Grow Your GoHighLevel Agency - Andy Audate’s Proven Marketing & Automation Strategies

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Andy, welcome to the show, brother.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Sebastian, man. I'm excited to be here with you and your audience.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I'm excited to have you here, man. It's great that uh, you know, it's the beauty of doing a podcast interview swap, is that uh it is absolutely reciprocal, but you build that initial relationship with the first interview. In that case, it was a few months back. Uh I was in Las Vegas. We got a chance to record in your studio. I'm really grateful for that opportunity. And then, of course, I invited you uh to be on my show here. We're now friends and in touch and in each other's ecosystem, which is the beauty of podcasting.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, and it's and it and it definitely that this this swap definitely strengthens the relationship. So for those of you who are listening who has podcasts or is getting on podcast, definitely do some swaps to strengthen your relationships that you're creating.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah. I could not, I could not have said it better. You know, Andy, I uh I love telling stories on this podcast. So uh I I love to go back to the beginning of the story for context purposes for our listeners, wherever the beginning is for you and where it actually all started, and then what really brought you to present day with what you're doing uh in the marketing world, specifically in the go-high level world. We'll talk a little bit more about what that all means for you listeners that may not know or may not understand the power uh and the monstrosity that is go high level. But let's back up to the beginning of the story real quick on where it all started.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, so for me, entrepreneurship started when I was 10 years old when my dad went to New York. And I lived in Rhode Island, which is the smallest state in the country. So it's more of like an unknown state. So it's the smallest state in the country. And in Rhode Island, when I was there, I was so living, living and growing up there. 10 years old, my dad says, Hey, I'm going to New York. What that simply means is that he's going to go buy clothes, uh, because that's where you can go get the cheap clothes at. So I went to New York, so he went to New York and he asked me, before I go, is there anything you want me to get? And I said, Yes, dad. There's something I want you to get. I want you to get these Nike Air Forces, mid-tops, the one with the Velcro, the one with the Swish. And I want to go because I want to be the flyer sixth, sixth grader. And my dad went to New York, came back, and he said he didn't have enough money for those sneakers. And that's what started my entrepreneurship journey because I said I I was I was already envisioning myself with those sneakers. I was already envisioning myself what I would feel like, what I would, what, what, what life would be like with those sneakers. And then uh he didn't come back with it. So I couldn't let my own dreams down at that at times go. So I went and grabbed a shovel. I went and grabbed some rake, uh, like a like a rake for the leaves. And I started going door to door and and and started raking people's leaves and shoveling people's snow. And from that, uh, that's where I learned that you can become an entrepreneur and make your own money. I made my first 160 bucks, uh, $10 a door, 16 doors. I made $160. And then I remember I was ironing the money on my on my bed, and my mom was like, What are you doing? And I'd like, I feel like a like a like a trap king. Like I was like ironing the money, and it was my money. So I didn't end up buying the sneakers. Uh I didn't end up buying the sneakers, but what I did understand now is that I have full control of the results that I create. And that's what really kickstarted my entrepreneurship journey.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, I did the same thing with mowing mowing lawns and uh washing cars. Same thing. Yeah, you let me mow your grass and wash your car 20 bucks or 10 bucks for either or back in the dad run, walk around my lawnmower, my weed eater, and my bucket to wash cars as well. So the the hustle started early on. It's same same scenario. It's like, hey, mom said, hey, we can't do it. I'm like, well, man, I need to figure out a way to do it because all my friends are going out and I want to go out, you know? So it's uh what a blessing to have that inclination and desire early on to want to figure it out at such an early age, which really brings us into the the wonderful, yet crazy, wild, out of control world of being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

That's what it's about, man. It's about it's about like taking, you know, the your your future in your own hands.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

It really is. It really is. So when did you go into business as an adult, I guess we could say, you know, with the entrepreneurship, the hustle started, but when did you start your first company?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, so at 19 years old, I started a T-Mobile franchise. Uh, I worked at a company called Metro PCS. Yep. And Metro PCS is is a prepaid carrier, cell phone carrier. And I remember this journey because at 19, when I when I when I started working at Metro PCS, actually I was in high school when I started working there. When I started working there, it was it was ran by a franchise, which means that multiple like you can hire, you can buy uh a territory from Metro PCS. So this gentleman had 10 locations and he owned these 10 locations, and then he was training me on how to run his locations. 2013, around there, T Mobile comes in and buys Metro PCS in acquisition. And because of that, there's a lot of changes taking place in the business. And T Mobile's is has their foot on all these all these dealers, and they're also in expansion mode. And T Mobile, I remember them coming in the office and was like, hey, we're looking to grow some dealers, man. Who who who do you think would be a good fit? And I remember being in the back, like, give me a chance, give me a shot, man. I'm 19, like, let's let's let's lock and load. Signed this contract. Well, go through going back and forth, we ended up signing an agreement. I opened my first location, my second location, my third location. By 21, I had four locations under different brands with T-Mobile. And then uh I made my first million and then I moved to the West Coast, and that started a new journey for me. So I did T-Mobile as a business owner for about two years, and then from after realizing I couldn't make any monthly recurrent revenue with them, it was all hustle and grit on selling the devices. I wanted some time freedom, so I moved to the West Coast. And when I moved to the West Coast, that's when I started to realize like, hey, you can create some time freedom and hang around rich people and learn what they know.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Funny how that works out. So um, you you're originally from the East Coast then? Rhode Island, yes. Okay, cool. And uh now, now uh West Coast transplant. I was out there for a little while, spent about 10 years in uh Orange County, right next door to where you're out there in uh Las Vegas. Uh so know all about what it takes, you know, what what it what it means to go from the East Coast to West Coast, which as you know, is a whole different ballgame and a whole different way of living, whole different caliber of type of people and mindset and and uh you know, deal the above.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

When I was on the East Coast, I remember so in one of my stores, there was uh I had cell phone stores in the malls. I remember we took over like standalone locations where it was like a subway, and we would paint it and and change the colors and and rebrand it as a cell phone store. But one of my stores was uh kiosk in the mall. And right next to my kiosk was these things called hoverboards. I don't know, do you remember those like in 2006? Yeah, yeah, Back to the Future debuted them. Yeah. So like these hoverboards would and it was it had wheels on them. So it didn't really hover, but they called it hoverboards. So it had wheels on them, but you were able to go forward, backwards, and so forth. Like this was hot in 2014, 2015. And I remember asking the person, like, where did you get this from? And he said, California. And ironically, a couple months before that, I was on a business trip with um with uh uh essentially in the cell phone world, there's something called a master dealer where you get your cell phones from. Um so like Apple will sell phones to the master dealer in large amounts, and then the smaller dealers will come to it'll get resold to me, and then they make a profit. So I remember I was in Las Vegas having a party uh here celebrating, celebrating some wins, and I stopped by this convention that they had here in Las Vegas, and they had these things called the hoverboards, and and I so I saw the hoverboards for the first time, then a few months later, they're in my neck of the woods and they're popular, and the guy's making a killing selling these hoverboards. And I realized at that moment, the West Coast is first with new technology, new processes, new ideas, new style, and then it slowly goes to the east coast. It's not the opposite, west coast is first. So I came to the west coast because I realized like I wanted to spend time where the movers and the shakers were. So I'm here on the west coast, and I think this opportunity with high level is probably one of those one of those moments where it's it's it's getting getting in getting in super early.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, they uh they they used to say back in the day there's like a movie quote or something. It's like headed to the West Coast, trying to save the world out there.

unknown 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

So let's talk let's talk about this go high level world. And and what and how you got started with this and what you actually do and the type of work you do and problems you solve for your clients.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Well, I came I I can't I got in the world of digital marketing after I left the cell phone industry. I came in the world of digital marketing because in the in order to make money online, you gotta understand like how marketing funnels work, how email marketing works, and text message marketing, and all those elements. So I got into the world of e uh digital marketing through one of my mentors where I was selling tickets. So I was responsible for selling tickets to in-person events. So after I left the cell phone world, I'm trying I'm now on the West Coast, and in the West Coast, I wanted to learn how to become a motivational speaker. And rather than speaking on stage, someone gave me an opportunity to go on tour with them where I would sell tickets to their events. And in order to sell the tickets to their events, I had to learn how to sell online, sell digital marketing, do digital marketing. So for a few years, I was doing digital marketing campaigns, selling tickets to seminars and conferences. And then from there, in 2022, I learned about High Level, which is a tool that powers all of these marketing campaigns. Most of these marketing campaigns, high level was a tool that powered it. And I was a reseller of a big software at a at the time when I was selling tickets. And high level says, you can take the software and sell it as your own. Instead of selling someone else's, you can take the software and sell it as your own. And I was like, Whoa, that would be cool if I had my own software company. Like I can have my own software company. So I adopted that idea and I started selling high level as my own software. And when I started selling high level as my own software, I made I made a killing. What really changed my mindset was the idea of monthly return revenue. I ran my my previous businesses with OTPs, one-time payments. I take a I buy a cell phone for $500, I sell it for $649, and I make $150 profit. This is a this is how money is made in the cell phone world. So I'm selling, I'm slinging all these cell phones, and uh, but on the next month, I start at zero, I got no income. Who gets the monthly recurring revenue? T-Mobile does. They get the monthly recurring revenue. They get paid every single month. I help them get paid every single month, but I was conditioned that the money is made when you sell a device. What I wanted was that was that little recurring revenue that hits every single month. So once I started selling selling software and I and it was on the it was my own software, the fact that I got paid every single month was what started giving me freedom. Now, with high level, it got so good that I started sharing it with other people. Like, hey, you can create some freedom with some time freedom. You can leave if you're making eight grand in a job, you can technically sell a bunch of customers and at 500 apiece, make eight grand in your own software and replace the job, and you're making money online. And it's all through a software that you don't technically have to build, it's already built for you, and it's a win-win for everybody that's involved. So I started sharing that with other people. And today we have just under 1,300 customers who we coach every single month and we give them the services, the tools, the processes to go ahead and sell their version of high level. So I got my own business with high level, but then I also coach other uh agency owners with their version of high level.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Got it. So you're setting your customers up. So if I own a tire shop in Las Vegas, then you can set me up with my Go High Level account. And then if I'm a marketer, you're teaching me how to create my own agency so I can go find my own tire shops. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So double dipping at its finest.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Definitely, definitely double dipping, but also helping a bunch of people in the journey.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Well, of course. I mean, that's that that that is the focal point, and that's why you're able to the seamless process of being able to capitalize on both sides uh uh of the coin on there. You know, I I started with like most marketers did in the world of click funnels and active campaign and 19 other tools, and then I did a gig. Actually, we did the same gig, not the same year, but we did uh Ross Russ Williams um um mastermind cruise.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Oh yeah, he was just at uh at my event this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Oh, yeah, I did I did see that because he went to the Backstreet Boys. That's a whole nother conversation, Ross. Um so uh in fact I did that two years in a row. I couldn't make it last year because I had a family cruise, I had a family cruise. I couldn't make it, but great event. Shout out to Ross Williams and the uh uh what does he call it? Why am I not remote? Modern Profits. There we go, modern profits mastermind cruise. But um Christine Seal was like, go high level, go high level, go high level, go high level, go ahead. I'm like, what is go high level? And there was other attendees, go high level, go high level. Then I went back and did some simple math and realized, well, I'm paying for multiple pieces of software now exist in one software, which was go high level. And it was extremely excruciating um migration over, because this was probably three years ago. It's gotten significantly easier because there's agencies like yours out there that can make it slam dunk to make it happen. But when that all started to happen and you can have everything under one umbrella, I always wondered why that didn't exist yet, because I was so anti-click funnels. I don't know why. I just was. I was not interested in the community. I didn't like the price point, I didn't like the fact that that's all that they did was here's your funnels. That's it. Okay, what about my contacts? Well, you can save contacts when you're kind of sorta. But when I discovered that, it was like the lights went on and I was like, this is it. And I haven't since looked back and we run our entire agency on it. I haven't taken the step to be able to set other people up with it, but you and I should chat offline on what that looks like to be able to figure all of that out. In fact, I have a client right now, uh podcast client, and he's starting to do AI consulting and marketing services and local marketing services on a on a very small scale just to get started, get his feet wet on that because he's versed in it. And a lot of and 90% of businesses are not on there. Um, but looking at opportunities like go high level and being able to help people because people we think we know because we're in the world. Yeah. People have no idea this whole thing, you know, exists, which you know, this is just the beginning. So I think we're in our infancy, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, I I mean, right now they're at 90,000, not 90,000 uh agencies, 2 million, 2 million subaccounts, which means 2 million businesses use it, and 90,000 people resell it. However, I still think that this is very early on in the journey, where because the ClickFunnels at their at their peak, I'm I believe they were at 160,000. So with that being said, we're still in the beginning of high level and what high level is really going to do to impact the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, we are. In fact, let's talk about that just for a minute here. If you're a business owner and you're listening, you're watching this right now and you're like, man, I really don't talk to my customers the way that I should. Um, we have a we have a MailChimp email list that we send an email out quarterly, it's usually on holidays. Um, you're doing it all wrong. So or or or maybe you don't even have MailChimp. You're like, I didn't even think about an email list. Let us usher you in to the 21st century here in 2025. What are some reasons that any business, brick and mortar, offline, online, hybrid, whatever it may be, need to have an effective CRM solution that stands for customer relate relations manager. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, relationship manager.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Correct. That's what CRM stands for. Basically allowing you to say, hey, if you come into my business, I want to capture something electronically from you so I can stay in touch with you and communicate with you and market to you and send you things that I know you already want. If you're not doing that right now, you need to be. But let's talk a minute why businesses actually need a solution like this.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Well, if a business is in the business of generating revenue, the number one thing that they need to understand in the world of the landscape that we're in today is something called Toma. Toma T-O-M-A, it's top of mind awareness where your customers need to have you top of mind. So when we think about food, like let's say, let's think about like on a Saturday night, you're with your wife, you're with your girlfriend, you're hanging out, or you just eat you're with your friends and you want a pizza sent to your house. Who do you order from? Well, you can order from Domino's, you can order from Pizza Hut, you can order from so-and-so, all of these companies. But who do gets the phone call? The one that comes to mind first. So when it's Saturday night and you're hungry and you have a bunch of people at your house, you want to order some food and you call Domino's, the reason why you call Domino's was because of top of mind awareness. They are on the top of your mind that when you're at the point of making a decision, that you contact them first. So if you're a local business owner, your job from a marketing standpoint is to create that top of mind awareness where you're constantly on the top of mind of your customers. So when they need your service, they call you. The way to do that today is through automatic emails, text messages, and phone calls. And that's what high level does. It allows you to market to your customers and keep you top of mind. So when when they're thinking of you, they get an email, they get a text message, they get a they get a automatic phone call that's pre-recorded and it gets dropped into their voicemail. All of those elements is there inside of high level, plus so many more tools such as lead capture to generate the name, email, phone number of your potential customers, and so many more tools. A place to host host your website, place for email marketing, a place for to make phone calls and all in one platform.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, it's crazy that you say that. You say you called it Toma. My sister's name is Tama, just like Tama Hawk, spelled the exact same way. I literally just text her. I have never heard your name as an acronym, specifically in the marketing world. Is that how crazy is that?

SPEAKER_01 18:41

It's very small. Yeah, who would have thought?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, my dad's name was Tom, and she was a girl, so my parents were like, fuck it, we'll just throw an A at the end. That's wild, dude. That's wild. Well, man, I um I I'm I'm encouraged, you know, based on our just our conversation. I already was based on being on your show there, but learning about the monstrosity that is go high level in this entire world. I'm going to definitely take a closer look at what that looks like to not only help our clients facilitate their podcasting needs, but also be able to tie all those things together. And if you're listening to this right now, and this this conversation triggered you because you're not doing anything when it comes to having a CRM or communicating with your customers, you definitely need to be able to do that. I'm going to put all of Andy's uh contact information in the show notes. That's the description of this podcast episode in case you're wondering what the hell a show note is, so you can reach out and connect with them and better understand what you don't know, what you don't know about the world of Go High Level. Andy, my brother, so great to see you again. I know that uh on the opposite side of business, on the life side of things, uh you got a you got an uh an upcoming uh delivery coming uh in the form of your child. And uh man, I couldn't uh be more excited for you. Congratulations. As a father, I know what that means. I told you before we started recording, prepare to have life never, ever be the same ever again from the second that baby gets out. So I'm I'm wishing you guys nothing but the breast, praying for 10 fingers, 10 toes, healthy baby, and just a world of uh of blessings and prop prosperity from here on out. Any uh any final thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah, the so what's the best I'm talking about? My first daughter is on is on the way, and um, you know, she'll be here any moment when my wife gives birth to her. But for something that I want you to all think about is think about growing and expanding in this digital marketing landscape. I think right now we're at the precipice of something phenomenal, which is AI revolution, this AI revolution. And because of that, you have the tools now to really grow and really take things to the next level. You can create a podcast with AI, you can market your message with AI, you can create social media content with AI, and we're at the early stages of it. So if you take advantage of it, man, you will be by far ahead of the pack in the future.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Absolutely. Could not have said it better. Andy, thanks again, my brother. So great to see you. I appreciate your time and hanging out with me for just a few minutes. I look forward to seeing you again in Las Vegas uh one of these days, sooner rather than later, man. Thank you, Sebastian, for having me. You got it. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you're so inclined, please leave us a review. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios at the end of the day.