month old son ate it. My four month old son was sleeping the entire time that
0:36:50 that was happening. And then I took my son out into the snow and we played in the snow for, I don’t
0:36:56 know, about 45 minutes and then kind of came back in here and putzed around and then got into the
0:37:02 shower and showered up for my very first appointment of the day, which was our call at 1045. Right. And
0:37:06 that’s usually my, kind of my rigmarole is, you know, usually my first kind of stuff isn’t anything
0:37:11 before 11 a.m. So that I can spend that time with the family. And then usually I’ll kind of kick off
0:37:16 at, you know, anywhere between one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, all depends. Usually I’ll
0:37:20 get a nap in there because that’s one of the reasons I built a business was I just wanted to be able to
0:37:25 nap on a horizontal surface because the naps I’d taken my car just weren’t as comfortable. So, you know,
0:37:30 your why doesn’t have to be big, right? You don’t have to cure cancer. Sometimes you just want to get a
0:37:34 good nap in. Right. But yeah. And then usually the afternoon spent taking the kids to the park or,
0:37:37 you know, running errands. And it’s just funny. My wife and I look at each other and we go,
0:37:42 I don’t know how people who have, you know, 40, 50 hour jobs, like how they keep everything together.
0:37:47 And it’s like, oh, well, no, I actually remember that. It was like Saturday was all adult chores.
0:37:52 Sunday, you just frigging, you know, late on the couch, exhausted from what you had just done,
0:37:56 dreading the Monday that was coming. And so, you know, for a season, you just kind of got to,
0:38:00 you know, put away all your distractions and stay focused on building yourself a life and
0:38:05 you can get there, but it takes, it takes discipline, especially when it’s not a job
0:38:09 and nobody’s, you know, holding your paycheck over your head to keep you motivated to get it done.
0:38:15 Yeah. It’s really, it’s cool to hear the flexibility and the lifestyle freedom that you have now after
0:38:22 front loading those 60 hour work weeks up front to get the referral wheel spinning in your favor and
0:38:28 kind of building this network and the monthly recurring revenue that you have. But yeah, if you can get there,
0:38:32 if you can, you know, hold your breath long enough through that sprint phase, then you’re going to
0:38:39 be in good shape down the road. And because of the recurring revenue element to it, you’re not
0:38:45 stressing about, well, where’s, where’s the income going to come from next month versus the freelance
0:38:50 business where it’s like, well, I got to go find another client to make the month or I got to replenish
0:38:54 my inventory next month. Like there’s lots of different, I don’t know, I can see lots of different
0:39:00 advantages to this business model and to do it in a, you know, relatively low risk way without
0:39:07 fronting the $300,000 for software development costs. But anything that you do differently,
0:39:11 I think you mentioned something that you, if you had to start over, you might accelerate the timeline
0:39:14 a little bit, but anything else that surprised you along the way?
0:39:18 I think I would have sought out the perspective from, you know, a couple of successful, you know,
0:39:23 entrepreneurs earlier on to just kind of help me navigate through. There’s just a lot of stuff
0:39:28 that you’re going to waste your time on. And part of it is just a rite of passage of just doing a lot
0:39:32 of like busy work, but, you know, just constantly asking yourself the question of like, Hey, is this
0:39:37 helping me move forward? Or is this just causing me to think that I’m moving things forward? Right.
0:39:43 There’s a book, uh, by Adam clear called atomic habits. And he just talks about the idea of like
0:39:49 motion versus action. Right. And our, our generation, I feel like as millennials love to be in motion. I
0:39:53 love reading and learning and doing all this stuff. I was like, yeah, but what are you actually doing?
0:39:58 That’s moving the needle forward in your life. And I think we can fool ourselves into thinking that,
0:40:02 you know, we’re moving forward when we’re really just getting ready to get ready to get ready.
0:40:06 And so I think that would be where I’ve lost a lot of time. It’s just a lot of like,
0:40:10 you know, just rabbit trails that I’ve gone down and going, Oh yeah, wouldn’t it be cool if I did
0:40:14 this, that, and the other thing it’s like, no, you know, what you need to do is go shake hands,
0:40:18 build a relationship, add value to somebody’s life. That’s really, you know, what’s going to move,
0:40:22 move the needle forward on things. And yeah, we’ve got a series on the show with Rosemary
0:40:29 Groner and her big thing is this relentless focus on ROI. You know, is the activity that I’m doing
0:40:36 going to move the business forward in some way, or am I just updating my about page for the umpteenth
0:40:41 time? It’s just, you know, thinking, thinking about that with the actions that you’re taking and being,
0:40:46 being honest with yourself. Like, is this a revenue generating activity or is it just busy work? It
0:40:51 feels productive so I can cross something off, but it really makes no impact either way. So Chris,
0:40:55 this has been awesome. What’s, where are you taking it this year? You got the, you know, five,
0:40:57 10 hours a week to spend on this. Where do you want to go?
0:41:02 We’re finishing off our ninth year in business on March 31st, which is cool. I mean, we’re almost
0:41:07 rounding the corner to, to 10 years, a decade in business, which I think it’s like 1% of businesses
0:41:11 make it that far. Right. So it’s, it’s a pretty big achievement. Right. And, you know, I’m not one
0:41:16 to celebrate or pat myself on the back too much, but hopeful that it’ll be around for another 10 years,
0:41:20 if not more. And I’m definitely not going to kill a golden goose. But, you know, for me, it’s like,
0:41:24 I just, I want to pay this forward. I don’t think that I’m the only one that deserves this type of
0:41:28 lifestyle. And that’s the bigger, the bigger goal. Cause I think that will give me meaning
0:41:33 into my life, well into my, my nineties and God forbid we get to a hundred.
0:41:38 Chris, this has been awesome. You can find him over at ignite.reviews, send him an email. If you
0:41:42 have any questions, Chris at ignite.reviews. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one
0:41:44 tip for side hustle nation.
0:41:48 Find somebody who’s gone before you and do whatever you need to do to earn their mentorship and their
0:41:52 guidance. Cause it will cut years off of your learning curve. So hopefully that’s helpful,
0:41:57 Nick. And, uh, it was a great opportunity to being able to share with your incredible audience. And,
0:41:58 uh, thank you for your time, sir.
0:42:03 You bet, man. Uh, again, Chris at ignite.reviews. Thanks so much for joining me and we’ll catch up
0:42:04 with you soon.
0:42:12 All right. I hope you enjoyed that chat with Chris. I took a lot of notes in this one. I think first up,
0:42:18 it’s the power of niching down, following his wife’s advice to pitch something simple to understand
0:42:24 more reviews, more customers versus trying to sell every possible digital marketing service.
0:42:29 Is there a way to simplify the offering in your business? So people instantly get it.
0:42:35 A couple of my original side hustles were more consumer facing. So I would use language like the
0:42:40 best price on your next pair of shoes, or it’s like Yelp for virtual assisting companies. Maybe for side
0:42:46 hustle nation, it’s case studies on how to make money in your spare time. In any case, making it easy for
0:42:51 people to understand what you do and who you do it for. So they can file that away either for their
0:42:57 own use later or to send potential customers your way. But you heard from Chris, the level of desire
0:43:02 in making something work when he talked about making cold calls from his car on his lunch break
0:43:07 took some serious effort. We talked about content based networking as a way to break through the
0:43:13 clutter, inviting your prospects to share their expertise, put the spotlight on them on a podcast or
0:43:18 in a video interview, rather than jumping straight into a sales call with you. I think you’ll get a
0:43:23 better take rate that way. We’ve got a couple episodes that touch on that in more detail, including
0:43:30 Josh Elledge in episode 361. If you want to go check that out with Chris, we talked about making a point to ask
0:43:35 for introductions rather than referrals. I thought that was an interesting reframe. And that’s actually how Chris
0:43:40 and I connected, my brother introduced us, but white labeling, essentially buying software
0:43:46 at wholesale prices and reselling it at retail. We’ve seen tons of examples of side hustlers doing this
0:43:52 with physical products and even with services. So it makes sense. You could do it with a digital product
0:43:57 like software as well. If this episode got your wheels turning a little bit, I want to encourage you to
0:44:03 download the free listener bonus I put together. It’s 20 software niches with potential white label products
0:44:09 that you can go out and resell. You can grab that at sidehustlenation.com slash white label or follow
0:44:15 the link in the episode description of your podcast player app. Again, sidehustlenation.com slash white
0:44:21 label. Big thanks to Chris for sharing his insight. Thanks to my brother, Chris, for the intro. That is it
0:44:26 for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you’re finding value in this content, the greatest compliment
0:44:30 is to share it with a friend. Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you
0:44:32 in the next edition of The Side Hustle Show.
Reselling software gives you many of the benefits of a software business, without the upfront development cost.
That means you can enjoy recurring revenue, selling one product to multiple customers, and strong profit margins by white labeling a software tool that already exists.
These benefits are what attract many people to starting a SaaS, or software as a service, but you may not need to go through the trouble.
After all, there may already be a tool that solves the same problem. Could you become a software reseller instead of a software creator?
To help me learn more about reselling software (also known as white labeling), I connected with Chris Lollini.
Chris is a self-described “recovering engineer” who started a marketing agency as a side hustle 9 years ago. That agency evolved into a multi-6-figure white labeling operation called Reputation Igniter.
The business helps other small businesses earn more positive reviews for their work.
And while Chris definitely invested the time in growing his network and roster of monthly customers, it now takes him just 5-10 hours a week to run.
Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:
- how Chris got the idea to start white labeling SaaS products
- how he identified his customer’s pain points and provided a SaaS solution
- the methods he uses to add value and create healthy profit margins
Big thanks to my brother Chris for the intro!
Full Show Notes: Reselling Software: Don’t Start a SaaS — White Label Someone Else’s Instead
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About The Side Hustle Show
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Hosted by Nick Loper of Side Hustle Nation.
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