Neil Ateem [00:00:00]:

Does $300,000,000 seem like a lot to you? Well it almost seems like for Neil Atim it is just another day at the office. That's because Neil's job is to make companies rich. His consulting agency helps brands across all industries develop winning marketing strategies, implement subscription models, and launch digital products.

Neil Ateem [00:00:18]:

We actually get payments upfront. We get that we use that as funding to actually develop products because sometimes you may be solving a problem that is really painful to a specific customer. And if you know, you have their trust, you have an audience, whatever it may be, you have that momentum already and you have this product, this idea that, you know, would solve this specific, problem for them. People would be willing to pay for that upfront. Right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:43]:

Imagine that with one client, Neil was able to help them generate $9,000,000 in revenue in just 3 days with online course sales. How did he do it? Stay tuned to find out. Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McNulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Many have asked me what software I use to record such high quality video for this podcast. I use Riverside, and what's great about Riverside is it records the local camera feed from you and your guests around the world, which means crisp 4 k video without having to worry about blurriness due to Internet hiccups.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:25]:

Riverside is also a great editor, fitting with my philosophy of making it easy for yourself to create because there is nothing that your guests or you have to download. We also use Riverside's AI magic clips to find interesting moments for our episode intros. And I'm happy to announce that Riverside is sponsoring this episode. And if you sign up at creators. Riverside.fm/creatorsadventure and use code creators adventure, you'll get 15% off. You can find the link in the episode description as well. Now back to the show. Hey, everyone.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:56]:

We're here today with Neil Atim. He is the cofounder of Multiplier, a marketing agency that specializes in helping companies achieve substantial revenue growth. They have generated over 300,000,000 in revenue for renowned brands like Mindvalley, Catcha Group, Jordan Peterson, coaching.com and many others. With 10 plus years of marketing experience, encompassing product launches, marketing strategies, subscription models, and digital products, Neil is well versed in a range of industries. Neil, welcome to the show.

Neil Ateem [00:02:28]:

Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:31]:

So my first question for you is, what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Neil Ateem [00:02:43]:

The thing, it's hard to pay, pinpoint just one thing, but I can, think of a few things. You know? I think from a marketing perspective, which is what we're gonna be focusing on today, it's really about adding value and understanding, what do people actually want? What is the value that they want? What is the problem that you're gonna solve for them? You know? And if you start from there, as a macro view and you actually zoom into the other things, I think, it's a good place to start. Right? So if I had to sum it up into one thing, is that is that the value? You start from there, then you go into everything else because you can go into the niches, into the type of funnels, into the campaigns, all of these things, right, which do make up the whole ecosystem. But, it comes down to one thing, which is the value that your product, your service, your platform, whatever it may be, actually brings. So start from there, solve a problem or, you know, it depends on on on the niche or, the actual customer that you're serving. But it may be solving a problem. It may be something else. Maybe it's a luxury product where, you know, it gives a person status or or some type of membership or access, you know, depending on, what the scenario is.

Neil Ateem [00:03:59]:

Right? Completely depends on that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:02]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice because just hearing that, I'm thinking about a number of creators where they're so focused on the product. And I can picture exactly, like, these creators who they're thinking, I'm gonna make this, and it's gonna do this. And and they have all these ideas in their mind. But then they haven't taken a step back and realized, what is the value? What's the pain that they're providing a solution for for their customer? And it's not that they haven't described it clearly in their marketing. It's that they maybe aren't even connected to it. They just don't even know.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:37]:

And they have this idea of something they wanna create, but they haven't thought of what is the problem they're actually trying to solve.

Neil Ateem [00:04:43]:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's the first place to start. Right? I would say before you even sell anything, you wanna know what is the value you're bringing here? What is the problem you're solving? And, for example, like, I have cases where I have done launches and stuff, like, before a product is ready. Right? And we call it the pre product, strategy where we actually get payments upfront. We get that. We use that as funding to actually develop products because sometimes you may be solving a problem that is really painful to a specific customer. And if you know, you have their trust, you have an audience, whatever it may be, you have that momentum already, and you have this product, this idea that, you know, would solve this specific, problem for them.

Neil Ateem [00:05:26]:

People would be willing to pay for that upfront. Right? Whether you're giving them an incentive or, it really is that painful that, yes, I would fund this. So this guy actually go out and create this or this, this company actually go goes out and creates this. You know? So, yeah, if you start there, it's it's a perfect place. And, with this with this approach as well, like, you can actually go ahead and create products and and then try to sell it. But, that's never what we recommend. It's always start with the the problem. Like I said, pitch it, you know? Say, I'm working on this.

Neil Ateem [00:06:01]:

It's completely fine because if you're actually genuinely adding value and helping someone, you don't need to sell off the bat and create the perfect product. You can iterate. And this is things we we we do. You know? Like, as we're building stuff out, like, let's say it's an online program, sometimes we build it week on week. We start off with the live and then iterate, get feedback. From there, you take all that feedback, and then you you can build the perfect product after after that. Right? So sometimes you can build as you go and use all the feedback along. You don't even need to sell it sometimes because, when you think about it, like, in the long run, things like online courses, communities, these things sell on evergreen, right, which means it makes money perpetually.

Neil Ateem [00:06:40]:

So it's not something you need to keep reinvesting on. So it's okay to get an initial group of people in and and you you test it out, take all the feedback, you know, perfect that they get the best testimonials and, you know, like, from the stone age, like the thing that's that works best is like word-of-mouth, right? So if someone is raving about your product or service or course or whatever you may, provide, then it sells itself. So, yes, I endorse marketing and ads and funnels and everything. That's what I do, but nothing works better than word-of-mouth. Right? So, if you can build that in from the very beginning, then you're onto something.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:20]:

Yeah. And you wanna be able to get your product to the point that you can make it good enough that it'll spread with word-of-mouth. And to do that, you need to get that early feedback. You need to get something going. And I think the key that you mentioned is momentum. And Exactly. There are a lot of people that will spend this time creating something and are working on it, but they're going a little bit slow and and they could go faster. And once you have those customers, whether they're pre purchasing or even if you're gonna let them in for free, Now, you've got people asking for something.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:50]:

They're they've got a problem. They need you to help fix it. They they have something that they have questions about. And now you have momentum because there's this pressure from those potential customers saying, I need help with this. And now you suddenly have all these things to do. And instead of guessing what to do, you actually know the path because your customers and potential customers are telling you.

Neil Ateem [00:08:12]:

Exactly. 100%. So I'll tell you this. Most people, they know enough. They're smart enough. They're, you know, they have enough certifications and training and experience and case studies and testimonials and everything already. Right? That's done. But the thing that sometimes hold them back is actually execution.

Neil Ateem [00:08:31]:

So if you use a method like this, it holds you accountable. That way you have to. You have no other choice but to go ahead and create this product, create the service, co build it with them. Because sometimes we're stuck in this trap of, oh, I just need to do one more thing. I need one more certification. I need you know, always needing one more thing, one more thing, one more thing. And I'll tell you, I'm very experienced in the personal growth space. Right? I'm the former, kind of subscriptions at Mindvalley.

Neil Ateem [00:08:59]:

So I know how these people think. You know? And I'm one of them. I'm always learning and reading and and, wanna do this new course or book or something. You know? And it's always the thing that prevents me from execution. So having that accountability directly from them, nothing beats action. Right? And it's snowball effect. So if you actually put something out, say, from the very beginning what you're building, people would jump onto that. As I said, you stick to the first principle, which is the value that you're putting out there.

Neil Ateem [00:09:27]:

And then, yeah, it just takes care of itself because people like to be involved. They like to build stuff. When they invest their time and stuff, you know, the outcome for them is is much more enjoyable. You know? It's like it's like I don't know. This may be a weird analogy, but it's like, you bake a cake and and if you actually put in the work and you eat that cake, it's gonna be like, amazing cake, you know. But if you just go to the bakery, you pick up a cake, it's just a cake, you know. So it's the same with anything. If we put effort and energy into it, it becomes even much more desirable or enjoyable.

Neil Ateem [00:09:56]:

You know?

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:58]:

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So before 2020, you were working in the corporate world for about 8 years, and then you quit to start your own business, become a digital nomad. Was there a pivotal moment at all that made you take that leap?

Neil Ateem [00:10:17]:

So the thing is, even before I jumped into corporate, I did have an agency before which I sold. Right? So I'm from the Caribbean. I'm from Trinidad and Tobago. And, when I was around 17, 18, I had an agency who was doing web design, ads on Facebook, all of these things. But it's not scalable. It's a very small island, 1,300,000 people. So nothing was really moving there, you know, to the extent that I'm at right now. And I had a oil and gas job.

Neil Ateem [00:10:47]:

I worked in oil and gas for 5 years, and then I decided to leave. And it's very hard to leave, but I did land the role in Mindvalley and started there. And after spending a couple years, I treated it as a mentorship because I got got to work closely with the CEO, that's, Vishin Lakhiani, who's brilliant. You know? He's a genius at what he does and taking in everything I knew. I knew I wanted to exit, and I didn't have a solid plan. It was during COVID. I just decided to resign, and I actually resigned to write a book, and this book is is, on personal growth. It's nothing to do with marketing, but it's just something I wanted to do.

Neil Ateem [00:11:21]:

You know? It was a book, that I would go back 10 years, give to my younger self. So it's called Get Your Shit Together, the guide for young adults. You know? So it's nothing to do with marketing. But at the same time, of course, I needed to support myself. You know? So quitting your job during COVID, it was, like, unheard of. Everyone, you know, wanted to know if I was crazy, but I just had that inner trust. You know? Everything that I knew, I would be able to make something out of it, you know, and then I just started doing consulting. I, of course, built a name, in this space.

Neil Ateem [00:11:49]:

And then, yeah, just companies started coming and, you know, just doing the 1 hour consulting or, you know, something on retainer or fractional CMO, you know, these kind of things, you know. But of course, it's not scalable. So and naturally, it just, some somehow turned into the agency model. And, yeah, just expanded from there, you know? So I really expanded from the personal growth space, the online courses space and stuff, and now we do platforms and stuff like, you know, starting with creators with just a 100 k Instagram followers, let's say, who doesn't have a product, who's never sold anything to companies doing 50,000,000 a year now. You know? So it's a really broad spectrum, and it's against the grain. You know? They always say go for the niche and stuff. But to me, it's like there's so much learning when you can actually see what happens in different different industries, you know, different niches and everything and apply those learnings across because, at the end of the day, it comes down to understanding how human beings think, what motivates them, what problems you're solving for them, you know, how can you make their lives better. So, the learnings is applied across the board and, frankly, I get bored just doing one thing.

Neil Ateem [00:12:55]:

So, you know, I like the diversity. You know? But, yeah, it's been a it's been a journey. But, now the thing is, the way I view it is, like, I get to do the thing I like the most, which is, see numbers go up and, my clients are happy. I'm happy, and, I I enjoy this. You know? It doesn't even feel like work a lot of the time. It's it's like a hobby. And, yeah, just keeping an open mind out there, to what comes, you know, because, again, like I said, everything comes down to learning. You know? I think that's the best approach to product building, selling, marketing, whatever, maybe even just life.

Neil Ateem [00:13:30]:

You know? Just just be open to it, you know, because you can learn even the littlest nugget from the most random place and apply that, you know, to somewhere else, and it can be, like, a huge lever for business, for life, anything.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:43]:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I mean, maybe it's obvious as a founder of a a Chorus platform. But, I I feel like I would not be where I'm at today if I didn't have a similar approach of, like, the things that I learned in different industries and different things allowed me to build what Kite's platform is today. And I I can't see it happening any other way. I think the experience in those different things is really, really important. And everyone tells you, like, focus.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:12]:

You gotta focus on one thing. But I think especially in the beginning, it's it's kind of important that you don't if you haven't learned enough or haven't figured that thing out yet. And, like, now I'm I'm really focused on site's platform. But, yeah, if I didn't have a web design agency, if I didn't build web applications, if we didn't build other applications and services that involved having a a bunch of other businesses on the platform. All of those things combined led me to be able to build what I built today. And at the very least, it would have been very different and very slow, in comparison to get to this point.

Neil Ateem [00:14:51]:

100% agree. Because, even for me, like, my background was in marketing. I studied, computer science. I did web design. I did graphic design, you know, all of these things. But somehow, it just melted together and, you know, led me to this. You know? So at the base of it, it it was like that thirst for knowledge. You know? Just just being a curious person, wanting to learn anything and everything.

Neil Ateem [00:15:15]:

You know? And I think that is what translates to a good marketer, you know, a good entrepreneur. You need to be open to everything and learn from everywhere. So, then you can channel it. But, yeah, it took me 8 plus years to actually, you know, find something that I actually am certain. Yes. This is what I wanna do, and this is the only thing, you know? So, yeah, like, sometimes it's it's a bit rushed.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:40]:

That's that's the other thing. Because it's not only learning about all those things, but when you gain more experience in these different areas, then you can better find out what you really wanna do. And you I think you can't you don't get to have that experience until you've learned and and done things for a bit yourself.

Neil Ateem [00:15:56]:

Exactly. And I I don't know who did this quote at, but there's this quote something about, you need to substitute experience with knowledge at the same time. You know? So there's always the notion that, you can read so many books and do many courses, but nothing beats experience. But at the same time, there's the other side to it, you know, because you can have all this experience and stuff, but you need to know how to piece it together at the same time. So everything that I've done, I know how I piece it together to form some kind of weird, puzzle logic so, you know, that I can actually apply and make it applicable and practical. So it's like piecing things together, piecing your experience, your knowledge, and whatever you're learning. So it applies to your ecosystem or whatever you're building or doing, you know, at the same time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:40]:

Yeah. Yeah. So you've got a really impressive client list. And how how did you attract some of those big names initially? Was it using, like, your your background at at Mindvalley and telling people what you did there or something else?

Neil Ateem [00:16:56]:

Yeah. So one of the first things I mentioned, right, is word-of-mouth is the most powerful. So the powerful. So the funny thing is as as a marketing agency, we we do 0 marketing. So it's all people just coming to us, spreading word-of-mouth and stuff. And then it comes down to, as I said, again, delivering the best product or service possible. From there, people just naturally will be, coming to you. Right? So if you deliver the best, product or service, it's like think about it this way.

Neil Ateem [00:17:26]:

If you work with a business, a creator, whoever it may be, they usually know each other. Right? For me as an entrepreneur, I know other entrepreneurs. And when someone says, oh, I need someone for this or this, immediately, I know who to recommend because I enjoy working with this person. They deliver results, whatever it may be. Right? So it's the single best way. Now for me, I had that, that background of years of experience. I, launched Mindvalley's subscription product, 0 to 20,000,000 in one year. Now it's a $100,000,000 product.

Neil Ateem [00:17:56]:

It's the only product they sell cut down from 36 products. So that already, was enough to cement my authority. Right? So authorities is is another thing. Authority can be you being a book author or for me, I did I did that, did a launch, and grew a product. For some people, it can be speaking on a TED stage. For others, it can be, you know, getting really good testimonials or case studies on things they've they've done. You know? So having that authority element is one of the, most important things because whatever you're selling, there's there's the element of you saying this is great. But when you can get someone else to say this is great, then it sells for itself.

Neil Ateem [00:18:39]:

Right? Because human beings listen to other human beings. Now the way to do that, it's scaled. What they do these days is of course like influencer marketing and stuff. Because it is probably the way you can replicate, personal recommendations on a on a large scale, you know. But, of course, it comes it comes down to, as as I mentioned, just delivering the best product or service possible, and then, it it spreads from there. It may be slow, initially. I mean, I can't say, oh, we had, like, an a stream of clients, so we couldn't handle it and stuff. You know? It's it's the slowest way, but it's it's a very secure way.

Neil Ateem [00:19:16]:

It's it's like you don't even need to sell, you know, because they come to you for a specific product or service or to solve a problem. So it's not like you going out and saying, hey. Look at me. You know? It's they they coming to you, which is the best place to be in as well.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:32]:

Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I I wanna get into what you did more with Mindvalley because I think there's probably creators watching or listening where maybe they've got a goal to to earn 10 k a month or something like that. But they probably weren't thinking, like, I'm gonna get from 0 to 20,000,000 in a year. Like, that's that's insane.

Neil Ateem [00:19:51]:

So Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:52]:

If you could maybe, like, distill, like, what you think was one fundamental thing that made crazy growth like that possible, what would that be?

Neil Ateem [00:20:04]:

One thing, it's a little hard to pinpoint one single thing, but I'll I'll give you the the strategy on why. Because I said there were there was 36 products, and it cut down to 1. Right? So Yeah. Mindvalley is a very large company. Right? 9 figures probably hitting 10 now. I don't have insider information, so this is just public knowledge. But the thing is, at the time, they wanted to get investment. Right? And to get investment, you need to have some predictability in your it becomes a bit blurred because you don't have that predictability.

Neil Ateem [00:20:46]:

So with transactional revenue, it's like transactional revenue is like I pay, I get. Right? That's it. Then, we wanted to transition to subscription revenue. Subscription revenue is reoccurring. Right? So it's more predictable. Of course, you have things like churn and stuff. Like, let's say, a 100 people sign up. You know, out of that, 70 people may actually renew, but at least you'll get some numbers after some time.

Neil Ateem [00:21:10]:

Right? But with, subscription revenue, it's much more predictable and you can actually lower your price tag and, retain customers for a long time. Of course, you have to deal with a consistent value with a subscription, but, it becomes more predictable and the value of a business goes up. Now one thing, to note is that we started off slow. Right? The 1st year was 20,000,000, and cutting down from 36 products. So selling 36 online courses, you can do that. Each has a funnel. Each needs a specific webinar because that was a model we're using at the time. And then we decided, okay, what if we sell one thing, which is a subscription and we put everything into there.

Neil Ateem [00:21:50]:

We lower the ticket and then year on year, they would actually, repeat. Right? So there was monthly, there was yearly, there was different pricing tests, like, I can go on for days on this, right, on how many things, and then testing, we do insane we did insane amount of testing. Like, think about it this way. Like, you have 36 funnels, and each funnel has a test that runs for about a week to 2 weeks. Right? So if you multiply that by 52 times, which is 1 year, like, you get something like almost, I don't know, 18,021,000 tests happening per year. So you can imagine the state at which the funnel has gotten to. Right? So by this time, we have sales pages that could put hide in anything industry wide, but we don't share it publicly because, you know, we keep it to ourselves. But the main thing is making that transition from just transactional to subscription.

Neil Ateem [00:22:40]:

Right? Now what this does is it boosts, your predictability so you know what kind of cash flow to expect. You can improve, iterate from there, try to retain as much customers, reduce your churn rate, all of this. And at the same time, you have people actually engaged and consuming because when you buy something one off, yeah, you can set and forget it. You know? You get access to a course, whatever. But when you have a subscription, you know, you're more incentivized because you know this thing is gonna renew and all of that. There's that added pressure. But then there's other elements built into it as well, like community and all of this. Right? So if it's not just you, it's other people doing this thing and it's engaging, you're gonna stick with it.

Neil Ateem [00:23:21]:

So, just thinking now on a bigger scale, of course, it was, with the goal at that time to take the company to a $1,000,000,000 company, which I I'm sure is still the goal of that of that company. Right? But coming down to a smaller creator, level, for example, we've worked with this creator, a 100 k Instagram followers. Right? And his goal was just to launch a course. But we said, you know, like, why just launch a course? Think so small, make a $100. We did a $100 in 1 week without the product. Like like I mentioned earlier, we did the pre product strategy. Right? We just had a wait list, say what the product was gonna be. They signed up because people really need this.

Neil Ateem [00:24:00]:

They want this. Right? No. The thing that we're doing now is beyond what we set out to do initially because it's just thinking bigger. Right? Instead of thinking, oh, I can achieve this in 10 years, ask yourself, like, how can I do it in 1 year? You know? And and why not aim for that? Because you probably can. You know? There's that realistic sounding goal, which is, like, yeah, in 10 years, I can do a million. Oh, trust me, it can be done in a really compressed time frame. So it's about thinking exponentially instead of linear, you know, and again, nothing beats execution. So once you start doing things, you test, you iterate, it just naturally follows, you know.

Neil Ateem [00:24:39]:

So for with this creator now, what we're building out is an entire institute where he trains and certifies, people. And then now this is poised to be this year, a 7 figure business, you know. And, we launched just a couple months months ago with the with the idea without the product ready, you know. So it's just, wrapping your your mind around that concept of, like, why can't it be exponential and not linear? You know, this is how everything goes because that is what the average person accepts. You know? I I would accept this this level of growth because that is comfortable. That is what, you know, I can tell someone and they'll be like, yeah, that that sounds reasonable. You know? But you have to go with the unreasonable if you wanna build something big. You know? Like, always say, like, why not? Why not me? Why not, this amount of revenue? Why not take 2,000,000, 10000, 20,000,000, 100,000,000? Like, what happened there? Right? So it is all possible.

Neil Ateem [00:25:30]:

It's just, a lot of, the stuff is is how you view it, your mental game. You know?

Bryan McAnulty [00:25:38]:

Yeah. I I think there's a I think my team thinks this sometimes maybe about me as well. But I think anyone who's an employee has has heard something like this from a a founder or a boss that they have suddenly, they say, well, we have to do all this much more. And you wonder why. Like, are they just pushing you to do more? But they're realizing and they're thinking that, okay. Well, what we're doing now, like, that's gonna keep us with what we're at now. But if we wanna get to, like, a 100 x what this is, then there's something that we have to do a lot more of in order to to get a bigger result and bigger outcome. And I think that it's really good to to try to think about this, like you're saying, because the the one downside that I feel, I guess, kind of bad about for some creators is they don't realize that it it is this curve of growth.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:32]:

It's not linear. And if you keep at it long enough, you'll eventually get to this point of success that's bigger than you ever imagined. But number 1, people often quit too fast, and then they don't reach that point to be able to see that. And sometimes it's also because they take too long to be able to get themselves to that point where they could make that just compress that whole same curve by thinking of, well, what if we just did this and did more of x or whatever to make that same thing happen faster?

Neil Ateem [00:27:04]:

Yeah. So it's this, perfectionist type of attitude as well, right? Like, as you mentioned, they kind of take take their time and and go slow because they want everything to be perfect. But, if you have a loyal customer base, if you're solving actual problems and, you know, adding value out there, they won't mind if things break, you know, now and then in in for for for the sake of progress, you know, for you to deliver something even better or solve a different problem for them. So sometimes, getting that 90% is good enough. You know, if it, if it, if it's something if that 10% is, is really gonna hold you back and, and hold hold back the growth of the company or the product or the service that you need to put out there. Like, for example, when we were building, when when we build now, it still happens. Like, things break. You know? We don't have everything perfected.

Neil Ateem [00:27:55]:

You know, email sequences, we have people reaching out. But, you know, it's human beings at the end of the day. Like, AI isn't running everything just yet. So people are understanding. You know? So it it doesn't always take that, that, level of perfecting things, to actually make something successful. You know? Because, if if you have that human contact with with with people, they would understand. In the in the name of progress, sometimes things break, and and that is completely fine. You know? Now as you were saying, from an entrepreneur's perspective, like, for us, we just wanna move really fast.

Neil Ateem [00:28:30]:

Right? And for the team, they may be thinking, oh, wait. No. This needs to be done. This needs to be done. But sometimes, you know, it comes down to prioritization as well. Like, some things may not be 100%, necessary, and may be holding things back. You know? So, it's just finding those those things. So it's, like, kind of Pareto principle, in everything, in how you deliver your product, while you build your product, what what needs to go to market, all of these things, you know.

Neil Ateem [00:28:57]:

So it's finding that sweet spot.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:00]:

Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I I was actually commenting to some other software developer earlier today that they were saying, like, oh, quality is so important. You can't have bugs because you want to have a quality product. That's how you become successful. And I said, well, well, first of all, like, for my background, I'm I am the product guy. I'm not really the

Neil Ateem [00:29:18]:

the marketer.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:18]:

And so I I am the perfectionist. I wanted it all to be perfect. But it's okay to have those bugs and have those mistakes like you're saying. Because as long as you're going to go and fix them, then that's the way that you're able to get things out there, get feedback, get this iteration going so you can get the product to that point that it is so incredible and amazing. And if you wait and try to make everything perfect and have the the quality product, then maybe you never get it in front of people. And then it that's the that's the path to just it just goes and dies because you never get anything happening with it.

Neil Ateem [00:29:51]:

Exactly. And I have worked with, companies like this. Right? They're building the software, this platform, all of these things. And then it's it's just going ongoing months months, building the perfect thing. And, you know, like, all they need to do is just bring something to the market. Get actual human beings in there using this thing because it's good enough, you know, already. It's gonna add value. It's gonna impress people.

Neil Ateem [00:30:16]:

They're gonna love it. They're gonna enjoy using it. And from there, you iterate. But obsessing over this having this perfect thing, I think that is what stops most people from actually, making significant progress. You know? So you don't need to to be perfect. As I said, it's a human being behind anything at the end of the day for now. So, having having that understanding and then having your customer base or, you know, audience, whatever it may be, understand that as well, and be human about it. It's okay.

Neil Ateem [00:30:46]:

It's okay to show you. I think, that makes it even better because then they would love to give feedback and and, you know, iterate with you if you position it in such a way. So it's it's there's no way you can lose, this way, you know, as long as you're open and honest and transparent about it. Don't hide things and say, oh, this is the most perfect product. And then, you know, things are broken. You say, hey. We're releasing version 1. This is the first, version of my course.

Neil Ateem [00:31:11]:

This is, the demo version of my course. I'm just creating this this product or service or whatever it may be. You know? And, just be be clear about it. And then if they wanna be a tester or they wanna get in at 50%, the the usual price to to cobuild this with you, you know, like, we have one platform, that we recommended that to right now, and they're building a a platform on parenting. You know? And right now, they have build with us membership. And, they're getting people in, but, that's what they need. They need members. They need interaction on their community, all of this, and they need as much feedback as possible.

Neil Ateem [00:31:48]:

So this way, they're actually leveraging that. People are happy to get access and happy to give feedback. So, you know, it's it's it's it's just a win win in that way and and then they're completely open and transparent about everything and how they're building and stuff, you know. And as I said before, people are happy when they have to actually co build something because they feel like, wow, I invested my time and effort and energy into this. And I I love seeing this product into the world because I kinda build this too, you know.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:14]:

Exactly. Yeah. People worry that if somebody contacts them about a problem or a bug or whatever, that it's a bad thing. But as long as you go and fix that for them, now you've just created this experience for that customer that they're gonna be the one that goes and tells all their friends about you because they just had this great experience. You're like, wow. I I'm trying to work on this thing and then whatever company I contacted them and now they fixed it for me. Now they've got a connection with you. Whereas, actually, if you waited x number of years to perfect your thing, it was just perfect from the start.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:44]:

Then that that customer never contacted you. They thought, okay. Everything's fine. So you can actually create a better experience for them in a way if something goes wrong and then they interact with you about it.

Neil Ateem [00:32:55]:

Yeah. Exactly. A 100%. You know? And then at the end of the day, like, you may have just started a relationship there, you know, with that customer in terms of, like, oh, they can become a lifetime customer after this interaction because then you go back to them saying, hey, Jenny, thank you so much for sharing this feedback. We actually implemented a fix, and you can test it out now. Let us know if it work it's working fine. You know? Like, even these these small interactions, if you're a big company, let's say you have a 100000 customer base, just that one interaction, you know, it means something to them because then they know, wow, there's human beings behind there, and they they actually care. You know? And, of course, if it's a smaller, creator or or someone, with a smaller audience base, customer base, of course, it's gonna be really much more potent because you have direct connection with this person and you can, you know, develop this even more, get more feedback from them if if they're, and the thing is, when things are broken, sometimes some people just accept it.

Neil Ateem [00:33:55]:

Right? But the really dedicated ones are the ones who ride in. You know? The people that leave reviews Exactly. Yeah. Tend to be on both side of the spectrum. You know? Is it either they hate it or they love it. And sometimes you'll get the ones in between, but these are people that are passionate Whether it's love or hate or, you know, sometimes you get the neutral. But, from there, you know, you can develop that into something more.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:16]:

Yeah. Yeah. If it helps for anyone listening, like, what we do is anytime there's a bug, we write down in a a list all of the people on that bug ticket of, like, who actually reported that. So when we fix it, we can go contact every single person and say, hey, we fixed it. And we'll start that conversation back with them. So if you solve it or improve it, go and tell them that you fixed it. And even if they seemed really angry before, now, hopefully, they're happy. And then go after that and ask them to leave your review because just like you said, those are the ones who are going to go and do that.

Neil Ateem [00:34:49]:

Exactly. Exactly. So it it's relationship building. It may not be the most scalable thing, but it's it's human and it works. It helps, you know. So, don't shy away from that. I would say, it's it's the best feedback. It's it's directly with the person that you're selling to.

Neil Ateem [00:35:05]:

Like, you can't get better feedback than that, you know?

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:08]:

Yeah. Yeah. I I wanna go back also to what we're talking about with Mindvalley. So in their case, like, they're a massive company, and you consolidated all these products into the subscription. Would you suggest for, like, the individual creator to also have a subscription product, or does it really depend?

Neil Ateem [00:35:29]:

It completely depends. Like, every offer, every niche is different. You know? It depends on what you're selling. Let's say, you have something that takes customers on a journey, like, from a beginner level to an advanced level. Right? Whatever niche it may be in. Like, let's say you teach how to play the violin, for example. Now what you can have there is a product suite of, like, 5, 5 courses, let's say, that takes you from beginner to advanced. Right? It would make sense to package something like that into a subscription.

Neil Ateem [00:36:04]:

So that way, you know, they're gonna take, I don't know, maybe 1, 2 years to actually get to that pro level. So it makes sense to actually put it into a subscription. You build out the community in there, have some add ons. You get their interaction, their feedback, see what else you can build from there. Right? Rather than just saying, hey. This is beginner's violin. This is intermediate, and this is, professional. Right? So that way, like like I said, they may sign up for beginners, but they may not continue.

Neil Ateem [00:36:32]:

They're not part of a community. You know, they're not locked in. They don't they already know I paid for this. So it's it's there. It can sit on the shelf. It's like books you let you buy, you know? So with the subscription, it's, it's something that is always in your mind because you know, you're spending money for this. You you tend to be more likely to use it. Right? When you you have a subscription for Spotify or Netflix or whatever it may be, you use something you use all the time.

Neil Ateem [00:36:57]:

Right? So subscription mentality usually goes along, with that. Right? You you tend to be a little more active on it because you know, it's something that's gonna renew. So that is one case. Now if you sell random stuff, which there are people that do this, it may not make sense because things aren't tied together. Right? However, even if it's not something so specific, like, as I mentioned in that that example, it may be the case where products are related and you can actually design a user journey from for them. Right? So let's say you wanna, teach someone how to code. Right? So you can have a subscription product that helps you learn to code, but then it it teaches you how to leverage that to become a freelancer, for example, You know? So you can you can tie things together. So it takes the coding element, into account.

Neil Ateem [00:37:51]:

It takes learning to start a business, learning to sell, doing your marketing and ads. And so it it ties together because it takes them on a journey. So then the subscription makes sense. So they start off, learning to code, then they learn to actually promote their cell phone on platforms like so whatever it may be online, and then they learn to sell and pitch. They learn to do ads and actually generate leads and build a funnel. So something like that would make sense. Although it's not strictly coding, it ties together. Right? So it makes complete sense.

Neil Ateem [00:38:23]:

Now as I said, it's case by case. Sometimes this model can work and sometimes it may not because you have, customers who may come in for something specific. So one thing I didn't mention, and this is, part of the secret sauce, we did have 36 products, right, and one offer. However, the 36 plus, there's more. We still have well, they still have, those 36 plus funnels. Although the main difference now is that it sells one product. So if if there was a product on health and fitness and there was a product on mindset, and there's a product on business, instead of selling those individual products, now it just sells the main subscription. Right? So with that, now you have that flywheel effect whereas someone may come in for, their health and fitness, But then they see business, and they wanna go into that because it's part of the subscription.

Neil Ateem [00:39:20]:

You actually expand them, you know, expand their interests and desires. And that that actually helps, your company in the long term as well so you can further develop, products because there is no end to personal growth and learning and everything. But like I said in the beginning, action beats everything, but you have to keep learning at the same time. But you can't let it, stop you from actually, being practical and taking execution seriously. You know? Awesome.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:46]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear all that too because we just did something similar with our own courses and communities that we had these different products, but some of them were not really related. And so for us, it was hard to figure out, okay. Well, what are we gonna pitch? Because if you're just a course creator and you you've got this specific result you wanna teach people, like, okay. Sell them that course. But we have these different things. And it's too hard to say, like, okay, buy this course or buy that course.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:11]:

So we consolidate it into just this membership plan that you just buy the one thing, you get all of it. And, I think it's going to be a lot easier for us to then promote it to potential customers. But I wanna talk about one more, different thing with you is that you also worked with Jordan Peterson on the Black Friday campaign for his signature self authoring program, and you helped him generate, 9,000,000 in just 3 days. Can you tell us more about that project and, like, maybe what marketing strategies you implemented there?

Neil Ateem [00:40:44]:

Yeah. So, to be completely transparent, like, he has huge authority. He has a list, you know, everything. So the split was somewhere 5050. Right? Cold and warm. So it did leverage, like, a lot of his, owned, assets, you know, his email list, his Instagram channels, YouTube channels, all these things, Facebook, etcetera. So everything he owned. However, there was no campaign ever done, by the internal team at that time, at this level.

Neil Ateem [00:41:16]:

You know? So, one thing that works really well is a dedicated launch campaign, specific to seasonality, a launch, whatever it may be. Right? At this time, it was Black Friday, right, which, is a time where where everyone spends. It's a it's a spending season essentially. It's like Christmas. So everyone on Black Friday, they spend. So they're already in a spending mood, you know. So just giving them the right reason to spend. So crafting your campaign around that and, of course, within this niche of, online courses, personal growth, all of this, you just need to kind of tie it to that.

Neil Ateem [00:41:53]:

So you can go out there and spend on, I don't know, clothes and shoes or whatever the average consumer would buy, or you can spend it on something, that would actually make your life better. It's an investment into yourself. You know? So that was part of the messaging. Now in terms of the breakdown, it's like, how you actually go about communicating this is important. Right? You can't make people feel bad at the same time, but you need to show them, like, oh, what's in it for them. Right? So it comes down to the value. So you don't actually sell, self authoring. You sell the outcome of self authoring, you know? So whether it's knowing yourself, but getting that clarity and that vision in your life, like you're stuck in your career, you you know, you know what you actually want to do after going through this in-depth exercise, you know.

Neil Ateem [00:42:40]:

So it's always the outcomes that you wanna speak about. You never really speak about the product itself. You can get into the the the mechanics and all of this, but you don't say buy this program because it's great. Right? No. With with the campaign, you always hit all channels, of course, because, you know, you need several points of contact usually, to actually get a conversion. Right? No one really buys off the first, view of your ad or whatever. And it depends as well as the ticket size, on the ticket size. So if your product is less than, let's say, $300, less than $100, you usually don't need a funnel.

Neil Ateem [00:43:20]:

If it's a good product and it actually solves a specific problem, then people would actually, you know, opt in more easily if you have that credibility and everything, you know. So for this one, specifically, we didn't even have a funnel with direct sales, And you need to give people a reason to buy. So Black Friday 1, there's a there's a campaign. So you get it as as that at a discounted rate. Right? So if you get something at a discounted rate, of course, it won't last forever. So you have a limited time frame to buy. So there's that, scarcity element. Right? Because people can just say, oh, this thing is on sale, but you have no end date, then they're gonna just put it in their bookmarks and forget about it.

Neil Ateem [00:43:57]:

Right? So you need to have that time sensitive side to it. So if it's not a funnel and it's direct sales. And, yeah, you just hit every channel. So email list, direct on socials. If you have SMS contacts, you want you want them make make sure people are aware of it, you know, and the way you do that is very important as well. You don't wanna be annoying. So the way we do content marketing is is not just selling. It's always, adding value to them.

Neil Ateem [00:44:24]:

It's like sending an email or doing a post that would be valuable to them. They would read it word, word to word from beginning to end, you know. And even if they don't purchase at the end of it, like, you're creating a brand for the future that would last 10 years from now, you know, 20 years from however long. So it must, be implanting that seed in their mind that, okay, whenever this person posts or shares or send an email, it's value that I'm getting. So they're happy to open it. It's not just, oh, buy this as 50% off. Never ever ever do we do that. You know? So you have to be very strategic about it.

Neil Ateem [00:44:59]:

Like, even in the ads, some of our ads, we we saw ROAS of, like, I don't know, 14 x and stuff, you know, like, spending 1 k on a specific ad in getting, like, 14 k back, it was insane. You know? But, of course, it won't last forever because our campaign was just a few days. You know? But, we maxed out on it and and and got as much, revenue as we could in that time frame. And, of course, you have to be, ethical, when you do these things. If you see if you said your promo is 3 days long or 4 5 days or 7 days, whatever it may be, you have to make sure and close at the end or else you're gonna lose trust. You know? Your brand is is is gonna tank in, the perception and and that trust from, your customers. So that is very important. But, yeah, the main thing is, the the campaign, and how you position it because the course is always available.

Neil Ateem [00:45:52]:

The program is always there. It's on evergreen, you know, and they are aware of this. But why why do they buy? They need a reason to buy. You need to give them that reason. So whether it's an incentive, a specific, offer, like some bonus, like, there's so many things you can go into. Right? Like, you can create a reason any reason, to to to do a promotion, you know, but it's the way you do it. You know? So it comes down to to that. So the actual mechanics of how you do a launch.

Neil Ateem [00:46:20]:

And it's a little hybrid as well. Like, some of you may be familiar with the PLF, seek, formula, which is the product launch formula from Jeff Walker. It's like OG Internet marketing, but a lot of everything that happens today with product launches has been built on that, you know, even including our our strategy, but, it's gone and evolved a little bit beyond that. Maybe way way beyond that. You know? Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:46:47]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent excellent advice. And, yeah, the reason is really important. Like, you can have a a new a new feature or something something new that you're offering. Like, that can be your reason. And if if you don't have, like, any other reason, then that's when you go to, like, okay, a discount. And Black Friday, again, is, like, the perfect time for that because everyone's expecting a discount.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:10]:

Everyone knows that it's for a limited time. So it's, it's really natural to to offer something at that time.

Neil Ateem [00:47:19]:

Yeah. Exactly. And it can be anything, you know, like, let's say you are at the office and you guys get a dog at the office. You can say, hey, we got a new dog. This is, Exactly. This is, you know, this is Sparky, our new dog. And, that's it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. You can have you can have any reason. It it can be really simple like that and and completely, in in some ways, unrelated. And yeah. But then if you tie it into a story and say, oh, by the way, like, if you wanna have have this kind of thing too, then, like, we've got a product here. Yeah. I I think that's great.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:54]:

Really excellent advice. Really appreciate it, Neil. I've got one more question for you. And that is, on the show, I'd like to have every guest ask a question to our audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether something you're curious about, something you wanna get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Neil Ateem [00:48:14]:

Okay. So one thing I always ask, all my clients is if you had to hundred x your current goal, what would it take you to get there? Right? No. I I I'll give you some pointers to help you, think on it, like a little framework. So we we always focus on on marketing levers. Right? And there's there's a million things to look at, out there, you know, like, there's so many metrics, your, value per attendee if you do, webinars, your deep value per lead, your, CPM, like, million million metrics out there. Right? But we look at 2 things. Your customer acquisition cost and your customer lifetime value. 1 is how much does it cost you to acquire a customer, And the second one is how much would a customer spend with you throughout your entire, relationship together.

Neil Ateem [00:49:10]:

Right? So with those two things, that is like the golden 1%, we call it. You use that as your base, and then you think, okay. How do I 100 x this business? So then you think, okay. I need to reduce my customer acquisition cost. I need to increase my customer lifetime value. So, you know, along along these lines, you may be thinking like, oh, how do I make, 10 k a month, you know, but how can you make a 100 k per month? How can you make 1,000,000 per month, you know, and it may take you not selling a $300 course but selling something for 10 k, you know, one single product. And this is something we do now. Like, initially, one of our clients wanted to sell a $2.99 product, and now we have them selling a 20 k product, you know, a 10 k and 20 k product.

Neil Ateem [00:49:59]:

So that initially, he was like, woah. You can do that. But, yes, you can. You know? So think along these lines. That's that's a little example for you there on on what is possible. But, yeah, how do you 100 x? And work backward from there. Right? It always starts with the north star metric, and then you work backwards. So don't think linear.

Neil Ateem [00:50:18]:

Think exponential always because everyone is thinking linear. For you to make that difference, you always need to be exponential.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:26]:

Awesome. Love it. Okay. Well, Neil, before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Neil Ateem [00:50:34]:

You can find me on LinkedIn, my name, Neil Atim or Instagram, Neil Atim. Like it's, it's all the same everywhere. All multiplier website is Multiplier dot agency. And, yeah, you can, just contact me anywhere there.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:49]:

Alright. Awesome. Thanks so much.

Neil Ateem [00:50:51]:

Alright. Thank you, Brian.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:53]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at thecreatorsadventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.