How Custom Funnels & a Ferocious Black Card Points Strategy Make Profits at The Wolf Howl
A full stack media buyer, entrepreneur and CEO at The Wolf, an Israeli media buying / digital marketing company, Maor Benaim has generated over $150M in revenue over the past fews years, running campaigns for the biggest names in Israel, including : CASTRO , Aldo , Carolina Lemke, Topten, H.Stern, HTC, Skittles, Phenix, Weight watchers, big shows in israel like Justin timberlake, Lady Gaga, Incubus, and Lana Del Rey, Avivi Kitchens, Hagag Group(Real Estate), Leaan Tickets, The French Institute for the past 11 years.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Get a revealing look at the seamy underbelly of the affiliate world how he broke into brand.
Why going with one flow for every platform you’re advertising doesn’t fly.
How to generate massive passive income with card points
Why having multiple virtual cards for ad spend is the only way to get to the next level.
How he and his clients made the rare pivot that turned the COVID crisis into cash.
RESOURCES/CONTACT:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maor-benaim-19baa546/?originalSubdomain=il
In this this episode, I talk with Maor or the Wolf who's managing 20 million a year in ad spend for 2020 and egos deep about 30, 40 minutes into the episode on his points of strategy. He's one of the few media buyers in Israel. That's on the Amex black card and this guy squeezes out every point. Uh, you can, so if you're spending money on ads and all about the point game, listen to that segment. I also think when we dive into the four ad segment, mayor is very gracious to open up some of his own failures in the last year, in his own effort to rock his own brand. And it's amazing to see a guy jumped from the affiliate world to the brand world and some of the lessons that he, uh, had to learn the hard way. Um, even though his team was stacked with a players across the board from a media buyers to follow craters, to copywriters, um, and, uh, and, uh, and like, so enjoy this episode, uh, let us know what you think, and that will be, uh, we'll see in there. And the fact is that if you have something that works in this industry, people are going to know about it. So the choice is in daily, how much time you can save it for yourself, the choice is do you want that person to remember you as the guy who was lying to him,
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Listening to the rich and poor ed podcast, where we break down the financial principles that rich advertisers are deploying today to turn advertising into profit and get tons of traffic to their websites without killing their cash. These advertisers agencies, affiliates brands are responsible for managing over a billion dollars a year in ad spend. You'll hear about what's working for them today. They're rich ads and we'll roast their Epic failures and crappy ads on the internet with poor ads. Let's get into it.
All right, welcome to another episode of the rich ed poor ed podcast. This is your host, Zach Johnson with mr. Dylan Carpenter. How are you doing Dylan? Doing pretty good,
Man. Pumped to get this one. Rolling.
Yes. Yes. Today we have a dynamic, uh, entrepreneur who is really an affiliate, an agency owner, a brand owner, and a multifaceted entrepreneur. I mean, he's seen, uh, it from retail on, on physical stores. He's got a ton of experience in e-com and spends a boatload of money on ads. Um, I think this year he'll probably have an impact on over 20 million in ad spend. Uh, so I'm pretty excited to have him on, and he's got quite the, uh, quite the case studies to share today. Are you pretty pumped Dylan? Yeah, man. I mean, these are real,
I've kind of case studies here at sun. It's another concept it's going to be super juicy.
So y'all buckle up, buckle up cause, uh, Maor the Wolf, uh, who was also a speaker at affiliate world and also a, a coach and a consultant and a mentor, I would say to many of today's top media buyers. I'm pretty excited to have on the show. So mayor welcome. Thank you guys for having me. I'm super excited and lady like, I'm loving this opportunity to speak with you guys and show a lot of my experience and basically case studies and stuff got a ton of it, man. And we're so excited. It's really cool. See, you know, your, your attorney of, of kind of exposing, uh, I think a little bit that underbelly of the affiliate world and, um, you know, you've done a ton of online education and speaking around, uh, just the killer stuff that you're doing on Google, uh, specifically, but today, you know, I really want to dive into what you're up to on the brand side.
You know, you're a really more focused, you know, on your, your e-comm businesses over the last year. And I really want to dive into, so maybe give everybody a little overview of your background and what you're up to these days. Um, so first of all, I want to start by saying that I think it's mainly just like when you did the overview, I got, I got the small look, um, from me as a brand and me as like, you know, just the scope of my career along, along the time. Um, and I just, I was thinking that it's more about the challenge for me in terms of like I wasn't going on stages. And then I went and be in the affiliate world a couple of times and biggie co who were in a bunch of puddles stuff. And I was even afraid, afraid of actually, you know, appearing, um, on YouTube and filming myself and stuff like that.
So I didn't see any shell knowledge. And I think that's my main focus nowadays would I would say it's just sharing with them things, knowledge, you know, I was speaking to a potential client or even about now that I might just partner up with. And the other day, like, I think two days ago he finished the conversation. I think he was just like remanded, like some friends or like [inaudible] hooked us up. Um, and uh, he told me after the conversation, do you know how to sell yourself? Like, you're amazing. I told him, listen, it's not that I know how to sell, sell myself. It's just that this industry doesn't matter if you're a brand owner, if you're doing great. And if you never touched digital marketing, the, the entrepreneurial spirit type of like persona genetic persona, uh, it's generally a small human being. You know, even when I look at the, the guys that I would consider the most stupid at the conferences that we go to, those guys are pretty smart.
So I think that a lot of the industry or people in the industry are making mistakes by trying to wear a mask. And that's something that people really, you know, you can hold the mask for maybe a meeting maybe a week, maybe even a month. But once you start talking about specific stuff, then people see that you're wearing a mask and then you end up losing a lot more than just saying, dude, I can't stand campaigns. Like now stuff isn't working for me, I need help. And I think that's what the industry is really, um, missing right now. You know, that the authenticity, you know, and, and I noticed that when I was going around just like the venue and I was asking people, Hey dude, how how's it going? How well are you doing right now in terms of like numbers? Oh, campaigns, stuff like that. Everyone, everyone like a hundred percent of people were saying were crashing it or doing amazing. You know, that's been by the way, many gems, the analysis weeks that imitation it's like, dude, you're doing amazing now I'm joking. You guys know?
No, that's hilarious. Yeah.
So he he's like the owner of purple leads and he is the guy who like my big brother. I love them. So, uh, yeah.
You're talking about James. Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. I thought you were talking about somebody else,
The guy who actually pushed me and vouch for me for affiliate world to begin with. So I always have like this, he has like a personal note system called Jennifer. So I have in patient he's like Jenny [inaudible].
Yeah. He's totally the hype guy for the affiliate world. I think we're having them on the show in a couple of weeks. So that'll be,
Oh, amazing. Amazing. He's a brilliant guy. Knows so much stuff and he's also genuine as hell. Um, so what, what I was trying to say is that I think that's what the industry is. Lady. Um, people are really desperate for a genuine advice for someone who tell, who would tell them, listen, you're not on the right path. The fact that you're trying to leave the land, whatever a thousand more people for Israel, from China, from India, or getting inside this industry each day, isn't going to work. You need to work on something bigger. You need to have a bigger USP. You need to get your answer advantage. You know, the, uh, if you want to get stuff done, they'll some really smart people who came even came from the same background, like a poker type of background to dieting through. Um, and, and they'll still trying to learn this type of, like, let's say, um, mouse course, you know, mice type of like maze.
Uh, everyone's trying to learn inside this thing, this, them getting like at least twice or three times a day, people who are just telling me, dude, how do I stop learning inside this industry and my main name? And so to them, it's like, wow, if I had to stop right now, I don't know where I would start with. First of all, also the garbage that's out there, uh, in terms of like content. And second of all, you have to approach everything with such a high level of skepticism. Like, is this person actually doing what he's doing? Or he's just trying to sell me something on the backend, which is 90% of the cases, unfortunately. Um, well, I mean, what are you up to these days? Like, I, I feel like you, you kind of came from the affiliate world, but you you're, you're doing some pretty interesting things like on the brand side.
And so are you helping, like a lot of these people reach out, are you helping them out with yeah. So first of all, I'm writing on that affiliate side or on the brand side or doing a bunch of stuff. And I really divide every single day into those types of like, uh, sections of my life. So first of all, there is the agency and I don't really cool clients these days, to be honest, if someone approaches me and I find their business interesting, I either buy into the business or just also to sort of like open up a white, white label type of like thing. So that's what they do in terms of like, uh, the agency stuff. So I learned some campaigns to some e-com and Legion clients, uh, only mainly like high budget types of campaigns. Uh, the other stuff that I'm doing would be teaching and consulting and just doing those videos for free.
I have a YouTube channel that I work on really hard. Uh, it's just one of those stuff, like, you know, initially, and I'm going to tell my background story, but initially, like when I was like 21 or 20 years old, I told myself that I'm going to be a millionaire by the time that I get to 30, but it only took me something like 10 months to, to, to be, to get there. So it's like, what do you do when you basically costs of bucket list items more than you can even think of? It's quite depressing. I know it sounds like a rich man's problem, but, um, one of the stuff that I found that that's quite fulfilling in terms of like, just giving back, you know, it's like I found out that I'm not really looking for other people's money. I'm looking for the admiration I'm looking for, uh, just like helping people.
And I really enjoy the fact that a year after I teach someone, he just sees me somewhere on a conference on like I've had people just like shake my hands. And like w when, when hands was legit and stuff, and just like people approach me and say that they didn't knew what's the URL for the Facebook ads manager was, and now they'll crush and get them doing really nice numbers either by opening an agency or just opening their own brands and stuff and people who are shifting. So that would be my second main point to focus by third point would be just some projects that we're starting to build like now. And some stuff that we're launching, like the album, uh, thing that we're opening up, something that I, uh, was dealing with for the, the, the last couple of years. But, um, but I didn't really extend that to a point where I actually own the business.
And I actually have a secret project that I can't really talk about, but it's it, you would say that it's going to be a company actually that has, um, a lot of branches in the States, um, that we're launching really soon. Uh, and my main point of focus would be in the last, uh, something like 10, 11 months is known, which is my vitamins and supplements brand. It's the first time that I really took on the challenge of how, how, how cold e-com not white labeling some skin brands, or just like really finding a legitimate nail that hasn't a big on-site advantage. Uh, and that, so advantage is the fact that first of all, my partner has like 20, 20 years of experience in the vitamins and supplements. So he knows how to lead the industry, uh, perfectly. And also he owns the factory that actually produces. So I actually got to make the formulas for multiple types of like protein bars and supplements, and really create the products that I wanted and also handled with a lot of stuff that you don't really handle by, you know, you kind of handle it when you run big brands as a media buyer, but you don't really make those really big decisions in terms of like how to build the customer service, how to really save up money with fulfillment and stuff like that. So, um, yeah.
Well, I love it, dude. I think you're, you're doing a great job,
Your YouTube channel, just to circle back to that, I checked those out, like after we connected, you know, this last week and felt like the level of specificity in what you're talking about on your YouTube channel is like, it's so unique. And like a lot of that stuff has been talked away and, you know, masterminds like in-person and masterminds, like, um, or, you know, some courses if you're, if you're really lucky, but like just your whole video on your multiple tie account strategy, uh, that you posted like last week. Uh, I think that's awesome. Like, I mean, the, um, like there's not enough people who are like going into that level of detail. Uh, Oh, first of all, thank you so much. And second, you know, it's just like you remember, we were all, I think, uh, 50 plus year old guys, um, I don't know how it was back in the States, but I remember the newsletter when I was in high school, it was like, there was this one, two, maybe three guys inside each school that had access to all of the like newest tax books or PlayStation or like movies and games and like music and stuff like that.
Then they would, would just like really be super, like they wouldn't really share and they would keep it to themselves. And that was like, then the way that people just acted back then. And I just think that, I mean, masterminds and like those really private, small type conferences are going to stick, but I think that people are really trying to, to, to keep it to themselves way too much. And the fact is that if you have something that works in this industry, people are going to know about it. So the choice isn't really how much time you can save it for yourself. The choice is, do you want that person to remember you as the guy who was lying to him and sending him in a decent direction and making him lose some money or just sharing that information, uh, in a way that he could adopt it and just look at you in a different way.
So that's the first thing about my YouTube channel. And the second thing is that I'm getting a lot of feedback, which is kind of fun. People don't hear it yet. The purpose of that YouTube channel, the purpose of this YouTube channel isn't to grow to like a multi-billion type of like subscribers daily. We, uh, type of like channel it's just to inspire people, but people tell me, dude, you're talking about really sophisticated advanced, like high, high, high level stuff. And they're like, I'm like, dude, why, why do you want me to just like open up a video, how to make $500 a day? And just like, you know, I'm not like that type of person who would just like promise people stuff that's not going to happen or use like really shady stuff to, to push it. So I [inaudible], it's also really practical. Right? So like, I, your, your whole video on like your multi account strategy, I've already sent to like a couple of people, right? Like, like, um, when we, when we, uh,
Sold like with ad card, right, like just self blatant self promotion for a second for talking about her. So we get a ton of people affiliates that are like, you know, they need to spin up virtual cards for every single ad account. And they're really, the conversation just starts with, like, I don't want to get my accounts banned. Right. And like, I,
You know, I need a virtual card system where I can use any name or any address to that budget,
But like the level of detail where it's like, Hey, here's maybe like, think about like a multi account straps
Energy beyond that. Right. Where you're just de-risking or maybe just
Account for, um, each offer. Uh, and you're like, you literally go like 30 minutes into, not only just like, Hey, you sh like 99% of the content out there would be like, you should use multiple accounts. Right. And then it'd be like a one-minute tip. But like the level of detail, you go into that 30 minute video of like, here's the entire account, you know, strategy on why you
Want to, you know, use multiple accounts, like is,
Takes it to the next level. And so anytime we get an affiliate now, um, I, I bookmark your,
Your link and I'm like, okay, well, if you're running multiple towns, obviously,
Obviously they need a ton of virtual cars. So they had car and I'm like, all right. And then you should also go check out, like check out this video so you can kind of really learn how to love it.
Thank you for sharing that. That's like amazing to me. And there's no better compliment in terms of like people who just like show my stuff. I have a couple of stuff to say regarding that. First of all. Yes. It's it's, for me, it's about getting into as much detail as possible. I don't really like case studies where they show yeah. That's where, what they did with my brand. You know, it's like, I see, I see those case studies, uh, type of like books is basically useless because most of the stuff really relates to that specific brand and that specific journey. And I think that each and every brand in each and every platform and time has a different type of journeys. So you just want to duct into maybe just like, do do your own thing. So I just like to get into like the deep, advanced stuff.
And also, you know, when I was just starting my talks and teaching and stuff, people told me, Oh, you have 30 minutes. Just talk about yourself for like 10 minutes. Talk about stuff that people already know. So 10 minutes, and then just give a couple of tips at the end and that's it. And I was like, that sounds easy. And people aren't stupid. They're not going to going to stay, you know, they're maybe going to stay for like 10, 15 minutes. But, uh, I figured that just like in life, you attract the people who are like you and people like people that are like them. And I see here that even, uh, if the room like 20%, 50%, even like 50% of the room wouldn't understand that level of advanced ness and deepness of like, like media buying and stuff and stuff that I'm talking about, then I would at least, you know, um, get more sophisticated type of like different audience. So people don't actually want to make a change in their campaign. Well, let's get it to man. I feel like there's a, there's a ton of people here that are like just itching to get some level of insight into what's working for you right now and, and, and give them something tactical here. So without further ado Mayo, like what is your rich ad campaign right now? What's working break it down for us. Let's go.
All right. So
Reach ad campaign that I'm going to share with you guys would be my own personal boost online, which is my epicenter now. Um, and I'm going to talk about that specific one, but I also, when you listen to this podcast, I want you to really think about how you can do the same stuff and how you can adopt the same mindset into your own brand and campaigns. So boost online is basically just like, I wouldn't say I'm it, but maybe even like a new business that we opened up, just because of the coronavirus, we will, the first ones in Israel who adopted into that situation and recognize that we need to open up an online type of like fitness thing. Um, that was actually a really smart campaign in terms of like how we choose the fact that first of all, I have a celebrity now with me a local, so that will be in Israel.
So we used a bunch of, uh, uh, PR stuff that people just wanted to host multiple shows. So there was a lot of PR, but we also took advantage of like the marketing and the targeting to those people. And just like strategizing in a way where we built funnels and different funnels for each type of like, um, of like audience. So a couple of weeks that I actually used in that campaign, the first big tip that I could give anyone who's doing that would be just use a tracker and make sure that whatever audience targeting platform that you're doing, you need to open up a different campaign for them and just make sure that they go into a decent flow. So that would be a different AB testing, a different type of like, um, just like a different type of maybe price-point design and copy that they see.
So just for example, someone, so with my campaign, uh, specific, um, ads on Instagram and knowingly that, that Instagram is a discovery platform. It clicked. And then it got into an [inaudible] that talked about certain benefits and stuff like that. And then he got like 14 days registration for free, but if someone got through, um, my search term, like my blends and search them, and then I sent him into just the payments page, um, directly without even the 14 days trial and stuff like that. So, um, it's, it's just about creating those flows and that, that was a good campaign. Well, we just decided to implement that really slows kind of like method, because most campaigns, I would say even 95, 10 campaigns of people that I consult or agencies that the plan campaigns for the clients, they just have one landing page. Maybe they would do like a generic AB test, but they, what they don't understand is that people who are coming from YouTube are the same people who are coming from the lookalike audience inside Facebook and the same people who are coming from stealth traffic and each, and every like different type of like platform and audience and targeting NTA needs to see a different flow.
And how, how would you break out? Like, so you talked about like Instagram versus your Google, but like what type of funnels would you look at in terms of, let's say maybe YouTube or Facebook or the Buhler app brand, like on those other channels? So what we did was just like, um, um, two designers and two copywriters, and what they did full time was just like an item life. And that's what we need with the first two months. Um, it took us something like two months to grow to 20,000 unique users, uh, which was by far the biggest online subscription population in Israel. Um, and then we decided to implement that, that, uh, flows that the G will, a lot of people were just like, uh, seeing different funds and seeing [inaudible] and seeing different stuff. So for example, if you went through from Taboola, um, and you came from desktop, then we would start, abcV testing some editorials.
And after like a week where we got, uh, at least let's say three to $7,000 worth of traffic, we will decide which type of advertorials converts and, and really relates to those people. And we checked a much higher, uh, or larger attribution window than most people, most affiliates or brand owners would just check the first day. But what I recognized from the first month when we have that free television PR stuff, I just recognize that people sign up like the sale window, the attribution window shouldn't be something like at least 48, if not 72 hours. So that was the window that we opened up really new and measure every type of channel and platform. That's what we did in terms of that campaign. And in general, um, when we're talking about good campaigns or just really rich rich ads, basically I think that a good campaign would be the best connection of just your knowledge expert expertise and the momentum.
So it's just like a way that you catch and you need to eyes once you catch that good way, you need to add it to show. And I don't think there is a better example to it than coronavirus. You know, most people that are out there and writing stuff would say, yeah, COVID-19 ruined my business. People are bankrupt. People are taking tons of loans, but to be honest, from talking with my clients and one-on-ones most businesses that I know who've made the pivots and adoptions that they needed to make a much richer and they have a better business than free. Like they have a better business post COVID than they had pre-K. So, yeah, so sometimes we, we learn more from our losers than we do from our winners. Uh, so while I love your wine, I love your strategy of having a dedicated, you know, funnel and a flow by channel, right? Because like what most people do is, you know, they're going to do a dedicated a funnel just for mobile, just for desktop and like call it good. Right? Um,
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Ad card@funneldash.com, but, uh, walk us through your, your poor ad. Right. I think you had, I don't know if you've talked about this much over the last year, but like, I think that what you've learned here, uh, what we're going to talk about here on your, your poor on segment is like tons value. Uh, so like breaking it down, man, like what hasn't worked for you because, uh,
We were online online, like, everybody's talking about your you're winning, but like, I want to get, I want to know that you're not perfect. Yeah.
So it's like, it's like those poker players, you always see how they win the no, no one actually tells you how much they lost and stuff. People just try and talk about how much they want. Uh, so definitely. Yeah. I think first of all, that most of my campaigns were in successful, obviously like I am. And if someone tells you that most of these campaigns were successful, he's obviously nine. Um, my poor ad, the story would be glow my vitamins and supplements brand. Um, so I approached it and I was like, okay, I'm the Wolf. I have this amazing theme. I know how to an e-commerce that you're an econ major brands and they heads huge success.
You know, everything, you know, every day you, you made a million,
10 months. Yeah. I'm like, I don't even have to publish the campaign. The system is so scared from the world that it's going to publish itself. Right. Um, but yeah, so I approached it and we opened up, we didn't even knew what the numbers that we need to do work. So we didn't knew the lifetime value. Um, we didn't knew anything. So the, the problem was mainly just always, just like the, the question was, do I wait and see if the LTV and AOVs and everything really, uh, averaging out what they need because the business model, or there wasn't like being profitable on the front end, it was like losing on the first sale and then getting those recurring type of like subscriptions and return costs.
But let me, let me, let me understand this. You were,
You weren't profitable until that rebill hit 30 days later. It wasn't even the 30 days. So sometimes like, um, I, to be honest, I don't really know because we had to peel the corporation and we had to rebrand. So that was the decision that I made. So, yeah.
Nonetheless though, that's difficult, right? That's a difficult [inaudible].
Yeah. It's such a lot of folks ration, because I had to deal with so much stuff, you know, I had to make, first of all, even before econ, I had to make the transition between being an affiliate to actually being a brand owner. So actually just like dealing with customer service, dealing with six employees, which is something that I try to avoid almost all of my life,
Basically dealing with people is what I'm hearing so far.
Yeah. So I was like, okay, we, this situation where, you know, you keep coming back each night and some, some nights you, you truly believe that your math is right. And sometimes you just open the Excel file and you're like, Oh my God, this is garbage. This is not going to work. I'm just spending $15,000 a day on running ads. And I'm just like funding Facebook at this point. Um, so you have to make a lot of adjustments, but the main story to, um, to, to, to, to this like project is the fact that at some point, um, because of a lot of circumstances, I had to kill that product. And I, and I decided to redesign everything. And I took on everything that I learned and I decided, okay, this is going to be basically my leg sheep project. I'm going to kill it.
There's no way. This is the biggest challenge of my life. In, in, in so many terms, this is going to work. So I ended up, um, just like hooting a bunch of employees into it. I ended up, um, getting so many big companies and teams involved and just like I had like one of the best popular items out there, which is neat Wilcox. He is a speaker at the affiliate world. Also. I love the guy. He's, he's a part of our team, which is the new name. Uh, we, we have DFO on, uh, um, on affiliate management. We have all chill, which is like, he calls himself. The bolt father is a genius with like building those super advanced AI stuff. We have your four on reviews. Uh, we have Kronos, Joshua chains, um, Singapore, uh, email marketing agency. So we took on an all star team just to create that new, like level of friends.
We wanted to trade market. We wanted to open up substations with PayPal. We opened up after pay. So we took on like, people who code it. We wanted the system to work fast. We wanted more products. So we created a multi multivitamin type of a gummy, a Biotene gummy, and elderberry gummy. We created the first boat in Apple cider vinegar, protein bar. So we did a bunch of stuff and I told myself, okay, I already, at the end of flow, I was standing on the right numbers in terms of like CPA and LTV. And if right now with everything that I added, this isn't going to work, then no one can pull this econ stuff ever like, like this is way bigger than anything. Like if the average order value and lifetime value was already good. Now I have just more products. I have more ways of like, you know, increasing the conversion rates and lifetime value.
I have installment plans. I have subscription set up in place. There is no way this isn't going to work. Like I have this really amazing design and copywriting. We have lips like that dedicated inside each platforms. And we launched and guessed what the CPA went up. Something like six times, as much as they had with the first one, like before the rebrand. And we had so much problems with checkouts and with like stuff. And when we finished that, we, and just we're at the point where August was a nightmare with Facebook, everyone's having like conversion rates dropped down by like 24 to 75%. The CPMs went up and you can, Facebook recognizes that there was a problem iOS 14 came out and everyone knows that there is a new tracking problem. CCPA in California came out. So there is a tracking platform in California on this to make some changes through your side.
So, um, I, I'm still running it and I know it's going to work at the end because we are so dedicated. And I know that everything in my life that I tried to achieve, I achieve only by becoming obsessive. You know, I always tell people that they look at me and they say, Oh my God, this guy has money. He made some success stories of project and stuff. And I tell people I'm one of them. I'm not, I'm not smart at all. The thing that I have my answer, the advantage is just getting super obsessed. Like one of the most obsessive people that you probably know. I don't want to say it.
Uh, did I? Yeah. Well, I, uh, I agree. We
Back in my lead pages days, um, one of the traits that we look for in hire when we were hiring marketers and media buyers was the frustrated marketer, the guy that's so paranoid, he's always frustrated because of that. Thing's really ever like dialed in, right. If everything is, is like, you know, never perfect. And you're always like trying to fix, optimize, improve, and like, um, you know, those are the, those are the folks that end up outperforming the, the folks that are just, you know, resting on their laurels and, and not for the best. Yeah. The first time I heard about it was with Tony Robbins. I think I went, I went to a couple of seminars and he tells everyone that if, think about whatever in your life that you achieve, it doesn't matter if it's a girl that you dated, the girl that you're currently dating a business, maybe an amount of money that you wanted to, to have in your checking account.
Um, and the way that you did that thing that you couldn't believe that you would achieve is just by getting obsessive, just by being super obsessive. You know, I remember myself when I was just starting out. I moved from Joseph and, um, I actually haven't told my personal story. So I'm going to do the super, super duper short version. But the story is that I remember that I was like 21 years old, something, 20 years old, I was still living with my parents. And I remember that my mother told his sister that it's the middle of the month. I can remember how the door was almost opened up. Um, but not enough for people to see that I was listening. And I was like listening to, uh, just talking to my sister, my aunt. And she was telling him that it's the middle of the month.
And we don't have money to buy food. And you see how the fridge and stuff, just the kitchen is getting, um, more and more empty and we don't have money to buy stuff. And that's where I made the decision to be a millionaire by the time that they get to fail. The, and it wasn't about getting the Lamborghinis. It wasn't about buying the newest smartphone or getting girls. It was just about having my mother be able to fly wherever she wants to go to two restaurants and not just live the life that you live, but was like just cooking for us, cleaning for us and not doing anything. So I, and I also understood that flying out to a vacation when you're a 15, isn't the same as flying out when you're 60 or 70. So I understood that they have unlimited time. And I remember myself moving to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.
There was LM being, first of all, the capital of Israel, second of all, the second largest, and also post city in Israel. And, uh, I remember myself being so obsessive getting, getting up at something like five, 5:30 AM for a full year, just signing up once forums going on, Facebook groups, just like connecting with people on Skype. And then I went working at this digital media agency. And in between breaks, I would team for you, uh, like control my, my remote control, my, my, my computer in my house and just work on, on like projects. And then when I got back, I didn't go out. They didn't date. I didn't start. Not that it was too hard to fuck, but, um, yeah, I obsessed to the point where I, I remember myself one night, I fell asleep with the calculator on my phone, still, still on how much I need.
I feel you. And your 83 all romantic for the full year. Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, we're, we're starting to get into, you know, your financial goals and, and your, your, your financial planning aspect of it. And I, I want to jump into this last segment, which, um, I think people can get a ton of value on because you're one of those guys that like, is, uh, super focused on, um, not just revenue, you know, not just top line, but like profit profitability and cash flow across all your projects and, and, and knows your numbers. Right. And you're also finding a ton of hacks on how to make yourself even more profitable than the other affiliate or brand, or, you know, media buyer out there. And so I want to talk about some of the financial tactics principles that you could share with the audience on not only, you know, in the early days, right. Of like being super focused on your goal daily, but now also like at the level of scale you're at, um, and you know, of course, like we want to drive in and we want to dive into your credit card game. Cause it's on point man.
Yeah. Um, so first of all, to be honest, I never took on a loan and I never had any cashflow issues. Uh, some would say that that's a good thing. And some would say that they haven't scaled enough. Uh, I mean, I know how much I scaled and, um, I never needed that type of like loans and financial stuff because they never went to retail. Most people will say that retail is such a nightmare. So I tried to avoid it at any cost. So my game was always taking on partners who had a major cash flow, uh, just to pull in that project, that specific project. And also, I always had people who believed in me if I needed an amount of money and I had my own projects that always kind of like funded themselves. Um, I just remember looking at agencies and I was like, Oh, okay.
So they use credit lines. Why would they do that? And I always kind of like, look, the spec that you have, um, that you have that available cash pool in just to inject to any type of project as just like the, the best situation in which you can get, like most people would, would invest their money. And they would have like this type of like managed like family office type of thing, they would do anywhere between 2%. If they bought an apartment somewhere to maybe, maybe maybe 9%, if there was an amazing year, but I would somehow just like low on agencies and stuff, money and get those like three to 2% monthly type of like interest on my money. So, uh, I had, um, just the strategy of like keeping the money inside my account or as much as possible. And also I kind of got like, this is, I'm not addicted to anything.
I never smoked a cigarette, never tried any type of drug, but being an obsessive character that I am, I got super hooked on credit card points. Believe it or not, that's my addiction. Most people don't know it that's actually the first time that I, I say that. So I basically know everything there is to know about either hotel points or credit card type of like conversion ratios and stuff like that. And I figured out the math pretty soon when I just like figured, okay, agencies are making anywhere between 8% to sometimes with bonuses, if there's like an amazing deal and an amazing like type of uniQure colon type of like clients and they would make 20% maybe. So I figured that with the points that you're, that you're selling and like just making those points just by negotiating the, the, the cashflow and just by negotiating with Amex and visa and MasterCard also, um, you can get something like two to 4% yearly more than you're doing right now, which is obviously a game changer for any agency.
Um, so most people would use those points to fly out or just to buy stuff with, um, the time managed to actually start to the, in a way where banks really believed and trusted me. So I didn't really have to be positive a lot of money to get those huge credit lines inside my credit cards, like not compliance in terms of like loans or debt. Um, and then I would just use it because, um, I have the cash flow and I was generating tons of money. I truly believe with just like one company that I can think of, not naming any company. I think that I could probably rent out something like three to maybe even five, um, full airplanes for a trip around multiple cities in the States for me, Islam, just by using points at the moment. And I'm thinking about like,
Which is, which is, which is very useful, right? Because that's your next financial goal is to get three to five planes all flying at the same time loaded.
Well, because you have 500 friends, this conversation of, of the point game in the media by our space is, is a, is a hot ticket for me. I think you have the right perspective in terms of, Hey, you know, like the agency of the media buyer ultimately gets to dictate how they get paid, right. And, and if you can earn that cash back or those point level of equivalence, that's huge. Uh, but I will credit you now because you were the one that first gave us the side eye idea, um, indirectly, but we'll still credit you is like these points end up just, you end up stacking millions of them. Right.
So you like a ton of these folks, like they ended up not
Using these points for like three, five years or like have a lifetime of points and they just kind of decrease in value over time. And you're kind of want to first persons that I talked to you that it was just like, yeah, I don't, you know, like if I could sell it
Points I would write or, you know, like how do I, you know, actually
Into cash or an asset. And so definitely there is a way of turning it into cash. And just like you said, if you stick with one airplane, one credit card and not negotiate anything, then you end up with like a depreciation of the points in ratio into a dollars or euros or whatever, whatever you want. But if you know that this is basically an underground stock market. Okay. So sometimes you would have highest points being the hottest thing ever. And sometimes you would have just like the, um, I don't know, the stanza type of like a airline company points being the hottest thing ever. So if you know how to allocate your credit cards and if you know how to negotiate. So the first part would be getting to a point where they talk to you at a [inaudible] level type of like user. So you need to get the coach by Amex, um, and get the, the black codes.
So you would have someone, um, from like the high touch by deal type of like, yeah. And second of all, uh, it's much easier when you get to private banking level and stuff like that, because you get a lot of like those Burkes and then just like, again, coming from a really poor black, um, you, you know, I remember myself looking at Mazda three and saying, you know, how the hell's someone just being a kid. Yeah. Looking at the new car and not even an expensive car and just asking myself how the hell someone can afford a new car like that to the point where, when you're in private banking and you know how to manipulate the system into giving you so many different things just by having them just like by, by having the ability to allocate in between visa and MasterCard and Amex, having those guys negotiate between them and the approach you just because they, they know that you're doing massive volumes, then you suddenly, you understand how those rich guys just make money really in a festive way. So most people would say that passive income only only exists with real estate and the stock market. I say that passive income exists through the stock market, real estate and points and points. Well, I
Say, I think that the way I look at
Points is yes, you could probably get, you know, an annualized basis, you know, two, 3%, maybe 4% cash back across, you know, seven, eight figures of volume. And it was really this use case of like, well, how do you then kind of get your, your, this, this like asset, right? Because it's, you know, high six figures, seven figures of, of, of, uh, asset out of, you know, forcing you to buy five planes, right? So to ultimately access that, that value. And this is really where I think Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is, is a huge like value. And this is something that I I'm going to credit you towards for, for the next several years. Mayor is, is X getting ad card to explore giving Bitcoin back instead of, uh, of cash back. So that media buyers have a asset that they can, um, appreciate and value, right?
Like in a relatively short amount of time, you know, those points are going to be worth less, or they don't even know how innovative what you're saying is, dude, it's like so small, because first of all, you can't really negotiate with Facebook or Google and even talk to them, but you can negotiate, first of all, the points they show. And second of all, uh, just your terms with the credit card companies. So that's the first point. And second point is just like that technology, just like you said, it's out there, the next step. Um, that's where we all, like now we're looking at how Bitcoin, how Prieto Colin's in general, who go on the next step. Well, it's actually usable where it not only gets the legitimacy, but also people know specifically what it's good for. People know how the answer advantage, um, by best basically bypassing the banking system and utilizing this really innovative idea that you're saying 80 words.
I mean, just think about it for a second, right? Like if you have, if you're sitting on 5 million points, right. And the value of those points is whatever, like two to 3 cents maybe, um, yeah. You're looking at like a hundred grand of, of, of, of assets. That's, you know, sitting there, maybe like, I know guys are sitting on like 10 X that right. Like 50 million. And they got like a million dollars, like locked up. Right. And it's, it's sitting in this like, okay, that's cool, you got 50 million points. You don't have to worry about travel for the rest of your life. But like, they're just kind of sitting there depreciating. And if you could kind of move that over into a cryptocurrency, but as Bitcoin or Ethereum, like that is going to 10 X in value over the time, by the time you're actually able to start using those points. I know guys that are actually that they live in Israel. It's mostly religious guys, either religious cities that pay just to get those books really. Wow. That's that's, that's it comes full circle at least two.
Okay, great. Great. All right. Well, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna roll this feature out just for you, um,
Or, and we're going to sponsor your YouTube channel and you're gonna introduce us. So those two guys that is all gonna work out, uh, well did well while we're masterminding the future of points and curve their currency, and also getting an extra two to four points on the back end of your ad spend. This is one of the longest yeah, yeah. One of the most interesting interviews by far the longest interview. So thank you mayor for going over and just, um, you know, being willing to dive into details and, um, you know, really give the audience some of the golden nuggets that are really just get brushed pass. Uh, so thank you so much.
Absolutely. Tell everybody, um, how they can get in touch. We're obviously going to link up to your YouTube channel. It's awesome, but it's not really what you're up to next and how they can get in touch. Um, so I'm available on Facebook mainly, but you guys can add me on Instagram and just follow up and make sure that you, uh, show my stuff on YouTube. Um, nothing really special. Like the only thing that I would ask you, if you got to this point of the podcast, then that's something, I would say one of my videos then about, of my Wolf there and just make sure that next time when this all COVID-19 shit ends, whether we're in Barcelona, Vegas, or Bangkok, I don't know what, which conference I am. If you see a really short guy that looks like the will, that's probably me. No, I'm joking. Just like approach me and tell me that you love me. That's all I'm asking for. That's awesome. Very good.
Very good. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you guys. Bye-bye
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