120. Everything You Need to Know About Marketing, Starting an Agency & Agency-Arbitrage | Jeff Brown, Box6 Marketing

I am so looking forward to chatting with you all about marketing. We are gonna be diving deep, but before we actually get into things, I would love to hear more about you, your story, how you got started in the marketing world, and how you got to where you are today.

I'm excited about covering the travel side and how my marketing ties into them. They're amazing topics that blend. So I've been working in marketing for 18 years. It was one of those, I couldn't get away from it no matter what kind of job I did.

If I was serving coffee, I was still thinking about how the, the, the, the shop could market themselves. So I. Eventually gave in and stopped trying to fight it. And five years ago I started box six marketing, a creative agency. Based out of the US I'm in Nashville. And for the last we've got 14 people now.

One other American, all the rest of them are spread out across the world. And it's, it's a really exciting team. And we typically work with small businesses, smaller brands. And help them establish a lot of their foundations, a lot of their basics. You know, that I, half of the time when I say, okay, do you have a social media strategy?

They say, what exactly does that mean? So that's, that's the perfect kind of person that we get to work with, and it's a lot of fun a lot of enjoyment and a lot of. Creative daily adjustments. How do you say that properly? And so yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing. I absolutely love it. And, and I've got the entire agency designed to be a travel friendly operation so I can travel, just take a MacBook.

All I need is an internet connection. And I've been able to do so from, from Europe all across the us and different continents as well. So it's amazing. I love that you are also living the nomadic lifestyle and I like that you intentionally set up your business that way. I don't know if that was really the intention in the very beginning, but regardless, it sounds as though, yeah, it was.

So that's awesome. From day one. And so tell us kind of what did, starting something on your own, you said, you know, you've always been very interested in the marketing world, but. Being interested in marketing and maybe working in a corporate marketing job. What did that look like to actually transition that into your own business?

Was it somewhat seamless because you are an expert or did you not really know about the business side of having a business? What did that look like for you? No, I actually had a business degree and so I had, I had bounced around to multiple jobs, multiple I you say whenever you have a large marketing department somewhere, you end up very, very niched in, so you're doing specifically copy for Instagram posts for this client or for this brand.

And it was, it, it, it felt a little bit more like checking boxes for me and I was just doing the same thing over and over again. I was writing copy or I was selling ads or whatever it was. That was my day in and day out. It was really like a one checklist item and I loved. Still do just changing hats every single day.

You know, I might be a copywriter one day, I might be a strategist then in the next hour and even like this right here, I'm doing, you know, this is a public speaking. There's a podcast here, and then I'm doing new business acquisition after I'm doing a first call with a new client after that. So it constantly requires rotating and.

We as a team might be designing somebody's logo for the first time because the only one he's ever had is the one that's embroidered on his polo shirt. But he's, he's wrapping a semi and so we've gotta get him a digital version of his logo, or we might be designing a strategy. We might be doing target demographic research and developing avatars so that way they better know how to reach their audience.

And so it, it really, really varies and I love, absolutely love that part. Sometimes it's frustrating as hell, but most of the time I really, really like that. Environment. And so it, it just, it keeps it spicy, it keeps it interesting, and no two days for the last five years have ever been the same. It's awesome.

Mm-hmm. I love that. And I think that is the beauty and also sometimes a little bit of a distressing factor of having your own business is things never look the same. A lot of the time. Things will not go to plan. And so you really just have to learn to roll with the punches and learn to love that and learn to appreciate that.

You know, I'm very, you know, if you subscribe to it, I'm very like a type A person. So I really thrived in a corporate environment and it was. Somewhat difficult for me to transition into having my own business because the day-to-day looks so different. It can be chaotic. Some days are a little bit slower and some days it's like, I need 12 more hours in this day to even think about getting everything done.

But it's so interesting because I have learned so much to now appreciate that. And I've actually been thinking a lot recently for some strange reason about. What it would be like if I went back to a corporate job and I'm always just, the end thought is I could never work for somebody else again because you know, a million different reasons, but there's just so many constraints where now having had my own business for three years now in the digital space as well, it is, it's just so freeing and it's such a different world than working for somebody else that I don't think I could ever go back to it.

Yeah, once you get the taste for it, and if, if, if you can come out of the other side of a chaotic, unpredictable day and you sleep a little better that night, like that's the hint that maybe you're not set up for the corporate job. I know plenty of people who do it and they love it. They absolutely love the security and the comfort level of having that day to day, but some people just aren't built like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And I never would've thought that I'd be having these thoughts in the, when I was in the corporate world because you don't really know until you go into business for yourself and you experience it for yourself and yeah, so I don't know why that's been a thought of mine lately, but really just kind of analyzing and looking back at a past life and thinking that is so not for me anymore.

Yeah, it's probably an indicator. It's probably your mind talking to you about something. Yeah, you're trying to work something out maybe. Yeah. So let's chat about why. Does marketing matter? You know, you are the expert, you do all of the things. So when you are looking to start a business of your own or a brand of your own, or even looking to find potentially a remote job or just a job in general, you still need marketing.

Even though you're not setting up your own business and marketing something of your own, you still need to market yourself. So why does marketing matter and what are some of the first steps that somebody can take to. Actually start the process of marketing, whether it's a business or themselves. What does that look like?

I'll tell you, that's Yeah. Multi-part. Yeah. Let's, let's dig through the, the importance of marketing is, is. It is the undertow of absolutely everything. It is the way that you communicate, the way that you look. You know, if I mention a couple names like Bill Gates versus Elon Musk, like the personality types of those two different people are drastically different.

Now, whether it was intentional marketing or accidental marketing, because that's just the personality types, that's fine. And you can throw Richard Branson into the mix and you get an entirely different kind of person that's marketing. It's, and. The stuff that I remember my college marketing classes were even talking about like the whole You Inc thing, you think about yourself like a brand.

And I have seen it make the maximum amount of difference. And when somebody's you true, you personality really shines through. That is part of their brand, that's part of their marketing as opposed to their trying to become the cookie cutter, they're trying to become the perfect version of that job. So that way they are, they, they leave the impression that they're good for this position instead of just being themselves.

It's usually bad branding. And it shines through. We are psychologically programmed. We are designed to see authenticity and to see real, true organic personality, especially between people. You know, the micro expressions in your eyes that you do whenever you lie, it all makes a difference. And in that, that understanding, it's really a level of mindfulness.

And marketing is the same level for a business, for an idea, for a concept, for a product, whatever. Taking that seriously instead of letting it be an accident. I have seen it save tons and tons of time and money and generate customers and not generate customers too. I've seen some clients not mine.

I wouldn't mind it though. But these guys are spending 10 grand a month to generate content for Instagram, and they get gorgeous content. Absolutely beautiful, top tier production level content. But with only 180 subscribers, nobody's seeing it. These, there's, they're spending, you know, $5,000 a month on one video and nobody's seeing it.

So what's the point? As opposed to some people, I know that, that they get their phone out and they, they point at it themselves and they shoot a really quick video and then they put it out and it's got 60,000, a hundred thousand views. We actually work with people who do this. I work with people that have, that have had multimillion video views.

And they do so on much, much lower budget. And the marketing is understanding that just creating content, this is not field of dreams. Just because you build something doesn't mean that people are gonna come. And the, the process of marketing is, is putting it in a way so that way it will appeal to your delivery method, be it email, social media, your website, whatever, and put it in a place so that way algorithms will attract not only customers and clients and followers, but the right kind of person.

If I have a sandwich shop in Dallas, I don't want to attract vegans in Morocco. I want to attract the right kind of person. And understanding the marketing portion of that is, is what's gonna make the difference really between success and failure. Hmm, interesting. So what I kind of got from that was marketing.

Is a mix of, and there's gonna be a few words here that are jumbling around in my brain, but it's kind of a mix of marketing, psychology, authenticity, and algorithms in a sense. Is that definitely that kind of like how you could very easily sum up the key components of what you need to have good marketing and or branding.

I think that's fair. Marketing is, , the authenticity portion. I wanna unpack that in just a, just a hair more. The authenticity portion is not necessarily, you know, am I telling the truth or am I lying? Because I know plenty of people who do deceptive deceptive marketing and deceptive advertising as well.

But I think the authenticity is more so putting it into words. If I can understand who you are, then I can describe you to somebody. You know, imagine when you've got somebody describing a TV show or a movie and they really don't do a good job of selling it. You know, I had people tell me about house of Cards, you know, big show a while ago.

And they, they'd be like, yeah, I think you would like that show. And I'll read the synopsis of it. It's like, corrupt politician manipulates the world. This is not good. But if they had talked about the, the depth of the characters and the way that these, these, these processes would build and execute and, and how it's just really, really good watching.

Those are two completely different approaches talking about the same show. So the authenticity is clarifying that message so that way they understand you the way that you intend to be understood. You know, here's the thing that we offer. Here's the thing that I do. I don't just travel. Share the experiences I talk about the financial implications of, of being in Columbia or wherever.

And that is all part of that authenticity is, is clearing up the message so that way it's not confusing and it's, and it's clearly understood. Yeah. Interesting. So it sounds like really if anybody's listening, who is looking to, again, start their own business or just brand themselves, you can't just have.

A message you have to really have a good, clear way of conveying that message. Because what makes sense to you might not make sense when you just throw it out there on social media. It might not be digestible for, you know, a various different number of reasons, but you really have to be conscious of, I don't even know what that word would be.

I don't wanna say like the copy 'cause that's too general. But really being conscious of. The way that it is portrayed so that everyone from every background, from every country, from every ethnic, like really from any walk of life, if they speak that language, then they can very easily and digestively understand the point that you are trying to get across in those few words or those few sentences.

. I was at somebody I was, I was consulting with last week even, and she was in Greece and she was talking about, you know, I want to get, I wanna attract some more people. She actually works in marketing, so it was interesting to hear this question from her. And she said, I'm trying to figure out how to do this because in, in Greece I want to attract, I.

About half of my audience as Greek. But then I want to attract outside, you know, typically like Europe and the us and so, so like, she's like, how do, how in the world do I do that? Do I just need to talk about every single country in Europe and the, so that way the algorithm picks it up? I was like, no. I think you need to do half of your content in Greek and half of your content in English, and you switch it over and you're going to get to the world, the, the part of the world that naturally uses English as their their business language.

And you're gonna attract those people. And then when you do Greek, the algorithm is gonna focus down and bring Greek speaking people, which is going to be a majority of people who actually live in Greece. And it's, sometimes it's that simple, but it's thinking about the process and the system and the, the consequences of what you're going to do and utilizing those, leveraging those to your advantage so that way you grow the right kind of audience that you're looking for.

. It's interesting you bring this up right now because, you know, I travel full-time right now. I am in the south of South America, and. My audience, who I really want to reach on social is always North America, Canada, and America. For the most part. And so it's very, I find, you know, it is an added challenge when I'm in a different country and a lot of my content is being shown to the people who are around me.

I notice and a lot more people follow me who are Spanish speakers, and so it's really interesting to. Kind of it's, it's a new like nomadic problem I think I would say. And then my partner on the other hand, he actually has completely blown up all of his content is in Spanish, and he has completely blown up being here like 10 K in a week.

It's been insane. So I think in this day and age with traveling, that's just another added component onto making social so much more difficult is like, who do you wanna target?

But where are you in the world and what language do they speak there? And yeah, it's, it's just craziness.

So how, do you really know who to look for and what to look for when you are trying to find somebody to help you on this journey?

My practice, and I've done this with, with the entire team is to learn enough to be able to make trouble about anything. If I want to find a web developer, then I'll go learn a little bit about coding just enough to get myself into a mess. And whenever you do that, you can recognize talent whenever you see it.

And you can also recognize bullshit when you see it too. Hmm. And so if you can filter through those things then. You find the right person. So that's, that's the first bit of advice is if you're wanting to learn if, if it's marketing, I'd spend 20 hours researching marketing, and you can even do the Wikipedia dive where you just read something, you're like, I don't really know what that word means.

I've heard avatars before, but I don't know what that means. So you just click on it and you search on it. You do 20 hours of that. You'll have an understanding, you'll have a much better understanding 'cause social, or not even marketing, social media marketing, but also marketing in general. Marketing is an extremely broad category.

Extremely broad. The guy who slaps the address labels on postcard mailers to houses is still working in marketing. And the guy who's trying to sell you the beater car that you don't really need, he's also in marketing too. I'd say the other element on, you know, from the insiders, like if I'm talking to other agencies, 'cause sometimes I do that, sometimes I work in partnership with clients and sometimes just meet other marketers.

Look for somebody who tells you no. Like that would be if my grandmother called me and said, Hey, what do I need to look for? That would be what I would tell her. If you get someone who's telling you, yes, we can do that to absolutely everything. You're gonna end up getting garbage. In fact, I did lose a client once to a big agency that came in and they, they had, you know, 75 employees and yada yada.

And I listened to 'em and they're like, yeah, I think we can throw some business your way too, and we're gonna do this and next time I'm in town we're gonna get together. And yeah, yeah, we do. We do Google ad words. But then they were saying yes to doing his social media marketing and I was like, dude, these guys are just gonna sell you as much as they possibly can.

And I've been watching their content and in a year, Almost a year they've been working on a LinkedIn page that still has less than a hundred followers on it because they're doing SS e o and they just threw in that add-on. So look for somebody who's gonna say, no, I need somebody to be able to tell me like, look, this is what we do, but we don't do that.

I want take your money. I'll happily take your money. But that's not what we do. I want the specialist, I want you to do what you're good at, not just take my money. Yes. I think that is so underrated. I love that you brought that up because you know, it makes me think of, you know, you know, in Facebook groups we see this all the time.

A VA or you know, a marketing agency who will, yeah. You laugh at VA 'cause you know exactly where this is going. Oh yeah. You don't just do everything and if you do everything, then you're a specialist in nothing. You know, we've heard that many times and it's so true. And I think. Even to this day, I still see so many business owners who are like, I need a va, I need an assistant.

I need somebody to help me with marketing. And then that's basically a VA role because that can be absolutely anything. Yeah. And so I think that is really important to always remember that you want to hire somebody who knows what they are doing in one or two very specialized topics, and that is their niche and what they do well.

So in you saying all of this, I'm curious, what is your take? And No, I'm gonna rephrase that. Okay. How would you recommend finding somebody if you are looking to work with somebody in marketing? I'm gonna keep it very vague. Where would you recommend to start to find a company or a person? My personal process I will check out those Facebook groups and see if I've got any kind of existing relationships.

I do have that advantage though. I know marketers already, so I'm like, Hey, if I need somebody who wants to do some P P C now granted I already have someone but if I, you know, if I wanna find someone who's P P C, then I'm gonna go find the people that are in that area and say, Hey, do you have somebody that you can refer?

In fact, I've developed great relationships by doing. But I like, I'm, I'm very much of a patient, slow hire, like take time to find the right person. 'cause it's a lot cheaper that way. And I also don't mind, at least for the Americans, we will do the goodwill run. You know, it's, it's not really consignment.

It's a secondhand store and if you have patience, you can find gold. At a place like that. But if you just want to go in and get something quick, then you're gonna spend more money, period. And so I will take my time and run through platforms like Fiverr, like Upwork occasionally freelancer, but I find most of my success on Fiverr and Upwork.

I will typically do, I'll send out messages to probably 75 people. I. And filter them down and try to do three interviews. And if I don't get my three interviews after that, I go back in and do it again. It's half heart, half head. So this one sounds good on paper, but is there a vibe? Are you going to really get along with that person?

Because if they can get, if they get your concept and they're miserable to work with, Or they're, they're, they're like, you're an extrovert and they're really closed off, or they won't shut up, and you just want 'em to go get the job done. Whatever that personality type is is going to make a huge difference.

And then the gut check part. Do you feel like they're being honest? Do you feel like they're being insincere? Do you feel like they know what they're talking about? Or do they just say, do they say yes to Absolutely everything you say, be like, okay, I need to do email and I also need to build a bridge. Can you do that too?

And they're like, yeah, I can. So that's my recommendation is, is, is learn a little bit about it and then take your time going through the process. You'll know when it's right. You'll feel it, and then there's a 50% chance that you got it right whenever you do it that way.

I like, well, the reason I brought that question up was because I have had. And maybe this is somewhat on me but I have had the most terrible experiences hiring from Upwork and Fiber. I feel like whenever I hire from, and yeah, you're laughing. So it's, it's interesting to me that you said you sometimes will go and then I'm curious, you know, that timeframe of 75 people narrowing it down to three, like that I feel like would just take all of my time and be so stressing to me.

So I'd love to hear how you do that. But you know, on the Upwork front, I feel like every time I try to communicate what I want, I try to over communicate with the looms because it's gone wrong before and then, It just, it never goes right. They never get it. But then you still have to, you know, pay them for their work and their time, and then you don't have the product you want for the service that you want that's complete and it's just a mess.

And so I'm just like, you know, I, I just give up. It takes time, man. That's the thing, that's the number one thing that I'll tell people is, is you just have to be patient. Most people are not patient enough. And I've been doing the, the, the Fiverr process.

I actually joined Fiverr in August of 14, which was like year one for them. So I've been doing this for a while, and I'll tell you, I've got 14 people on my team. One of them was not hired on Fiverr, one of them was hired through a referral. And I've got, you know, both, both my managers came from Fiverr.

I've got somebody that I've worked with for six years, even longer than the agency. And they were all Fiverr Fiverr, sorry, Fiverr and Upwork. And it, it does, it takes a ton of time, but, but you also need to understand that the, you're doing your best to communicate a position and you're not communicating it effectively.

You're doing your best, but you cannot capture exactly what it looks like for you to be going through what you're going through because you've got this blind self portion of you that you can't communicate because you don't even know it exists. I'd say it's, it's just patience. I call it auditions. What we do now is whenever we hire somebody, the first 90 days is probationary.

They're auditioning for us and we're auditioning for them. There is no holds bar. You can bail at any point in time. No hard feelings on either side. And what I have found through that, through communicating, through letting them know on the front, like this is going to be a slow process. And if you don't wanna wait through that, if you don't wanna wait through a couple conversations, then I can just tell you this is not gonna be a good fit for you.

And what I have found through that process is taking my time, hiring, it usually takes about three weeks to a month to actually go through that, because I can only do maybe an hour a day at most. Is if I can get somebody through that and then through the audition period of 90 days, they usually stay for years.

So now if somebody is looking to start marketing, they have no budget, they don't know where to start, they maybe don't even have the time. Would you say, you know, maybe now is not the time to start within the marketing space. What would, what would your take on that kind of be in the next step?

It's the bootstrapping. Yeah, that's, that's how I started. I started with, with whatever money I had sitting in my checking account, which, you know, most of that was about to drain because the bills were coming due. There is a sliding scale of, of energy expenditure, and if you do it yourself, it'll cost less.

If you hire it out, it'll cost more, but it takes less of your time, and it's just where, where can you sit on that balance? It's an, the, the energy's gonna have to be spent either way in order to be able to do this in order to generate an audience. Now, of course, you can do things more efficiently. If you make great video content that appeals to the algorithm, you're gonna pop.

I've got a, a, a client that has about, he's at about 350,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, and he's got about 170 videos posted. Which is really amazing. That is a very, very low video count to have that kind of audience. But he creates stuff that people love. And then he had had a few that got caught in that viral river and then he just exploded.

He's still bootstrapping everything. He's still doing almost every single ounce of, of production himself, even though he is got, I think, I think he's at like 13 or 14 videos that have done over a million views. So, If somebody's bootstrapping, that is, that is very doable for anybody. That's the thing that I wanna communicate the most is that that is doable for anybody.

If you don't have the time and you don't have the money, I would question on whether or not you can do it, whether or not you can handle it. You need to be able to free up one or the other if you are terrified. If you hate the idea of writing, but you want to have a blog, Then I'd really question your motive.

But if you enjoy writing and you can sit down and do this, I know a, an in, he was an influencer. He is a bestselling author, and he was working full-time at a nonprofit. He was like, you know what? I like the work, but this isn't what I wanna do. And he just started getting up an hour early before work every day.

And he wrote an article every single day for two years, and then he quit his job. And within a, a month or two of that, he had a, a New York Times bestseller that was sitting in every airport bookstore. Wow. Just by getting up an hour early. Wow. So it's kind of hard to question because it feels like there's that pre-question before the question, but that's the sliding scale.

Time and money you spend more of. One, you have to spend less of the other. So if you're bootstrapping with absolutely no budget, that's fine. You're far from the only company that's ever been built that way. You just gotta be ready to put in the energy, constantly become a student, keep on grinding. Even when you're talking to a room of zero and you feel the echo off of the walls whenever you're sending out a message, you keep doing it anyway in in faith that you know that it's gonna change.

I would love to hear more on this topic about your specific journey, what that looked like when you started, because I think it'll serve as inspiration, but I also am curious on, you know, you mentioned maybe you had more of the time and less of the money, and so it's like, what does that look like when you start?

We started, I, I started, I remember the standing at the end of the driveway 'cause I wanted to get out and walk around. I was talking to my mentor and, and she said, you know, what do you want to do? Like if you had absolutely no, you know, budgets to consider, what would you do with your daily life?

I said, I've worked with small business owners, I think they're special, pretty crazy and I love them. And she said, yeah, you can make that as a career. And Box six was born the next day. One client that I'd been working with, I was supposed to be, be just cleaning up his website, freelance, and I went and talked to him and he grabbed the contract and signed it immediately and we were doing all of his marketing.

And this was October of: 2018

And I was picking up other clients, but this was still my main, like, if he ever said, I'm done, then the, then box six is probably done at that point. And I'm in there grinding 40, 50 hours a week. And I had worked with them on setting up a streaming product. Like we set up cameras, we can stream out, people can pay a monthly fee.

, at the very end of April in: 2019

We can go eight weeks closed before we're in a lot of trouble. And so we said, okay, well we're gonna stream. This is what we're gonna do. And this is the beginning of box six as well. And so I'm thinking, how many of my clients are about to quit? Am I gonna have to lay people off? It was a very serious conversation with I think probably six or seven people on the team at the time.

I was like, guys, I'm gonna do everything I can to keep you around. But if clients all lock up their doors and they, they suspend all services, I might not be able to help it. And so we started grinding the entire city, country planet was shut down and me and a couple of other employees were still driving down to the place completely empty.

And still putting out that live music prerecorded if we had to. And it was that grinding through, and there were just so many just alone moments. Like I was scared something is gonna happen and I'm still trying to grow up at the same time and doing that. Have you seen Forest Gump? Like they were the only ones that took the shrimp boat out and then they survived the hurricane because they went out.

That's what it felt like. 'cause I got to meet, I got to hang out with, I got to talk and work with Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert Jimmy Fallon, you know, late night talk show host in the us. Got to do a feature on the Grammys. Because of that, because we were the only people that had us set up where somebody an artist could walk in on a stage record and it could be available that night because those talk shows work that quickly.

And it was absolutely astounding. So it was just this terrified, terrified, terrified, and then spike. And it's been continual ups and downs that way ever since. And just when you think you're secure, just when you think you've got that safety net kind of already built and locked in, something else comes up.

And then you have days where it's just soaring and you feel like you this, you're like, this is why I do this. But man, it goes up and down so much. It is so emotional. And if, if people are, I. Say if someone's scared. 'cause I talk to plenty of people who wanna start businesses because the glory appeals to them.

But if they're gonna lock up in fear and never do anything because they're always scared of being judged or scared that their audiences or they're gonna put out a video or a piece of content and their audience is gonna judge them for it, this might not be for them. And I tell 'em just to go do it.

You're gonna put out garbage, you're gonna mess something up, you're gonna mess up your contract, you're gonna lose a good client. You're gonna lose a client that you thought everything was great. You're gonna have content that you look at and say, okay, this was absolute trash. What was I thinking?

And you have to plow through it because as long as you're, you're net positive, you're growing. And if you're happy doing what you're doing, then there's no job that can replace that. So you have to. You absolutely have to. But it is not. Yeah, I I think part of it too is what you said, really looking inside yourself before you even start out on the journey and thinking like, what are the reasons that I want this?

And do I want this for the right reasons? And am I willing to put in the work? Like you said, even when times are tough in the whole world is shut down. Like, do I want this bad enough that it's going to, I'm going to find a way to persevere through that. And if it's your passion like you in marketing, then the answer is, Heck yes.

Like it's barely even a question because you know what the answer is, but I think it does take a lot of time and effort to figure out, and maybe for you it wasn't because since you were basically born, you had this passion for marketing. But I know that's not the case with everybody. And maybe it wasn't even for you.

Maybe you had to discover that at a very young age. And if you don't, Have like a resounding yes and a passion for something. It's, it can be very difficult because there's obstacles and there's tough days. And like you said, there's loneliness within the journey as well. And you know, I think it's, we see a lot of people who thrive in their business, but there's also a lot of people who don't make it in their business.

And we see that a lot less. Yeah. We don't see it near as often because we want our success story. And you think about the algorithms and if you put out one post of Here's my success story and here's my story of failure, the one of success is going to be better recognized and the algorithm's gonna push it out further and it's gonna get more views.

I mean, Netflix did, did studies on thumbnails on which thumbnails convert better, and they found that the face of the hero of the story converts better. We seek out the success stories, the failure stories are out there. People are also less likely to put those out. But my goodness, I could give you failure story after failure story after failure story.

I have a serial entrepreneur. I started an afterschool daycare business when I was 10 years old. Aging myself, but I sold pss and it, those all failures, those, this, this is the only part where that's gonna be mentioned. All the rest of it is gonna be about here's how we make things work, here's how you make things work.

So yeah, it, the, the stories are out there and they're far more plentiful on the failure side. But it's, it's the resilience and the simply, I have to, I have not had to ask if with box six since day one, it's always been how?

So let's talk a little bit about one of my favorite topics, which is geo arbitrage. So geo arbitrage is essentially, When you, and now the way that I utilize it in my life, which I absolutely love, is when I, you know, earn currency and earn money from clients who are in North America or in the uk.

And then I geo arbitrage my life by a lot, not always, but a lot of the time living in countries where the cost of living is not nearly as expensive as it is to live in my home country of Canada Also. It helps that I don't really resonate with that lifestyle. Mm-hmm. But I would love to hear how you kind of utilize geo arbitrage and the finance aspect of things in your business and how that came about and how that was built.

Anything about currencies and cross country borders, it, it immediately creates a variable. And it's, it's, it can be a very challenging variable. It really depends on the situation. I'll tell you, I even had a, a, a Facebook ad campaign that I was launching for another product of mine two weeks ago.

And Facebook flagged, I. My payment method, the same payment method that I've had on file for almost three years, but the IP address that clicked go was not in the United States. They were in Europe, and it took me almost two weeks to get it unlocked. It was, it was nuts. So there's always that variable.

There's always that balance. I kind of wish one of my other team members was here so they could talk about it because the way that we pay them, And I might need more clarity here, so if I'm completely missing the mark, just let me know. Paying them typically through pay air, you can pay through other platforms but pay air is very simple to use and it's a very low fee.

And one of the major advantages that I get from hiring internationally is that the United States is one of the most expensive countries in the world, which means our salaries are some of the highest in the world. So I can hire somebody in a place like India or Pakistan or the Philippines or Nigeria or even Argentina.

El Salvador, you know, keep going down that list and what they can earn, what they can earn in order to have a really good lifestyle. And I want everybody to have a good lifestyle. I don't want anybody that works with me to struggle ever. They can take that for a lot less and I can transfer that cost difference and usually end up winning competitively here.

'cause if I'm talking about somebody who's got a team of 14 here in the US their costs are so, I mean, their costs are 50 times higher than mine. And so they've got their profit margins slipped down to about 5% in order to win the business. And they're just hoping that the long game is gonna get them what they need.

So that is one of the huge, huge elements is, is finding good people who were qualified. And getting them a rate that they can live well off of. If, if, if somebody's not putting money in savings, then I'm doing something wrong. And then as far as how they utilize, 'cause I'm usually shipping in U s D I don't know what they're doing from that point.

I don't ask too many questions because it's not my money anymore at that point. Once I've, once I've paid them, it's theirs. So I'd say that's probably one of the biggest elements is, is intentionally looking for other countries that has a lower cost of living because it helps, keeps my cost lower and it keeps me competitive.

I like that as well because, and I'm sure this is a factor in, in you hiring abroad as well, is giving back to local economies where, you know, like you said, the cost of living is not as high and that really good salary can go so much further and really helps, you know, them and their family and the kids and the aunts and, and like I see it when I'm in these countries and that's why I love traveling as well, because I can give my money back to.

Paraguay a country, for example, where I am now that is benefiting me for tax purposes. And, you know, I, I really want my money to actually make an impact. Where I find sometimes if I am at home in Canada or in the us you know, you spend hundreds of dollars, but it doesn't really make an impact because hundreds of dollars there is not that much money.

It's nothing when it's so much money and it really puts it into perspective in most other countries around the world. Yeah. Yeah, most definitely. And part of a part of me enjoys that whenever I get to go travel, like I love that part. And I've been doing a lot of, of time back and forth this year in New York as well, which, you know, some of the most expensive real estate on the planet is in New York.

And then I look at it and then I watch your stuff and it just infuriates me. Because you're talking, well, here's what I spent today in, in Columbia, and it was like, you just spent, I, I spent that in gas getting to where I was going. So thanks a lot. But then at the same time, it does, it gets you thinking.

It really, really gets you thinking. And I love the fact that they get to go. Do these things, they get to have a better life and it's easier for me to provide that. You know, they don't have to have a doc. One of my guys is getting the same salary as a doctor in his SA in his town, and I didn't realize I was paying him that much, but it's still, it's okay.

Like it's fine because he is worth it. He's so worth it. But he gets to. I watched him buy a car, married has a life is, is very supportive of his family. And to be able to enable something like that is, is truly remarkable. Really, really remarkable. What is something else that is important in the messages that we have shared today that has not been touched on, whether it pertains to marketing, to the geo arbitrage, to finance, to really any aspects that you think is important to touch on before we end off this episode?

I'd say the earliest initial passion on my end was, was the entrepreneurship side. Entrepreneurs, I, I said it earlier, were special breed of crazy. We, we go and grind for months and years before we ever get paid anything and, and getting paid a lot less in the hopes of, in, in the future, in the, the desire to have something different in the future.

And then even whenever we get to that point, we're still processing the world a bit different than everybody else. We stand out, we're slightly different shade. And to those people, I meet a lot of them. Like I do some things that are practically public outreach that, that I just wanna meet more entrepreneurs and I want to talk to them and I want to help them if I can.

I'd say to them the majority of them is that patience is absolutely crucial in this world, and you're doing better than you think you are. You're just not quite there yet. You're not failing. Grind on. The success will come, you will be reimbursed for the energy that you're putting in right now. And I think that part is absolutely clutch.

And then as far as, 'cause most of the people that we're, that we're, we're talking to are, are social media bound professionally in some way? A lot of the same things apply. And really, if you just start posting every single day, if you post something every single day, you create a formula of inevitability.

You will create success. You will create a good audience. But every single advanced strategy, accomplishment, whatever is impossible. If you're not putting out that kind of content. And it doesn't have to be gorgeous, it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be, you know, six hours grinding on your phone and plugging it in to recharge it so you can work through the editor.

It can be simple. Some of the best videos I've ever posted were shot real short, less than 10 minutes. And, you know, done is better than perfect. Just go, don't spend so much time analyzing that. You end up paralyzing yourself. Just go, just do it. Yeah. The analysis paralysis can be so real and can really be such a factor, and like you're not an entrepreneur because it's, it's just so paralyzing sometimes that you don't even start and you don't even know what could be.

. And you're not doing it because it's easy. That's part of the appeal is that it's not easy, right? Like, you know, that you're being different and there's a little side smirk that comes outta your eye whenever you do that. Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah. Totally. Well, thank you for, for sharing everything you've shared today.

It's been a very interesting discussion. So where can people find you and your agency online? We have box six marketing.com. And then we've also recently launched Post Builder which is post builder.co. It is a simple copy paste with visuals, graphics reels captions, you know, that we set out with this mission to create a product that everybody on the planet can afford and to be able to post on social media in less than a minute.

And all of the visuals are completely customizable. So if you want brand, if you wanna change the color palette to match your brand, it's all completely possible. So those are the two things, the two places, the two big plugs at the moment. Really, really proud of that new product. And I think it's incredible.

And then on socials at box six, mostly Instagram at the moment, just 'cause we've been a little bit at capacity with the, with the client count. And so, yeah, that we share stuff like this constantly, especially when Instagram or TikTok or somebody changes the algorithm, they roll out a new feature.

We try to get that information out as fast as possible.