Transcript:

00:00:00 Casey: In this episode, we talk with Ben, one of my members inside the CMOx Accelerator. Ben has this awesome story of having that agency not really work out for him because what he was selling in the agency was just like not interesting to buyers anymore and how he shifted to the fractional CMO method. And now how he is fully strapped with clients, making a ton of money and having a great time doing it. He’s got a pretty wild story to tell you. So let’s get into it.

00:00:28 VO: Marketers of the world, why do we work hard to solve small problems? Why do we reinvent ourselves and our clients over and over? And why are we giving away marketing strategy for free? With advancements in AI, we’re all seeing the marketing department shrink from the bottom up. And companies need you to serve them as their fractional chief marketing officer. It’s time to solve bigger problems and bring home a bigger paycheck. It’s time to create the lifestyle we deserve and to make a greater impact. This is the Fractional CMO Show and I’m Casey Stanton. Join me as we explore this growing industry and learn to solve bigger problems as marketing leaders. The Fractional CMO Show is sponsored by CMOx, the number one company to teach you how to attract, convert and serve high paying fractional CMO clients on your terms.

00:01:24 Casey: Hey y’all, welcome back to episode number 99. I’ve got a member here who is based in Texas and man, he’s got.. If I can say it, a story from the shit house to the penthouse. And I am super excited for him. He’s just killing it. I see a lot of myself in Ben and I have a lot of respect for what he went through to get to where he is. We’ve had a lot of conversations over the last like year and a half as he’s built his fractional CMO practice. 

00:01:57 Casey: And he went from someone who is interested to someone who is committed and is the best in his industry. And if he’s not, he will eat the guy who’s the best and be the best probably by tomorrow. Ben also has a wild story that I hope you’ll share about something that happened to him recently that’s could have been super tragic, but very life-changing for him.

00:02:21 Ben: Absolutely.

00:02:22 Casey: Yeah. [inaudible] Yeah. Welcome. Welcome in, man.

00:02:25 Ben: Thanks, Casey. I really appreciate it. It has been a journey. I mean, it’s been 18 months. I joined… This is we’re recording this in late April. I don’t know when the 99th episode will come out, but it was, yeah, November of 2023 when I joined up and I got very, very lucky or I did something very smart or both in that about two weeks after joining. I went to a close friend of mine and I said, “Hey, can I give you a free half day consult?” Because I just want to go through it. I’ve never done one. I’ve got all this paperwork. I’ve got all that printed everything out. He said, “Sure, let’s do it.”

00:03:04 Ben: And it took me about three days to get through it with him because [crosstalk] he works and I work and all that. So, you know, it took some time. But then he said, “We got to the end of it.” And he said, “Okay, well, how much does it cost for you to come in and run all this?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” But that was the first client that I closed and it was over a year later before I closed the second one. So I got very, very lucky. And in that, I got that client just in the first couple of weeks.

00:03:36 Casey: But in between those two clients, I got to say, man, you tried every avenue to do something else besides be a fractional CMO at the same time. 

00:03:46 Ben: Well. So I was winding down an agency, which is important. I did spend a lot of time spinning my wheels on things that ultimately did not produce anything for me. 

00:03:58 Casey: But they were cool. 

00:04:00 Ben: Absolutely. Yeah, go to my website. So my website is velachy.com. You see my logo here. Up here. So go to velachy.com, watch the video. It’s an amazing video. Totally awesome. It’s not closed one single deal for me. You know, it’s just.. And I spent close to $10,000 making that video by the time I paid the videographer and editor and For all the everything. Yeah. Crazy good video. And I redid my website, spent a ton of time on that. That took like two months. But I had some.. I had some real trepidation in announcing to the world that I was now this new thing, even though I’ve been in marketing for a really long time, but to focus in on the trades. So I’d worked for massive companies, Yeti Coolers and IBM and Lenovo, big contracts for many years over the course of about a 20-year marketing career.

00:04:57 Casey: As a Drupal agency?

00:04:58 Ben: Drupal. Right. So, these are my books I’ve written about Drupal back here. So I wrote books about Drupal SEO and being the only Drupal SEO guy out there, I would get calls from the big companies and they needed help and I would come in and fulfill these contracts. It was great. But you know, being part of that community was special and it was a 15-year relationship and it was super hard for me to decide I’m gonna walk away from all of my friends in the Drupal space and do something entirely different that’s outside of Drupal. Like, I don’t work on Drupal now at all. 

00:05:41 Ben: That was incredibly, incredibly difficult thing for me to do. I met with Raph, we talked about it. I came to some conclusions that it was..  it’s what brought me here, but it was holding me back. And I had to-

00:05:57 Casey: It held you back because you didn’t want to lose the community.

00:06:01 Ben: It held me back because, yeah, I mean… So, there’s a natural.. I think a natural life cycle to most relationships. I’d been through that cycle. I’d given a lot to the community. I’d got a lot from the community, but the community had changed and so had I. And it just the timing was.. It was time to move on, but you hold on to that relationship, even though it’s not maybe the best thing for you. I’m not a psychologist, but you know, lots of people hold on to toxic relationships because they’re comfortable and you like them.

00:06:31 Ben:  You know, and it’s.. You get hurt, but you still.. You stick around. So I decided that it was time to let go of that connection and re-did my website, re-did my LinkedIn page.  Still, it took many, many months for me to get over the even bigger hurdle that I had, which again was due to some people in the community. So we talk a lot. I just wanna.. As an aside, you talk a lot about CMOx and the process in selling the idea of being a CMO and a fractional CMO. Those are all true. Those are all why we showed up to CMOx is to make that transition in our personal lives. 

00:07:19 Ben: But I think we stick around because you’ve built this community that really connects people who are like-minded and who are striving in the same way and want to be successful but also want to help each other be successful. And so don’t over… I mean, it’s hard to sell somebody on the community when they’re on the outside looking in, but the community really is what makes CMOx grow and successful in my view. 

00:07:48 Ben: Now, somebody in the community… A couple of people actually on a call said, “Hey, I was talking about some of my hang ups.” And they said, “You need to read this book called The Big Leap.” And it was life altering, absolutely life altering for me. And I realized I had, so he talks about upper limit problems. I’ve heard Raph call them ceilings before, but it’s like… The worst ones are the ones you don’t even know that you have. It’s just been there forever but needing to overcome that… And I read that book and then discussed it with people in the community.

00:08:25 Ben: And then I read the book again and just realized I’ve got these, I’ve got some hangups about money. I’ve got some hangups about success that like, I couldn’t tell you what the exact wording would be, but like, that’s not for me. That for whatever reason, I don’t deserve it maybe or I didn’t earn it maybe or I don’t know what, or it’s gonna.. You know, the old… You know, money is the root of all kinds of evil. That kind of thing from, that I learned in Sunday school. 

00:08:56 Ben: So it’s.. I didn’t know what it was, but it could be a combination of all those but I needed to get past the idea that making a lot of money was okay for me. And you helped, you said, “Well, what are you gonna do with that money?” And I was like, “Honestly, I don’t know. I never thought about it.”  And you said, “Well, aren’t there some people you wanna support or some causes you wanna give money to or things you wanna change in the world?” I was like, “Yeah. There’s a lot of things I’d like to change about this world.” It’s like, well, money is the way that you’re gonna do that. So, make some money and then you can make those things change.

00:09:28 Ben: And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s great. So that inspired me, but I still had to get past the idea that I was worth paying the amount of money that I charged my clients. And once I, you know, real look, I’ve worked for big companies. I’ve done amazing things for many, many years. I’m worth it. I generate 10x the value and I do it within 60 days. I’m generating massive, massive hungry dude.

00:09:57 Casey: Like when you start working on a project like you don’t slow down.

00:10:00 Ben: No, like it’s just like get it. I mean fast cash is what we call it in the community. So I have these set fast cash campaigns. I’ve niched down to home services. So I know coming into most home services businesses, I know the things that they’re just not doing or not doing very well. 

00:10:17 Ben: Almost none of them have any AI. You deploy a little AI, increase their conversion rate. That pays for me and it can be done in an afternoon. It’s nuts because they’re just, they just don’t know, right? I couldn’t tell you what a flange is, right? And so I call them to fix my toilet. They don’t know how to use AI in marketing. So they call me, right? So what’s the value to them? Massive amounts of new customers and money.  And I’m worth it. I’m worth the expense and I’m expensive, very expensive.

00:10:45 Ben: I had a new client say I was the most expensive person that he talked to. Plus, I asked for a kicker, a piece of the growth. 

00:10:55 Casey: He said, I just want this.

00:10:57 Ben: Yeah.

00:10:59 Casey: Ben was not the only fractional CMO that these people were talking to. He was the most expensive for his monthly rate. And on top of that, he wanted a percentage of growth.

00:11:08 Ben: Right.

00:11:09 Casey: Despite being the most expensive person in the room they went with him.

00:11:13 Ben: Yeah. And he told me why. He said, I want results. He said, you’re the most expensive, but I want results.

00:11:20 Casey: Reasonable.

00:11:21 Ben:  And I went, you know, and I was like inside going, but I was like, yeah, that’s of course exactly what you should have done. Thank you.  And we moved on,  you know, and we’ve launched this project just last week. So you want to hear an interesting story?

00:11:32 Casey: Yeah, I do.

00:11:33 Ben: You have any questions first  about the journey?

00:11:36 Casey: I think I want to hear it after your story, though. I’ve got I’ve got a real one for you, but go ahead, please.

00:11:42 Ben: Nice, I happen to close two clients in Charleston, South Carolina.  And one of the things I like to do with my home services customers is do a photo shoot, photo and video shoot. Usually lasts a day or two.

00:11:53 Casey: This is when you show up in the bikini? 

00:11:57 Ben: They show up in the bikini.

00:11:58 Casey: Oh, okay. Got it.

00:11:59 Ben: These are guys walking around on roofs and shingles off and fixing the air conditioner and things like that, so went out. We did this photo shoot. I brought this amazing photographer who actually, you know is an Olympics photographer found this guy. He’s totally great had we have some great photos, but I flew home and my wife picked me up from the airport she was off that day. So just the sweetest person picked me up from the airport and On the way home. I was in Iraq. Can I share my screen?

00:12:33 Casey: Yeah, I think that work on the on the podcast.

00:12:36 Ben: So this was my car. This over here is also my car. And so we got hit from behind twice, but once by this guy and then the guy behind him hit him and then hit us again. And this  is the back. So it kind of came in from the side.

00:12:57 Casey: This was like 10 days ago, right? 11 days ago?

00:12:59 Ben: 11, yeah, it was a Friday. So I guess, yeah, 10, 11 days ago. I ended up with a fractured spine. There’s nothing  awesome about having a fractured spine. Sorry, I’m looking for the turn off sharing button. Hold on. It’s incredibly painful. I’m still less than two weeks away from it. I’m happy to be alive. I am incredibly blessed by the people that are immediately around me, my family, my friends here in Austin. But the CMOx community was also really supportive.

00:13:33 Ben: Multiple people contacted me, direct messaged me, several offered, hey, do you need help with your clients? Is there anything I can do to help you through this? It was incredibly touching, incredibly moving. And again, I just come back to you join CMOx because you want to become a fractional CMO, but what you get is a group of people who are all pulling together to help you through whatever to make you successful.

00:14:01 So, I had this, we were talking about this client that I sold. Well, I had a meeting with them five days after the wreck, four days actually after the wreck. I almost didn’t go to the meeting, I almost rescheduled, I’m glad I didn’t. But I sent him an email the night before and I said, I’ve been at a car wreck, I was gonna fly out there and do your launch and all this stuff, I can’t do that anymore. I hope that doesn’t create any kind of problems, but let’s talk about it tomorrow.

00:14:28 Ben: He was fantastic. He said, sounds like you need some time to heal. No problem at all. Do you want to start right away or do you want, what do you want to do? He said, I’m ready to move forward. We had that conversation about the pricing and, and I said, I think I want to go. I mean, let’s go.

00:14:45 Casey: Your brain’s working. Your hands are working, right? You just can’t get on the airplane.

00:14:49 Ben: I, I, so I started hiring people. I hired a marketing coordinator. I hired a marketing tech. I started putting together like, I started to build my life around the fact that I can probably only work maybe three or four hours a day. And I had to be a CMO. Now, for those that are listening to this and don’t know my story, I closed one account two weeks after I started CMOx. I closed my second on January 1st of this year. Okay, so that’s two. I closed my third and my fourth on the same day in March.

00:15:26 Ben: Same day in March. A month later, I was in a car wreck and four days after that closed my fifth. I have five fully engaged clients and I’ve got to  take care of those clients in working approximately three to four hours a day. It completely changes the way that you think about what you’re capable of. It completely changes what you realize your true value is. I can’t dive in and just do the work anymore. I can’t just design the design the thing that needs to be done or install the software or write the thing. Like I just, can’t do it. I don’t have the energy. I get it. I’m going to go like take about a four hour nap after this. Because it’s it’s just holding myself up with a, with a fractured vertebra in my spine is it just takes everything out of me. So how am I going to treat these customers, deliver value that I’ve promised them and I’m going to do it. I work too hard to get these customers.

00:16:24 Ben: It’s taken me over a year to get to where I am today. And I’m making great money and they’re paying me great money and they’re counting on me. But I’m showing up for their meetings. I’m showing up for their weeklies. And then I’m talking to my team and saying, here’s what has to get done. Go get it done. And then I go lay down and then I come back and go, okay, show me what happened. Show me just like every day, all I’m doing basically is making sure that stuff gets done for my clients. I mean, is it perfect? The other day I was on a call with a client and pulled up the wrong Google ads account and started talking  them through the ads account from the company. 

00:17:04 Ben: It’s the drugs, it’s the drugs, trust me. They laughed about it and we moved on, right? I mean, we didn’t dwell on it, but it’s like, so is it perfect? Have I made some mistakes? Yeah, but my clients have been really great. One of them even came visit me in the hospital and all of them have stuck with me and said, we’re here for you. Let’s take the time you need. And I took that as that we’ve built some trust. It’s been real short, been a month for a lot of them, but we’ve built this trust that they believe me when I say, I’m gonna get it done for you. I’m gonna make that happen for you. That’s the interesting story is I’m in recovery right now. So.

00:17:38 Casey: Yeah. Yeah. Wild man. Wild to get that text message from you on a Friday.

00:17:42 Ben: Yeah, it’s crazy.

00:17:43 Casey: And I’m thrilled that you’re okay and your wife’s okay.

00:17:46 Ben: I will be. Yeah.

00:17:47 Casey: I think back to a conversation that we had a few months ago where you said that line to me, you know the line. You said, “Casey, how do I get more work done myself?”

00:17:57 Ben: Yeah. 

00:17:59 Casey: And I just like the difference of that Ben and the Ben you became and now the Ben who you’re forced to be. Right. There was a chance, dude, without this car crash that you would have just worked your butt off seven days a week.

00:18:12 Ben: I don’t think that that’s accurate. I think it’s 100 percent.

00:18:16 Casey: You would have done it.

00:18:16 Ben: I’ve done it. It’s not a chance. That was what would have happened.

00:18:19 Casey: So Ben was living in a world where he had to work full time all the time, seven days a week, because he had to deliver for his clients. And now a car crash turned him into someone who just can’t. Yet, one thing that I didn’t hear you say is like, because I want the money, because I need the money. You said because clients are counting on me. So you’re showing up to support them, not out of like just exclusive self-interest, right?

00:18:46 Ben: My passion is helping entrepreneurs be successful. I happen to be a CMO. I happen to be working in the trades. But my real passion is understanding entrepreneurs and helping them make the most out of their business and their journey. So yeah, I’m showing up because like it really, it lights me up and it lets me push through the pain that I’m in and the things that I’m going through. The car wreck, I mean, I wrote about this a little bit on LinkedIn. I absolutely could, I have a fractured spine.

00:19:16 Ben: I absolutely could have used this and said, hey, I’m let a few of these customers go. I’m gonna lay out for six weeks. Cause that’s what people were telling me I needed to do. I mean, I definitely could have used this as a way to let that ceiling push me back down to where my comfort zone is.

00:19:36 Casey: You’d go back, what was me? Like that’s totally possible.

00:19:39: Ben:  And maybe I’ll come back and we’ll turn it off and I’ll come back in a couple of months when I’m better. But I recognized it for what it was.

00:19:47 Casey: That’s an upper limit problem.

00:19:49 Ben: I can push through this. I can make this work. I can figure it out. And I’ve got people like you and people in the CMOx community, other people around me that are going to give me advice and help me through figuring out how to make this go. So it’s a journey. I’m only a couple of weeks into this part of it. 

00:20:05 Casey: If I can ask you a personal question, how does your faith play into this? I know that’s important to you.

00:20:11 Ben: Yeah, it is. So, my faith is everything. I’m a Christian, I’ve raised a Christian, been a Christian my whole life. I believe that everything that I do is done for the glory of God. And that work is service to God. And so when I work, I’m accomplishing stuff for my clients. I’m doing stuff, I’m doing the job, but it’s to God’s glory. So bringing my faith into everything that I do. I know it can make some people uncomfortable so I’m not like super forward about it, but I don’t hide it either. But it’s the reason that I try to do the best that I can possibly do. It’s because I think I’m doing it unto the Lord.

00:20:50 Casey: I know how important it is to you to serve these clients as a form of, I don’t know, like religious service.

00:20:56 Ben: Yeah, I pray for my clients. Like I literally go through and pray for the business, and pray for the leader, and pray for the things that we’re working on, the things I see them struggling with. And you know, I’ve done a lot of— I also have a degree in philosophy from a public university. So I think a lot about the way that we’re connected, and the way that our minds work and how— some people call it manifesting, which I think is kind of whatever— hokey or whatever.

00:21:25 Ben: But when you put your mind to a problem, be it in meditation or prayer or brainstorming or the work that you do, you are allowing yourself to solve that problem in ways that don’t normally come to you just by grinding. Right? You take a step back, you lay that problem down, and you really think about, like, what are the things I’m trying to accomplish? What are the… This problem is real, but is this the right problem to solve? And I feel like for many years, I’ve been grinding on the wrong problem.

00:22:04 Casey: Interesting. And what’s different now? What’s the right problem? The right problem is like a leadership strategy problem.

00:22:12 Ben: I think that what I was grinding on was how can I make the most money for my family so that we can pay our bills?

00:22:18 Casey: Got it. Yeah, yeah. How do we take care of me, me, me?

00:22:22 Ben: Right. Yes. I think that’s 100% it. Was I able to pay the bills when I was doing that? Yes. 100%. Absolutely. I was able to pay the bills. Was able to like do much more than that. No. Honestly, I wasn’t. And I think that the people around me and the world, and even myself knew that I was working for me, instead of working for my customer or working for God. And the mind shift, which really has just happened in the last couple of years, I’d like to give you credit, but I can’t, although some credit is due for helping me see things in a different light. My approach really changed. There’s another book. I’m a reader. I read lots of books. There’s another book called, shoot, Casey, what’s it called? The one about finding your who?

00:23:04 Casey: Who Not How?

00:23:05 Ben: Who Not How? Who Not How.

00:23:08 Casey: Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan.

00:23:10 Ben: Great book, great book. Read that book and I realized that I could be a who for you and I could be a who for a lot of people in CMOx. So, I don’t know if you remember this, of course you probably do, but I approached you and said, I really think that we need to have some coaching sessions on Fridays for new people and to kind of get them up into boardroom. We had a guy just today, George McTaggart, made it to boardroom today.

00:23:41 Casey: So excited.

00:23:42 Ben: I remember his very first meeting, this guy came in and he would just— he asked all these questions like, “Exactly what do you mean by that? And how exactly?” He was so analytical and it’s great to see his journey. And he closed a deal. I think he’s only been in CMOx for six weeks or eight weeks or something like that. It hasn’t been long. 

00:24:01 Casey: Less than three months, I think.

00:24:02 Ben: Yeah. But so, in any case, we start these coaching sessions on Fridays that I host most of the time. And then… but it’s just because I wanted to, I wanted other people to take this journey without making all of the side trails and rabbit trails and wasted time. Without completely rebuilding their website and spending 10 grand on a video, and doing all the stupid things that really— it’s not even the money, it’s just the time. The huge amount of time I wasted doing those things.

00:24:32 Casey: Let me get you into that. So like I get these emails all the time, Ben, from people. They’re like, “Hey, Casey, have you thought of this? Hey, Casey, can I introduce this idea to you? Hey, Casey, I’ve got this AI tool that does all of this stuff. Can I talk to you about?” It’s just like, no, no, no. Right? We’re always going to get people vying for our time and we are always are gonna get projects vying for our time. And we just have to be really focused on saying no to everything. Because I would assume, Ben, that if you would have said no to some of those opportunities, you probably would have gotten to where you are now a little bit faster. Do you agree?

00:25:04 Ben: I think so. Yeah, I think so.

00:25:07 Casey: And if you say— if you don’t have a hard no to these opportunities that come your way now, you’ll never be able to take anything on. You’re gonna get flooded, right?

00:25:15 Ben: If you sit behind your computer, and you’re not in a Zoom call with somebody,  you’re not moving the needle for yourself, right? Things don’t happen without conversations. You have to have conversations. And if you spend too many days in a row tinkering on your website because it’s gonna get you customers, it’s not, it’s just not. You need to be having conversations with people, both to inform them, but also to train yourself on how to communicate and how to be a better business person and a better CMO. Anyway…

00:25:47 Casey: Yeah, that’s huge, man. That’s huge. That’s huge. All right. So, do you have any parting words for anyone who’s coming from that consulting space that you came from? And they’re thinking, I don’t know, I’ve got this consulting thing, it’s working. I don’t know, maybe I can kind of reboot it. You know, they’re in that phase of like, it’s just not what it used to be. And they’re considering becoming a practice CMO.

00:26:08 Ben: So a couple things, one of them, one of my big hurdles, very early on in, it was I’m digital. I don’t know about all the branding stuff and there’s big swaths of marketing I’ve never done before. But what you learn pretty early on in CMOx is that it’s leadership and strategy. That’s what customers need you for. There are lots of people out there that can do branding. There are lots of people out there that can build websites. Lots of people can do all those amazing things, but without leadership and strategy, it’s just  an exercise.

00:26:44 Ben: So first of all, I would say, if you’re grinding on delivering for your customers  and your primary focus is not leadership and strategy, you’re grinding on the wrong problem. And so you need to either switch yourself or come join CMOx or whatever it is to make sure that you are grinding on the right problem. And the right problem is leadership and strategy. 

00:27:07 Casey: That’s awesome.

00:27:08 Ben: Those are my parting words.

00:27:10 Casey: The simplicity of that is so good. It’s just like strategy and leadership. That’s where we got to be. Implementation, I can find anyone on Upwork right now on this call and hire them in the next 30 minutes. You can start on anything I want.

00:27:21 Ben: There are 10 implementers for every one leader.

00:27:24 Casey: Yeah. And the companies need you to be the leader.

00:27:26 Ben: That’s right.

00:27:27 Casey: Yeah. I love it, man. Ben, thank you so much for being on.

00:27:29 Ben: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you. You’re doing some great work, man, you are. So thanks for letting me be part of the story.

00:27:37 Casey: Yeah. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow or the next day. I mean, I love having you on my calendar all the time.

00:27:43 Ben: I appreciate it. All right. See you.

00:27:45 Casey: See you.

00:27:47 Casey: Thank you for sticking around for the full episode. As you know, learners are earners, but you’ve got to take action on what you heard today. For more information and show notes, visit FractionalCMOShow.com. If you’d like me to answer your questions on an upcoming episode, you can share your question at FractionalCMOShow.com. And last, please hit the like and subscribe button so that I know that this content is helpful to you. Alright, go get ‘em!