IAM1226 – CEO Helps Online Experts Grow Their Businesses with Funnels, Paid Ads and Email Marketing

Brice is a marketer and CEO from Texas, although you can find him abroad living in Barcelona Spain these days. He’s fascinated by the way messages spread, technology moves, and teams of everyday people can create life-changing businesses using a laptop and an internet connection. His company Major Impact Media helps online experts grow their businesses with high-ticket funnels, paid ads, and backend email marketing.

• CEO Story: A tech-savvy, started building websites for his clients with a challenge to drive more traffic to their websites. He dug deeper and found the solution. Then started his own agency in 2015.
• Business Service: Digital marketing that focuses on a niche on high ticket funnels, paid ads, and backend email marketing. Focusing on service quality for each client, understanding and solving each of their problems.
• Secret Sauce: Detail-oriented and figuring out what the next step is, how to methodologically fix it, and what comes after that.
• CEO Hack: Recommends a quote from the book of Keith Cunningham, “before you start your day, remember to sit down and write down what are the major things you are trying to accomplish right now”.
• CEO Nugget: Having that checking time with the employees, on how they are doing with the projects, clients, and the company so that he knows where to help them.
• CEO Defined: Someone who tries to accomplish the mission, getting the right people and the right resources that they need.

Website: majorimpactmedia.com

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Transcription

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00:25 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:39 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Bryce Gump of major Impact Media. Bryce, it's great to have you on the show.

00:48 – Brice Gump

Yeah, man, thanks for having me.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on and hear about all the awesome things that you're doing. And before we do that, I wanted to read a little bit more about Bryce so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Bryce is a marketer and CEO from Texas. Although you can find him living abroad in Barcelona, Spain, these days, he's fascinated by the way messages spread. Technology moves and teams of everyday people can create life-changing businesses using a laptop and an Internet connection. His company, Major Impact Media, helps online experts grow their businesses with high-ticket funnels, paid ads, and back-end email marketing. Bryce, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:25 – Brice Gump

Yeah, man. Let's do it.

01:26 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So they kind of kick everything off. I want us to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started. What I part of your CEO story?

01:33 – Brice Gump

Yeah. So I got started in this whole online world back in like, 2012. So I finished college. I was always pretty tech-savvy with computers. So I started helping people with websites. And what we would often find is we would build people these websites, and then no one would ever find them. They wouldn't get any traffic, they weren't getting any leads. Nothing was happening. And so we started digging around. We were doing some SEO, some content, trying to figure out kind of what to do, and eventually tapped into Google Adwords.

And here we were able to set up campaigns, set up some landing pages, and then immediately start driving traffic to these landing pages. And within a couple of days, we were starting to get actual leads coming to their site. So that was super exciting. And after that, really just transitioned straight into focusing mostly on paid ads after that. So I started my own agency back in 2015. And when I first started, we were really just focused on being an ad agency. And as I'm sure you might know, being an ad agency is still a very general thing. So over the years, we've really started to focus, focus more on who we can help most, and how we can best serve them.

And now today what really looks like is we're running an ad agency, but we have a very niche market and we have a pretty niche service that we run for people. So we really focus on helping people generate calls for high-ticket offers. And so that's kind of how we got into this whole business.

02:50 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. And hearing, like, the progression of everything you're doing. And just like, you know, as you kind of alluded to, like, digital marketing used to be, you know, used to be you can do all things by doing one thing, and then you start to realize how broad each of these different, I like to call them lanes get. And as you said, you start to find your niche and find how you could create that value.

But I love, you know, that you're making, it sounds like that connection because I think there's a lot of people that have really great services and offerings that they have, but they can't actually connect with the people or they struggle in terms of doing that. So it sounds like you and your team kind of bridge that gap.

03:23 – Brice Gump

Yep, that's pretty much what we're here for.

03:25 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I know you touched a little bit upon that niche that you kind of went into. Could you take us through a little bit more on that, what that looks like in terms of how you serve your clients and how you're making that impact?

03:34 – Brice Gump

Yeah. So after many years of running advertising, some of the biggest things that we have found was one of what people struggle with is having the right foundation in place to be able to run advertising, because depending on what type of offer you have, what type of services you're running, what type of funnel you have will depend a lot. That will create a lot of the success that you have later on down the road. And so for us, what we started doing was when we were first only running advertising, we're really just focusing on running Facebook ads and Google Ads.

What we really started doing was focusing more on, okay, well, what is the funnel that they need to have in place in order to be successful in this? What is the email back follow-up that they need to have in order to be successful with this? And so a lot of our clients come to us because they have had some success with their business. They've either got some outbound marketing going, they've got some referrals going, and so that's working for them. They've usually tried paid ads before.

They've had some success with that, maybe kind of hit or miss, but they're really looking for like, okay, how do I take what's already working and start to be able to effectively run advertising in order to acquire customers? And I think if you are in a, what I would consider a high ticket services kind of business where it's like you're selling something for more than $3,000, right? You're not selling little widgets online. You're not selling like, dog face socks or something like that, but you're really trying to attract professional clients. What are the systems and processes you need for that in order to be successful with advertising?

And so that's kind of how we have evolved. What we're doing at my company is, again, we really started first with the advertising, but then it was like, okay, well, what do our clients need next in order to be most successful with the services that we have now? And how can we add that for them and just kind of build it out that way?

05:17 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And I think so many times when you see, like, the commercials are, you hear, oh, just, do, you know, Google Ad or Facebook ad? You don't think about, okay, well, they clicked on it. Now, what happens from there? And, like, how do you nurture that? How do you take them through that funnel and, you know, have those conversations? So I love that you saw that, you know, when you were working with your clients, you decided that you wanted to create true entrepreneurial form, that opportunity, that option for them to have that really great experience so at the end of the day can serve the clients that they ultimately hope to serve.

05:44 – Brice Gump

Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges for a lot of small businesses is, like, that Facebook and Google have made it so easy for anyone to set up ads. And one of the things they want everyone to think is like, oh, hey, all you have to do is jump online. We've got some blueprint certifications. You can take them in a couple of hours, or you can get AdWords certified this week and you start launching ads next week. And I really have just seen it over and over again. And if you follow advertising at all, you will see this happen over and over again, where these platforms are kind of designed to just eat your money if you really don't know what you're doing.

So if you don't know the right settings, if you don't have the right funnel, if you're not doing all the right things, you will just spend money on ads every month and not get the results that you're looking for. And so again, that comes back to like, great. Well, if you are specialized in trying to sell services or trying to sell coaching or trying to sell consulting or something like this, what is it that you need in place so that you can go run ads and be successful?

06:34 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that's absolutely huge. And I think so many times we'll hear, like, you know, when people have that, you know, less than ideal experience, they'll say, well, Facebook ads don't work, or Google Ads don't, you know, ads don't work, advertising doesn't work. I'm just going to do x, y, and z. But I think in reality, I appreciate you talking about, like, kind of like the holistic nature of what that journey looks like because I think so many times you don't hear that a lot with the, you know, the Facebook ads of saying, like, hey, this is how it works.

You hear like, okay, just all you have to do is put in this amount of money and you have this amount of success because this person had it. But you don't hear about that behind-the-scenes thing. And that happens in advertising, and I think it happens in entrepreneurship as well, too.

07:09 – Brice Gump

Yeah, I think it happens with everything. Is everything always looking a lot easier from the outside, you know?

07:14 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. The grass is always green on the other side, I say. Right. So you might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself personally, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique, man?

07:30 – Brice Gump

I think for us, we really have just a very methodical way of approaching things. It's kind of how I have to think about doing things. And so it's kind of how our services have evolved, which is just being extremely detail-oriented and again, always trying to kind of figure out what that next step is. So for us, you know, the way I've approached my agency is rather than us running Facebook ads for a bunch of different markets, how do we just find one type of client that we really enjoy working with, we work really well with, and how do we just keep solving the problems that they need to solve? And I keep us focused on paid advertising because I think that's still even niche enough.

There's plenty of depth to go inside of that. But we don't, you know, we don't run ads for e-comm. We're not doing a bunch of local ads as well. We're just really focused on how can we get our clients the best results possible and then just keep going deeper and deeper. And I think that's one of the things that's helped our business be successful. And then for my end, you know, that's kind of how I approached what we do. So I'm always trying to figure out what is the next bottleneck we have in our business. How do we just methodically attack that until we get that fixed and then figure out what comes next after that?

08:31 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And I think so many times it speaks to that abundant mentality, I think because we can get stuck in, like, oh, we have to do all things so that we get opportunities. But when you start to realize that you can kind of provide a very specific solution to a problem, and there are so many more people, so many more businesses or whatever it is that you're trying to attract and to serve, that you can serve. So when you start to drill down, you start to really become an expert and you're able to talk the same language, have those conversations, and, of course, serve on an even better level because it's not, you know, going wide, it's going deep, and you understand them tremendously.

09:06 – Brice Gump

Definitely. And I think it just helps everything. You know, I think the more you can understand your customers and the more that you can understand the real problems that they face, the more you can create better solutions for them and the more you can actually help them, which just helps accelerate everything you're doing in your own business.

09:19 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I think so many times we forget about, you know, like you said, within the business, also solving those bottlenecks that we have within our own organizations and seeing how we can, of course, you know, do the same thing to ourselves. So. Absolutely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:42 – Brice Gump

Man, I think one of the, like, smallest little hacks that I have done for the last probably two years that I find extremely valuable. I got a book from a guy named Keith Cunningham, and he said, that before you start your day, just remember to sit down and write down what are the major things you're trying to accomplish right now. And I think just doing that every day and every day just kind of redialing in your focus on, like, what's important, it makes it really easy for once. That list of things that comes up that you need to accomplish does. How do you just look at that major list of things you're trying to accomplish and just keep it focused on what's going to move the needle on those activities?

Because I think if you run a business if you're online if you're doing anything right, there is an endless list of things to do. There is never an end to the to-do list. Stuff piles on faster than it gets off. But if you can always keep it kind of focused around. Okay, well, what are those major things I'm trying to accomplish? You can prioritize what you're trying to do in your business because I think that's one of the biggest skills that honestly, like, I feel everyone can work on. You know, when I feel like whenever I hire somebody new, like, this is one of the first things we're always talking about. It's like, how do we prioritize?

Because there's, there's, again, there's always so much, so much to do. And it's like, okay, well, how do you know what's important thing to focus on next? And I think if you just, just take that five minutes of daily practice and write down, hey, here are the major things I'm trying to accomplish, then you can help set the tone for, okay, when that next thing comes up, go, okay, where does it fall on this list? Okay, how do I prioritize it? And then you can attack it.

11:05 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And I think Tony Robbins said, in order to win that day, you have to win the morning. And I loved that hack kind of in the very beginning of the day, because, like you said, there's always something to do. There's always a fire to put out. There's always another thing. But I think it's so important to, like, as you said, one of the best skills you can learn is prioritization, because when you're able to prioritize things, it allows you to not get overwhelmed by all of the things because you've done the work in the very beginning. You created that list, and it allows you to say, okay, is this really that fire or that much of a fire that, you know, so and so might say it is? So you start to realize this is what's going to help me get to where we and our team ultimately need to be.

11:42 – Brice Gump

Yep, definitely.

11:43 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business.

11:54 – Brice Gump

Yeah, I mean, I think if I hopped into a time machine and was talking to my younger business self, I think I would. I would. I would focus a lot of my advice on team, because I think that's one of the things that has created the most leverage in the business. That coming from the background of being, like, someone who was a freelancer and just worked by himself and then had to, like, transition into having a team and trying to grow a business, not being the only one that was, like, a. It's a skill that I'm continuing to try to evolve and continuing to try to get better at.

But I think one of the best things that I have figured out how to do as far as checking in with the team is just having, like, accountability, like a time where you check in and step away from work and just talk about how business is going. So for us, what we do is we have, like, a bi-weekly check-in for, you know, we run an agency, right? So all day, every day, we're all just talking about client stuff. This client, that client. What's going on with this project? That thing. Every two weeks, we sit down and it's just like, okay, how's work going? Like, how is your flow with work? Are you able to get done all the things you need to do?

Do you have everything you need to be successful? Is there anything we could do to improve what you're doing? And having that kind of check-in time, I feel like, has really helped kind of bring just to give me the insight that I need to be able to help to work with the team and then also to be able to kind of make that connection with the team when it's not just about the agency, the clients, the projects we're working on, all that stuff. So I think that's something that I wish I had implemented sooner. And now that I am doing it, I'm excited that I'm doing it and continuing to, like, work more on just how to build a team, because I think at the end of the day, if you're running a business, it's about the people that you have in it.

13:20- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I say we often forget about that human aspect of business and definitely even the human aspect of life at that because we forget about, you know when we're able to kind of take care of those people that are a lot of times, you know, on the, I don't want to say front lines, but just having those interactions with the clients and allows you to really make that impact by helping them help to serve your clients. And I think so many times we forget that by kind of stepping back and a lot of times having those conversations, not always in the business and rolling up our sleeves, but stepping back and just having a conversation at.

That, it provides so much more, you know, opportunity. I think it provides a sense of connection, it sounds like. And, you know, people really want to, you know, they love the business. They want to go to bat for the business and really phenomenal things. It sounds like they come from that.

14:02 – Brice Gump

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think having that check-in is just so important.

14:05 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Bryce, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:15 – Brice Gump

Man, that's a really good question. I think for me, again, it's really come down to, like, transitioning from being an individual who's, like, trying to provide a service to now being someone who's trying to, like, lead a team to accomplish more of a mission. And I think that if you can, like, embody that and really help put something, like, put something together around a mission that you're all trying to accomplish and getting the right people in place to do what they need to do and give them the resources they need. I think that's a lot of, what being a CEO is.

14:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think you touched on, you know, so many, you know, phenomenal things when we've talked, you know, about, obviously, the human aspect and being able to take care of the people. But I think you also mentioned things like processes and even things that you do for clients. And sometimes we forget about those aspects as you try to, you know, build an agency or build a business and all the different moving parts that you have, but you create those strong foundations and being able to kind of transition from, you know, more of maybe a freelance mentality or even as a freelancer, you can still have that mentality, but it's so important to kind of have that as you scale and grow and make more of an impact in so many people slides.

15:16 – Brice Gump

Definitely.

15:16 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Truly appreciate that definition. Obviously, I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you, find about all those things you and team are working on.

15:30 – Brice Gump

We're trying to teach people what they need to be successful and then help them implement those things. So again, YouTube is a really great place to check us out. Also online, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, we're on all of them. So find us on, you know, your favorite social platform, and we'll be putting out a lot of content there.

15:44 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And just like Bryce said, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can click through and find out about all the awesome things that you're doing. I appreciate you so much and taking some time out obviously as well, to talk about that process and help people with that process. Because I think, of course, you know, sometimes people know the process, sometimes they don't.

But I think I really appreciate you sharing that because there's so much frustration that comes from not being aware of, like, what that process looks like and of course, having the helpful hands that your team provides in order to do that. So thank you so much for doing that. Of course, reminding us of that today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:18 – Brice Gump

Thanks, man. Have a good one.

16:19 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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