With Paul Ace, the Founder of Amplify C-Com, a performance marketing agency. A former self-taught wedding singer, Paul now helps 7-figure online courses creators make on average an extra $786,000 per month after working together for 12 months. This means product owners can enjoy spending more time with their family and stop burning time on crap a CEO shouldn’t do. Unlike traditional agencies, they don’t do retainers. They get paid on results meaning your NEW customers pay for their services and it doesn’t cost you a cent.

Join us for this powerful conversation where you will hear the amazing business lessons Paul learned as a wedding singer, how he stood out from the crowd, and how this has led to his tremendous success in performance marketing and the success he brings his clients.

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• How to market yourself better in wedding singing?
• The role of marketing and sales techniques in live performances.
• The importance of understanding lifetime customer value and maximizing it to scale a business.
• Nurture existing clients over focusing on initial conversions.

“If you want to get the things that you want to get, take the actions that you need to go and get it… otherwise, you’ll spend all your life being busy and not moving any way (just going around in circles).”

-Paul Ace

Check out these highlights:

• 12:10 Where was it on Paul’s journey that he started paying attention to marketing himself better?
• 25:42 From an identity standpoint, who do you need to become to create the business that you truly desire to create? 
• 32:17 Paul shares about the work he’s doing.
• 35:05 What stops most businesses from digging into the customer journey?

How to get in touch with Paul on Social Media:

You can also contact Paul by visiting his website here

Special gift to the listeners: Get access to FREE resources to help you Amplify your business and your life, starting with an Amplify Beyond 7 Figure Audit here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Paul Ace  00:05

If you want to get the things that you want to get, take the actions that you need to take in order to go and get the thing and look systematically at what the biggest needle moving thing that you could do today to make that happen. Because otherwise you spend all your life being busy and not moving anyway, you just go running so…

GGGB Intro  00:25

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:53

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am super excited to bring our new guest today, Paul Ace. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Ace  01:18

Great to be on the show, Heather. And hopefully we can give as much value to your audience as possible.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:22

Oh, I’m confident that we will I so you and I connected gosh, probably a few months ago now. 

Paul Ace  01:28

Yeah, it was. Let’s get booked in for podcasts like three months, three months to get it in.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:34

Right. It happens? Well, I think summer kind of happened in that time travel happened in that time, right? A lot of life has been lived even in a few months. It’s great to see you again. For folks that are listening, stay tuned. Today’s gonna be a super fun conversation. When I first connected with Paul. I was like, oh, yeah, we gotta have a conversation on the podcast, I think there’s a lot that you’re gonna take away around building a business. So for those of you that don’t know, Paul, and Paul, I’m trying to remember who first connected us. Can you recall?

Paul Ace  02:04

We were in a mastermind thing. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:07

Okay, so we’re in the perfect nope, so good to know. And there’s so many other awesome connections within that mastermind. So I love it when new people join and I get to meet the new folks. For those of you listening that don’t know, Paul Ace, Paul is the founder of Amplify C-Com, a performance marketing agency. He helps a seven figure online course creators make an average of an extra $786,000 per month after working together for 12 months. Hopefully that made you sit up a little taller in your seat. Think there’s many of us who wonder what it would be like to make $786,000 per month. So meaning that product owners can enjoy spending more time with their family and stop burning time on crap a CEO shouldn’t do. Unlike traditional agencies, they don’t do retainers, they get paid on results, meaning your new customers pay for their services, and it doesn’t cost you a cent. I remember when we first connected, Paul, and you told me that and I was like, oh, like my equivalent in the legal world is contingency lawyering. Right? Lawyers who only take on it, they don’t require any payment from their clients. Because either it’s a high risk scenario, or it’s an area of law that other attorneys won’t, won’t do, right? Or they’re working with clients who can’t pay the fees that they would normally require. And so it’s on them to create a win for that client before they ever get paid a cent. And that’s often by the way, years into the process. Yeah, right. So the long game? Yeah, it is. It’s the long game. And it’s making a bet on themselves, that they can create that win for their client, right. And it sounds like you’re a little bit in the same game. And the part about that, that I love is one it gives people especially in the legal field clients an opportunity to get support that otherwise wouldn’t have support, right. And I think for your clients gives them access to strategies and support that they wouldn’t otherwise get. And then the upside is really significant. So you know, anyways, I’m so fascinated by your business model. I know you’ve had a really interesting journey into, you know, everything that you’ve learned around marketing and sales and copywriting, like even reading through the list of questions that we have down today, you know, as just some kind of mile markers, like stay tuned, folks, there’s a lot here. So, Paul, I’d love for you because, there’s a couple things that I really care that our listeners get out of these conversations and one is an understanding of you as a person, right? I think we all want to know the person behind a business behind a certain set of expertise behind online marketing and And I want people to walk away with things they can start doing today in their business to show up differently and create some wins. Right? So those are my goals for you. I would love you know, because there’s no part of really your personal story in an intro. And so we just need to dig into that. I’d love to know more about your background, kind of, you know, tell us the kind of the quick signposts as the way into your work that you’re doing now. 

Paul Ace  05:26

Yeah, cool. So here’s a whistle stop, or I have, right, how we ended up where we are right now. And number one is that came straight out of school and was how am I going to go into university. Now I don’t want to go, I got the grades that now I don’t want to go, I want to go into money. So I went and worked at Subway for four months, 70 an hour, which I had to work two hours to cover the cost of parking. And then when I was at like three hour shifts, so I was like, I was bringing them like 200 pounds a week, which isn’t like terrible, right? I stayed there for three months, I was like, I don’t wanna do this anymore. So I went to work for a bakery, instead, massive bakery chain, and then went to be store manager by 20 years old running 20 staff, which was kind of a little bit crazy, but overwhelming. I wasn’t the leader that I am today put it that way I was a bit more dictatorship than then laissez faire, I think back then. But you learn along the way. And so I stayed there for five years, and then obviously made the natural transition. So where do you go after bakery? I then became a wedding singer. So natural.

Heather Pearce Campbell  06:35

Seems like the natural progression for so many of us, right, like, Wedding Singer. 

Paul Ace  06:41

So I’ve been playing drums since I was 11 years old, played drums with a little bit of bass guitar, and I didn’t learn to sing toilet 21. And like, I couldn’t sing a note. I remember even when I was like 15 the rest of the band used to laugh when I tried to do backing vocals because it’s so bad. And so got to 21 like had something in essence and stuff like that. And yes, you can learn to sing. Got to 20.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:04

I love that folks listen to that scene. That’s amazing.

Paul Ace  07:09

I’m proof because I was horrible. I always said I was like the Robbie Williams kind of singer right. So I wasn’t the best singer but I could entertain, play that like and that went was worth its weight in gold. So then at 23 I quit my job, I cut my pay in half overnight, and went out as a full time singer. So I was doing the poems to clubs, all those kinds of things and then they start.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:30

And you have for folks that are not watching you have something behind you on the wall that to me shouts music, maybe it’s not what is that. 

Paul Ace  07:38

So this side, that’s an award from a client, they give out million dollar awards. One day, customers make a million and they were like, you helped us make a million. So we’re gonna give you an award for free.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:48

But it looks kind of like a big disc, right? Like, oh my gosh, is this from your music days later.

Paul Ace  07:55

They had it, they put an umbrella on their gold gold desk, cuz they’re all about making it rain. I got it. And then the other side is that poster. So if you just listen to the audio, it’s like a two poster like massive poster that was one of the first ever gig that I did solo. They put this massive a board outside. And I remember because I should have been playing as a band. And I should have been playing drums that day. And the singer was I can’t be bothered, I’m going to tell him I’m ill. So he just caught out. And I’ve been practicing stuff for about six months. And so I rang him up as a hey, you should have a band this afternoon as I can come and sing if you want. They’re like, sure. Okay, I didn’t know after songs after stuff like was off. But off the back of that gig. I ended up getting a Tormach residency offer on the first time. So they had me back every month for 12 months, it was a dirty as glorious place in in Leicester where I was livid at the time stickiest floors and everything. People loved it, you know. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:53

So those are the places memories are made. 

Paul Ace  08:56

Oh, it’s like you’ve got it, you’ve got to do it. Like going in a proper working men’s kind of Bob. And one of the song choices had I think was lady’s choice from hairspray. And I was like, what I might do it right. So you learn along the way. Learn your audience.

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:10

You learn along the way. I’m curious what that posts or in the frame behind your shoulder means to you now like part of it, I’m thinking in my own head, like the courage that it took to do that. Oh, yeah. Or was it the fact or maybe both that it led to like this series of personal wins for you.

Paul Ace  09:27

I was breaking out at the time. I mean, the interesting thing, so my wife actually put this frame together. So if you see down the like the right hand side, there’s loads of different business cards on there. And they’re all the iterations of the brand that was created over time. So it started off like Vistaprint just like the cheapest cards you could get right? And then it like worked overtime. And then you can like if you see it on the video as well, you can actually see like all the different promotional things that we created. Like I created two albums on there, like different things around that Ah, so she put all that and like overlaid it all over this original poster, which was really cool. To me that was like the progression of becoming a wedding singer. And I went from, I remember being at this showcase, which was kind of like the get all the Working Men’s clubs, like all those kind of people, right? Come around and the guy tell you if you’re any good or not, and I’ll lie if there was that kind of place. And this bloke said to me, he said, more joy. Yeah, I said, 150 pound for the for the night. And anyway, people will never pay more than 130. And I always remembered that guy. And then like, two years later, I charge 2000 pounds for one day for the wedding. Right. And it was in the nicest way possible, it was a bit of a screw you. And because I learned how to market, I learned how to create an offer different to what everyone else was in the space. So everyone else was going I’ll sing at your wedding. That was it. So what I did, I looked, I want to take it a stage further. And when Okay, well, what are all the things that I do give him say, we’ll give you the mic for the speeches, we’ll provide you all the lighting, we’ll give you all the we’ll give you the PA system for free. So you won’t have to pay for hiring any of that. We will sing your first dance song, I’ll give you a free album, right? I’ll help you with the wedding planning, I’ll give you access to our free group of brides. We’d like 3000 other brides in there, right? And so I stacked all the value and it was like, I’m not just singing that your wedding, I will sing at the wedding breakfast, I was singing at the reception. I was singing at the ceremony and I laid it on top I was like so you can have this package this package or this package. And what I found is I could work less than most of the wedding singers, because they were charging like two 300 pounds. And I could charge 1000 pounds 2000 pounds because I stack the value. And I learned how to market myself better. And I presented myself with a level of professionalism, right where everyone else is kind of like, Yeah, cool. Yeah, we’ll be there on the time I was at right. Here’s the agreement. Right? Here’s, here’s the itinerary. This is what we’re going to be going through. I had an automated CRM system and everything I built all that stuff different to the rest of the market. So they just got that level of professionalism.

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:03

Where was it on your journey that you think you’ve started paying attention to that kind of stuff?

Paul Ace  12:10

It was really about six months into starting a wedding singing? Sorry, starting to the the singing full time, because I needed to pay the bills, right? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:17

So it was out of necessity? 

Paul Ace  12:20

Well, the thing is, when you start out really being a singer, you weren’t doing much in the week, because it’s like every weekend, you’re out. But in the week, you’re like, Well, what I’m going to do myself does that well, I will learn how to market the business. But I started creating all this stuff. And before I knew I had a full time job marketing the business. And then I read all these books. And I remember I was sitting in the pub the other day with another guy who owns a business and stuff. And he was like, how did you get into reading books and stuff. And we were talking through and I realized on my audible, I’ve got 107 titles on there that I’ve gone through over the last three or four years. Because every time I used to get I used to play badminton a lot, and it was a 25 minute drive. So I’d put it on double speed. And I’d listen to the audible on the way down and the other one on the way back. So I get through two hours of audio every time. And I do that twice a week. So I’m getting through half a book a week, every week. So in a month, you know, you’re getting through at least two books at that over the course a year. That’s 24 weeks. Do that for a couple of years. Before you know it. Like you’ve soaked up like 4050 books on marketing, sales and everything else in between because I’ve never been a big reader. But I’ll listen and I’ll listen. I’ll listen. I’ll take that stuff in. So that was really interesting. You know how it all came together? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:32

Yeah, well, it’s you know, it’s so fun to hear what sparks somebody’s paying attention to a new thing, trying a new thing kind of getting bit by the business bug, right? And especially when you take something non traditional, like when it comes to business, like wedding singing or something that for most of us sounds outrageously difficult.

Paul Ace  13:55

Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t the best thing or either like that, like I wouldn’t ever claim to. I had a big voice. And I always it was always funny, like if you go on holiday in the beer karaoke, and then like, bash out, like my way or Nessun Dorma or something. Like, what the hell what? That’s what’s that skinny guy doing over there?

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:14

I love it. And I personally love the courage that it takes to step into something like that. I think there’s big lessons in for so many of us. And I don’t know if that felt outside of your comfort zone at the time. I think for so many of us that’s like public speaking or some other thing that feels really uncomfortable, right?

Paul Ace  14:33

And you know, my wife said to me, I need to write the book called Marketing on the Dance Floor. And she said, that’s what this should be the title of it, because there were so many lessons that came from that, that came across the other stuff. And one of the big things was I didn’t get nervous when I was on stage. And here’s the reason why because it wasn’t me. It was the 10 next version of me it was the Amplified Version of everything that was there and that’s why I like that Amplify C-Com as well like because the constants for conversational commerce. And we use the word amplify because it like had heritage of the whole, like, you know, turn the dial up to 11 kind of thing. But what was really interesting is when I started getting into marketing and stuff, it was like, I started doing more Facebook Lives and things like that. And I always put on this persona. And it wasn’t not me. But it was an amplified version of me like that extra kind of energy and extra thing. Like, if you meet me, like, just generally for a chat, like, we’re gonna have a chill chat and stuff like that. But like, if I’m on a podcast or something, I’m gonna get more excited about everything and be more, you know, the hands go everywhere, and all that kind of stuff, you know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:36

Was that do you think that was an intentional strategy? Or was that what happened and became the pattern as a result of that boost of adrenaline that happens when you’re in front of an audience? Right? 

Paul Ace  15:49

Yeah, it was combination of the two sort of part partially intact. Like over time, it became more and more intentional, like to start off with just nerves and adrenaline. But over time, it became this almost like, I had these red shoes as well, while red and white Winkle pickers, she was like old 1950s style. Once I put those shoes on, it was like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Like, it was like dad stepped into that persona. And as soon as I went on stage, I was in that persona students camp with like a different person, just like it’s weird thing being on stage. It’s kind of like, I’ve never taken drugs, by the way, but I imagine, it’s like cocaine, right? Especially I’m not gonna say that with a with a legal website, or, but I imagine it’s like cocaine, right? Because you get this massive high. And then it all builds up throughout the night to that last song where everyone is, like, ready for it. And then you get to the straight bit afterwards, where everyone’s like, that was amazing. That was amazing. And then it’s suddenly like, you were nobody again. And I think over time, I felt that was really hard to hit deal with those highs and lows, because then you’re driving home at 2am. Oh, that adrenaline just dropped out of your butt falling asleep at the wheel. And it doesn’t, it’s not as sexy in reality as it as it looks on the outside. So there was really positives and negatives. But what I learned is I learned about like things like embedded commands, I learned about how to create a movement and move people to action. So like, when you see someone in an audience that just don’t want to do anything, right? They just kind of like okay, that was very nice. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Right, it’s not quite the same as like, towards the end of the night I was alright is you don’t just go Is everyone having a good time, it was all about tonality. And I learned a minute to learn about tonality, you learn about how that copies across the copyright and how it goes to the content that you put out. And everything else that like, only 7% of communication is a word that you use, which to me is madness. What like I could go, only 7% of communication is a word that you use, but in a step by going only 7% of communication is the words that you use by eight has a completely different feel to it. And I learned that like from the singing is like Is everyone having a good time? And people like yeah, like I said, Is everyone having a good time? Is everyone having a good time? And then it’s like, you’ve got everyone on board, right? But you have to bring people in lay, as I say it’s in tonality. It’s like the roller coaster effect, use it marketing, is it in sales, and you kind of ratchet people or ratchet people right up, pull up and negotiate. And then bring that down. And then you go again. So yeah, short story. What went from selling bridesmaids dresses, because that was again, another natural next step. Right, right. And then I realized when the bridesmaid dresses, the thing that I really liked at all, it was the marketing and that was the stuff that I was good at. So got some good introductions with people and stuff. And then we went, we went went from there really, I started building people a bot on Facebook Live for free for about three, four months. And yeah, with I had John Lee Dumas on there from entrepreneurs on fire. And he was like, This is really good. We doubled his webinar show rate, like and we just did it for free. And then I told him the results. And he was like, This is really good, who can introduce you to and that opened the door. And then we got results and we got results and we got results. And then we became the marketing partner now with the businesses that we do.

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:19

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Heather Pearce Campbell  21:02

 Talking about that bot it’s like I think in business, the question always becomes I mean, technology can support right our growth and things along the way. But it really is about communication. How are we communicating with our audience, our intended audience, even your stories about the wedding singing? Like everything you describe is about how we communicate whether it’s visually yes, that how we communicate and create that connection. I mean, I’ve never been a wedding singer except once in my life. My sister asked me to sing. Actually, she asked me to sing at her wedding. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, first of all, I’m not a singer. I mean, once I first issue, that’s the first issue which feels a little bit like a problem if you’ve been asked to sing at somebody’s wedding. And while I like singing, I’ve never considered myself a singer, right? And anyway, so I was like, okay, only because it’s my sister will I do this, I ended up writing her a song, I grew up studying piano and playing piano. So I wrote her a song, I had written the lyrics. And that became the song that I sang because it was actually a song for her and her hubby. And it gets a little bit more complex when she then announced like, not only are you singing at the wedding, the winnings on a boat, and you know, you’ll be at the front. And so like, I had to rent the portable piano digital piano needed to have a way to keyboard because that’s the only way that I can really play. Yeah, it was like quite an ordeal to bring all this equipment and a PA and a sound system and set all of this up. And then I’m on a boat, and it’s it’s rocking, and I get very motion sick, right? Like boats and me do not get along. And then it’s in the setting sun. So I’m trying to read my music. And I mean, I should have had it memorized, which I’m sure I partly did. But really, you know, it’s like the safety of having that music there. If you’re not a singer, and you don’t want things to go wrong, it’s your sister’s wedding. And I just remember, it took everything I had to get through that one performance, singing and playing the piano and not losing it on this rocking boat while looking into the settings. One and done. I have never sang at a wedding again. I am sure I’m certain that I will not.

Paul Ace  23:30

Do you know what’s really interesting as well that, like you said, I don’t consider myself a singer? And I think like, you’ve talked about the lessons of business is identity is so important with the whole thing, right? It’s like, I’m not a sales person, or I’m not a marketer, or I haven’t got a seven figure business or whatever the thing is, it’s not the like, I hate the fake it till you make it. That doesn’t mean you know, sit on a pile of sand from a sample outside and then take a selfie just at the right angle. So it looks like you’re on a beach with a laptop. It means like, act as if you were already that person, right? And what the biggest thing that that I’ve learned certainly over the last couple of years is it’s about certainty and belief. We then have like that confidence and transfer of certainty from one person to another whether it be for sales, whether it be for just general communication with with a client of like getting your point across, but not not in a kind of like you should do this. It’s like, here’s the upsides. Here’s the downsides. Like what do you want to do like is always your decision. But here’s the upsides and downsides considered just from my unique perspective of going through this a few times and when you can come from that place of certainty where like I’ve been there, I’ve done it and the best way to get certainty is just go and do the thing. And most people you know, I don’t know if you see it a lot. I see a lot of people right Now, they’re trying to teach something that they haven’t done. And to me, that’s one of the most frustrating things. It’s like, don’t give bad advice to someone who gives bad advice to someone who gives bad advice to someone, like just go and do the thing, get the runs on the board, and then share your own experiences what you did, that’s makes a big, big difference.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:18

I mean, you raise a couple of really important points right there, this conversation around identity is huge. It’s like the only conversation we should be having when it comes to growing our business. Right?

Paul Ace  25:30

Yeah. And it’s like, Who do you want it to? Who do you want to become? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:33

Yeah, and who do you need to become from an identity standpoint, in order to create the business that you really, truly desire to create?

Paul Ace  25:42

The fascinating thing is as well, like last, I think it was last year, we decided, okay, we’re gonna do a 10 year plan, a 3-year plan, a 12-month plan, and then work backwards from that, right? So because we’re like, well, that’s what a big business would do. So we acted as if, and then we’ve got a growing team. Anyway, we’re like about 10 people on the team or something at the moment. And it’s very, we aim to be as lean as possible. Like, I used to see it as a badge of honor, the more people you have on your team. And now I see it as a badge of honor out how leading a team can be and still run effectively. Yeah, but as we were going through those plans, and you start working backwards over the next 12 months, like, for example, we had a charity donation contribution in terms of how many kids we want you to help in 10 years time, we’ve done it already. And we were like, wow, you know, this isn’t a ploy of like, look, I’m people will help. But it’s about you set the intention of the things in 10 years time. And it’s amazing, because you’ve set the intention. And because you’ve got the certainty and clarity of the behavior that you create, and then causing that to occur, then it naturally then comes sooner and easier. Because you’ve called it out into the world, like the last vision board I created. It took three years to complete everything on the board. And we went from a two up to down to a five bedroom house. Because I put it on the lens. Here’s my shopping list of what I want to achieve, right? And it doesn’t happen without action. What like vision, plus action equals outcome and a lifestyle.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:17

That’s right, well, and the vision and the action, I think are critical. And so often the missing piece, though, is that identity conversation, right? People can want what they want all day long it can be in their vision, if they’re not having the identity conversation of who am I first? Yeah, before what’s going to show up, it won’t show up, right. 

Paul Ace  27:39

Yeah, the interesting thing is, we go through phases. And as a phases, it’s more evolutions, where like I wrote a real long Facebook post on this a while back where it’s like, when you’re a kid, you’re in discovery phase, right? So the whole time when your kid until you get to about 19-20. And then you start realize the real world is scarier. And then you go into survival phase and survival phases, just you just building and building and building and building and building. And you’re like, okay, I got a little bit more same as this year, I got a little bit of a better car or buy a house or, you know, I like I found a partner who is going to support me through everything in the journey, all that stuff. And some people stick it out face forever. And that’s typically because of the actions that they take, and that some people might listen to that and go so wrong. You don’t know my circumstances. But it’s typically if you took different actions, you get a different outcome. And then you get to the third phase, which is something I’ve gone through in the last, like, you know, one to two years, is you go from running away from stuff to run in towards things, right. So you go from, oh, I want this, I want that, I want that, and running away from all the pain, and then you kind of go in towards a different level of pleasure, right? Different things that you want in your life. And it’s not about physical, tangible things, but it’s about what do I want to achieve? And that transition, I think was even harder than from like childhood to adulthood. Of going, but I’ve always run away from pain. It’s just like, oh, backs to the wall, right? The wall. Like I always say, like that wall general cap. Like, if you’re like, Oh, you got to make money this month. I’ll make money this month. But like the pressures off, okay, cool. Bye. We’ll keep moving things forward, but not to the same level. And it wasn’t until like, I became that new identity within myself. And that took like three months to shift over a lot of work of like, what do I want? And I couldn’t even figure out what I wanted. So I had to say, Well, what do I not want? And then from there, it kind of it rolls through. So if you’re listening to this and you’re going through that in your life right now, you might be in the survival stage in your 20s or might even realize there is only four is but then when you get to the next stage, just know you are going to hit that identity crisis where you suddenly feel like that’s when we self sabotage right and revert back because that’s all we know. So always have the right support network around you. I think for those things as well. I had a mentor that’s helped guide me through that a lot. Um, And he called it your iki. Guy, which is like your central. Yeah, what is Japanese? The middle? So yeah, yes, it’s worth worth reading or pop.

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:09

Totally, well, and you might have multiple periods in your life where you go through that identity conversation right under the sun, every every growth phase, including those that are precipitated by pain if you’re if you’re really there to learn the lessons, you are having that identity conversation in, in different cycles and in different ways, but repeatedly through life. And it’s just a really important one to return to, because who I am now, in my mid 40s, is, you know, there are some core tenets of me that are the same, but it’s pretty different than who I was, you know, at parts in my 30s. And parts of my 20s. Right. And that’s I think the way it should be. 

Paul Ace  30:51

Yeah, that’s the game. Yeah, that’s what makes makes it fun. I always say like, life is like a video game. And like, you, you play at one level, and you’re like, Ah, I’m getting good at this. This is easy. This is easy. And then a new level comes up and you go, Wait a minute, I haven’t got the bar an hour only for that, like, how do I go? I wish I wish I’d got more coins from the last level. So I could have spent them on this level. Right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:14

Right. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, is so funny and so true. Um, so you know, I love this. I think like we were talking before we went live like this personal growth, conversation, even this identity conversation, it’s indistinguishable from the business building journey, you know, there are phrases around like, you want to really do self growth, become an entrepreneur, you know, like from the standpoint of facing your demons and figuring out what’s keeping you stuck and stopped and you know, not achieving the things that you want to you and your business life. I’d be curious now, based on where you’re at, right, you’ve got this system, you have this way of helping your clients achieve things that probably to them felt unachievable before working with you. Do you want to share with us a little bit more about how you got there, what your work looks like, who you’re working with, right? What is, obviously you don’t have to give us all the secret sauce, but give us some glimpses kind of into your world and the work that you’re doing right now? 

Paul Ace  32:16

Yeah, so we went with high ticket coaches so who are already doing seven figures a year. And typically they come to us when they’re not necessarily fully stocked, but they’re not growing as fast as they want to be? Right. So I spoke to someone the other day, and it was like, well, we’ve grown 10%, since last year. And I was like, is that where you want to be? I was like, Why think so small? And then they were like, well, I just didn’t know how that was possible. Right? So we end, what we what we find a lot of the time is, when you’re at that, you’ve got levels of it, right? So when you’re at like, zero to six figures, it’s just just hustling out, just, you know, go do more volume, reach out to more people do what you need to do. And you’re gonna make six figures, seven figures, again, you just do more what you just did. And you’ll you’ll eventually get there. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:08

Or build out some team to help you do more of what you just did. 

Paul Ace  33:12

I build up some team a little bit. Yeah. But you don’t have a lot for team because like as much as like, a million dollars in sales isn’t that much in net? Eight, if unless your margins are tight, and you’re running a tight ship, so you don’t have the cash to bring on the best talent. So you’re still managing the talent. So what you’ve done is it’s quite often…

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:33

You just removed your pride is your obligation. 

Paul Ace  33:36

Yeah, you’ve moved it along a little bit. Yeah. So well, then what happens when you get to mid seven figures when like, typically, people are doing like 250,000. And that’s why they got they come to us a lot when they’re doing like, like 200 300,000 a month. And they’ve got some team, they’ve got some systems and some structure, then they’re like, alright, ROA our return on investment, you know, on ads is is pretty good. But every time we try and scale it just breaks, does that okay, well, why? So what we look at is, imagine like a plumber coming in, right? So plumber comes in and you go are a kitchen sink keeps leaking. And what you do like you go through all the you bends right and everything is good. Let’s see where the leak is. And then what we do we identify firstly, map out the whole customer journey from end to end, like and most businesses that we go into at that level and even ones that have eight figure level that we’ve seen. There’s no customer journey map tight. There’s no kind of like what what is every single email, every SMS, every funnel step, every single piece and touch point that someone sees along the way. So firstly, we understand what is the current customer journey? And then once we’ve understood that, then we go okay, where’s the biggest bottleneck? And then we’re going to fix up first. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:51

What do you think is stopping most of your clients even at that level of $200-$250,000 a month from really having done the work to dig into that customer journey, what stops most of those businesses?

Paul Ace  35:05

Some of it is time, expertise, a lot of people who’ve got to 250k a month of communist business owners and had to bolt on them being a marketer, because they were the only people who can make it rain up to that level, right? Which doesn’t mean they live, breathe love marketing, it means that the maybe they love the product, they love fulfilling on the product, and they love getting their message out to the world.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:31

How to do it. Yeah, they figured out how to do it at a certain level.

Paul Ace  35:35

They’re not data driven. The majority of people like if I say to someone, okay, so what’s your lifetime customer value? And they go? I don’t know. And I go, okay, so how do you know how much to acquire a customer? So because if you don’t know how much a customer is worth, how do you know how much you can spend to acquire one? And they’re like, oh, that’s probably why I haven’t scaled, right. And the reason, a lot of people don’t scale as well. And this is like, take this as a nugget. And depending on what level you’re at, you’ll be able to implement this in different levels. But the reason most people don’t scale beyond that point, is because they don’t know the numbers well enough, where they’re looking at the numbers on day zero, not on day 30 Or day 60. So what I mean by that is, they go if I put $1 in today, how much do I get out? And if they put $1 in and they get $1.20 back? I can’t afford that. I’ve still got a team to pay. But  if you look at your numbers on a Lifetime Customer Value perspective, and go, Okay, I put $1 in today, and yeah, it’s worth $1.20. Today, bought in 30 days, it’s worth $2. And in 60 days, it’s worth $4. And then in 12 months, it’s worth $20. Now, if you knew that, and you had the cash flow to support it, how fast would you scale? Right? You go a lot, lot faster. So what we look at is, how do we firstly increase the lifetime customer value? And that’s not about like, just sell them anything? It’s like no, what what are they already asking for that? We’re not yet providing. What’s the levels of this right? So we quite often we’ll go in, we’ll reposition the offer and all the all the pieces around that we’ll look at, like even on the targeting stuff and everything on the ads, like, okay, great. So when you sell the one time upsell, like, do you bring people back to it? And the ads? They bring people back to it and your emails? No? Okay, good. Well, that’s just fun money them, right. So we look, look at all the hidden places that are losing money. And then we look at how to maximize the lifetime value of every single customer. So they’ve got more lifelong customers, and each one of them are worth more. Because like, as Dan Kennedy says, Whoever spends the most acquire customer wins.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:41

Well, and it’s such a good example, like you just walking through that process, the way that so many of us are leaking money from the edges of our business, right?

Paul Ace  37:53

And so it’s beyond leaking. It’s bleeding, literally, like if it was a human body, they’d literally be putting you on a stretcher right now and like stick sticking your straight straight in. It’s like, Oh, my God, we’ve got to perform surgery on this. But because you can’t see it. Right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:11

We’re not making different decisions about the problem is yeah, I was having a conversation with somebody on the podcast earlier this week that was talking about how most businesses are focusing on that very initial conversion, right, we’re sold this idea that, like, if you don’t convert somebody within the first 30 or 60 days, you know, go keep looking for additional customers, which is what a lot of small businesses do. Rather than continuing to nurture the ones you already have a long, I mean, there’s 85% of your potential client base in the nurturing not in that initial conversion, right 100%.

Paul Ace  38:52

And we do a lot of that as well, with the whole email wise, I’ve got about, we typically will go, let’s create a live version of the campaign. So we’ll do a launch, but then we’ll turn it into an evergreen campaign afterwards. So then I’ve got like seven different campaigns chained together in. So I always wanted to go into the next and the next to the next to the next.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:15

Like continuing that conversation. And I think so many small businesses drop off, they don’t examine that client journey of what happens next for the folks that don’t take a step. But so many clients and potential clients, it takes some time, it takes some nurturing for them to go from being, you know, problem aware, to solution aware. And so many people even when they think they have a problem, they don’t accurately identify what the problem is. And I’m sure you see that all the time, from the perspective of your clients, right? 

Paul Ace  39:47

The phrase I use is the chain of causality. So it’s like for example, if you looked at a tree, and then you saw the branches are starting to go funny, right? Some people will look at that. And they say, the apples are going funny. Why? Because the branches are falling off. It’s not because the branches are falling off, you realize there’s an, there’s an oil rig going through the river just behind the tree, right? That’s like killing the root. So you have to follow the chain of causality backwards. Imagine it like a garden path. So you start at the end of the path, you have to reverse engineer all the steps that were taken in a more gruesome way. It’s like a murder, right? They go, Okay, well, where did it end all? And then let’s get let’s go back, follow up, follow the clues that went backwards, and then you come to the end solution. But most people stop halfway and find the problem. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  40:38

Well, that tree example is a great one, we actually had a tree in our backyard, and I am a nature lover, and I’m married to an extreme tree lover. I mean, we named our kids after trees, both of them. So we had this tree, and it was beautiful. And it had grown. It was a nutrient we planted, it had grown for a few years. So it was probably like, you know, 14 feet tall or something. Still a baby, but it had done some growth, and it started failing. And you know, and so, of course, my husband was doing all this research, and we thought, okay, maybe it’s kind of been a drought year, it’s not enough water. Maybe this particular tree is prone to, you know, a type of bug blight or a mold or something we don’t know about right? He did all this learning, looking, looking, looking, couldn’t find the answer. And it continued to decline. And like one day, it literally just dropped all of its needles, just boom. And it was actually a different tree. We had a really large tree that we had to clean up and we had an arborist come. He looked at that bacteria. And he said, Do you know what the problem was? This tree was rooted a little too deep in the ground. He said trees have breathing mechanisms at the base of the tree above the roots, and they need a little air. And if there’s not enough air, the roots literally can’t breathe.

Paul Ace  41:57

Can you find that out? Because you brought in an axe? We did not. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  42:01

We found that out because we talked to an expert. And here’s my husband, who loves trees, like literally reads everything he can about trees, when he has a spare moment, you know, he could identify like any tree that you look at. It was the expert that told us you know, and it’s just such a classic example of how we need to stop doing all the looking ourselves and bring in experts that can help us see something in a totally different way.

Paul Ace  42:27

100% back to the video game analogy, right is kind of like you just go through and I see it as a game every day where I’m just like, okay, that number, that number is not quite where we want it to be great. What can we do to fix it? Oh, look, we did that. And it changed it. Like, to me, I just love watching percentages go up in it just like that. It’s just the magic of your cellphone.

Heather Pearce Campbell  42:47

And it takes for those of us who don’t necessarily know how to or don’t love to look at that type of data in our business, it takes bringing somebody on board that can help us do that right to be looking at the right things. So I want to be respectful of your time. I know we’re bumping up against the top of the hour. Paul, for those who are listening and are like, my curiosity is piqued about you know, even just hearing you walk through that scenario with clients like what else somebody could learn through you through your services. Where do you like to connect with people?

Paul Ace  43:20

Yeah, so best place to go is to amplifyccom.com. So that’s amplify the letter c.com. And on there, you’ll see a little menu bar at the top that says resources and in the resources we’ve also got like beyond seven figures audit, we’ve got seven figures to do we high ticket sales. So there’s a lot of free things in there that can just really help you grow in scale and I I find I’m not holding anything back. So go ahead, try it out and and see how you can grow in scale.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:53

I love that. And you know, folks, there were a whole host of topics by the way that we did not even get to today around. Right the path to profitability and business conversational copy. Optimizing funnels, right? Properly split testing things like these are all things that are in Paul’s world. He has expertise around and I highly recommend you go check out his website, go check out numerous resources that he provides there. Paul, are there any any particular gift or resource that you would like to point people toward?

Paul Ace  44:31

Yeah, so I think a good place for you to start is if you if you go on that amplifyccom.com or lp.amplifyccom.com/resources and then on there,  the think the amplify beyond seven figures audit is is a great place to start and it will it will ask you a bunch of yes or no questions, and then you’ll get a score and then it’ll tell you what you need to go ahead and fix. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:53

Hmm, perfect. We all love assessments. So if you did not catch that link, of course hop over to the show notes. We are gonna share all of Paul’s links including to his socials, his website, this particular resource at the show notes page, which you can find at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, go to Paul’s episode and you can find everything that we’ve mentioned in this episode and more. Paul, I so appreciate you I look forward to being in touch and really learning you know, over time more about how you support your clients. What final thoughts would you leave our listeners with today and it can be a takeaway, it can just be something to mull over can be an action step, what would you like to leave people with?

Paul Ace  45:37

If you want want to get the things that you want to get, take the actions that you need to take in order to go and get the thing and look systematically at what the biggest needle moving thing that you could do today to make that happen? Because otherwise you spend all your life being busy and not moving any way you just go around in circles.

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:58

I love that really staying focused on what’s going to move the needle and I think it’s so easy for people to be overly busy in their business. Paul, I appreciate you. I look forward to sharing this episode. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Paul Ace  46:12

Thanks very much for having me.

GGGB Outro  46:14

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.