Vom Piloten zum 2-Millionen-Dollar-Nebenprojekt

0:00Unternehmer/Gast Steve, rock and roll. You're on Hermosi hotline. What's cooking? >> All right, thanks. Nice to meet you. I was actually at your workshop in February. >> Badass. >> 2024. >> All right, was it good? >> Uh it was fantastic. Since then, we've almost made 900,000 in total revenue. So, it worked out great. >> And this is not a claim. Everybody, his results are unique and yours will vary.

0:24Uh but uh not bad for a $5,000 ticket or a $6,000 ticket, whatever it was then. >> No, it was fantastic. Uh I'll walk you through these numbers real quick. >> Yeah, let's do it. >> All right. Uh for this year, 2025, our total revenue is right at 423,000. >> Okay. >> Profit is 275,000. Uh industry, mortgage broker.

0:49>> Okay. >> What we sell >> Okay. >> is uh hyper niched into I'm an airline pilot and military pilot. So, we help airline pilots and military pilots >> Cool. >> buy homes with their VA loan. >> Okay. >> And the problem we're trying to solve is I think we have so many different kind of marketing strategies right now. >> You got to pick one. >> Help me kind of pick >> Yes. >> to put some more on. That's why we started and then we stopped and we start and we stop.

1:20>> Word. Okay, well, what are the different ways you're getting customers right now and what's LTV CAC on each channel? >> Okay. So, this is fantastic. So, it's organic. >> Uh-huh. >> That's where we get uh LTV is 11,107. >> Right. >> Our CAC is 3200. And we have 18 We had um 46 deals we closed this year, so 18 came from there. From real >> Okay. >> real networks. Our

1:47>> Okay. >> is 7800. >> Okay. >> I just real >> Yeah. >> Um CAC is all the same. Right at 32 across the board on the CAC and then >> Oh, really? Okay. Really by channel? Is that or you just took all your marketing spend and divided it? >> I just did it as a a gross like a fully loaded CAC across the board. I didn't break it out. >> Okay. >> per group there. >> It It is Okay. Well, I'll actually be able to figure that out in a second. How many people did you get from the realtor thing?

2:15>> Uh we only got 14. >> Okay. So, 18 then 14. Okay, got it. And then what was the third third channel? >> Just past clients. 14 come from >> or you know, more loans. Yeah. >> Oh, okay, got it. Just repeat business. Okay. Um and then how many did you have there? >> 14 on repeat business. >> Oh, interesting. Okay. And then what was LTV on them?

2:38>> LTV on them was uh 7756. >> Okay. Okay. And so organic for you right now is content? >> Yeah, it's pushing out content. We're sending messages out about 25 a day. >> To what? How'd that do? >> It wasn't converting. They're just reaching out to us when they're ready. Like they're super warm. They ask us for an application and >> Yeah.

3:04>> no friction. Almost It's almost one for one. It's kind of crazy. Cuz they're like >> That's great. >> Like we solve the problem of underwriting for airline pilots. It's super complicated and we know exactly how to solve it. >> That's I love that you're niched on this by the way. I think it's really good. It's really So, I like the model. There's also a ton of pilots. So, like love all like like all of it. All right? Um Okay. So, you've been making content. Um So, let's put a pin in that for a second. So, the affiliates So, the realtor networks that you have access to, how do you recruit the realtors?

3:37>> Well, the only thing last year we we recruited very heavily, but we realized the LTV was so like it was lower almost 30% lower. We kind of quit messing with them. So, we mess with realtors anymore. We're looking to get back into realtors. Kind of seeing I really need the affiliate to keep the money model going. So we really haven't done much with realtors this year. Just these are some leftover ones from last year. >> So let me ask you a question. How much How much did you do outbound? Is that what you did for the realtors?

4:05>> Yeah, it's just calling them up. Look them up in the local area. Just calling them up and >> Great. >> with them and then they refer business to us. >> Got it. So how much would you say of your time last year was allocated towards doing that? >> Almost 80% of our time was doing that last year. >> No way. Really? >> And what we kind of realized was like this year we've had 42 qualified leads come from them, but only 14 of them we closed and only one of them was our ideal client of an airline pilot.

4:38>> Uh they just sent you kind of just generic They just sent you just like people. >> They Yeah, they're sending generic people and and we cr- we're running the system or credit >> Yeah, hurt. Okay. So given the fact that you're in a niche, going after generic realtors is going to be tough cuz the likelihood that they sell a pilot is going to be super low statistically, right? So I think that your best bet is probably going to be an organic plus ads rather than organic plus affiliates unless there was un- like Actually, you know, said differently, this actually makes way more sense. So instead of going after realtors, I think your outbound strategy is the right idea, but I'd be going after group owners or community owners who have pilot related businesses or like pilot related merchandise cuz actually it's so funny cuz I um I want to say 2 years ago I had a call like this with a guy who did pilot merch. So all it was was just like merch for pilots.

5:32Alex Um and he had a community owner of pilots and he ran It was an e-commerce business. And so he was running ads. So I don't think it's one I don't think it's very hard to find these pilots. Um I would also recommend starting a school community for all the customers cuz they're all at the same. And I actually think that'd just be cool. It's just like a cool benefit that you have that other people don't can't normally do in your space. And I think you'll be able to generate a shitload of referrals from that.

5:59Alex >> That's what we were kind of thinking. We do have a finance course that we built out that we just haven't really used cuz I kind of get stuck in this "Hey, I need to go back to doing more." But like we've built out >> Yeah. >> just for pilots, just for the veteran exactly fix your problem. >> Here's what I'd do. Here's what I'd do. So, you're going to take your course, right? And you're going to make that as a lead magnet for your organic. And I would drive them into a group because to your point of like some of them aren't ready. That's fine. They can join a group in the meantime. That will spin up the wheel that will then get you leads and then it'll also get you referrals because you can tell them, "Hey, send your friends to this group. They're They're all welcome as long as they're pilots.

6:41Alex Pilots only." >> Okay. >> So, they get this lead magnet when they join the group for free. Thing one. The second thing is I would start experimenting with Facebook ads. And I would use the lead magnet yet again. And then what I would do is I would include cuz I would send them to the group and give them a onboarding call for free. So, they get the lead magnet plus an onboarding call. And then you can talk to them. You can gauge where they're at in the life cycle.

7:16And that that that group can basically act as your as your long-term nurture in the meantime. But I think the referrals from the community are going to be big and I think paid ads in today's day and age can get super targeted for this type of avatar. >> And that's what we identified on social media. >> Yeah. >> It's almost 75% are our exact client. >> Yeah. Dude, the algorithm's already done. Like the algorithm's finished. They know what's inside. AI gets it. AI knows who the pilots are and they just send that. It's It's interest media, not social media anymore. So, if you want to make If you want to get pilots, you have to make pilots stuff, which you've already figured out, right? So, it's like

7:52Alex >> Yeah. >> Number one, I think by and large, for sure, this strategy is a more strategy because what I want you to do is make way more pilot content, number one. I would also experiment with like pilot-related humor and memes cuz I think those will probably do really well and this will bring people in cuz that's fine. I Normally, I'm not like pro-meme, but I think for stuff like this, like inside jokes for pilots, I think it would be a great content type. Not like Not every day, but like, you know, a few of those a week I think would do well. Just top of funnel awareness. Um but what's cool about that is that like I want you to pump way more content so that when you take the winners of that content, take the content and then slap on a CTA at the end, run that as the ad.

8:31Alex And then the offer's going to be the lead magnet you already made. They can facilitate through the through the course or they get the the onboarding call for free. We can score where they're at in the life cycle and then you can follow up with them accordingly. >> Okay. >> That's what I would do. >> Well, cool. That was really the decision was go after realtors or just keep going after our >> No, dude, I don't think No, I don't think realtors is the play. I don't think realtors is the play cuz it's If you want to stay in this niche, I don't think that's the play. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you.

8:56>> Rock and roll, dude. Appreciate you. >> All right. Thank …