Black Belt Turns Digital Marketer | Cris Rodriguez

Turning a passion into profit isn’t easy, especially if your passion involves Jiu jitsu mats over marketing dashboards. But there is one CEO who’s cracked the code for martial arts school owners, helping them grow their businesses in a uniquely challenging market.

After building her own martial arts school, Cris Rodriguez realized that digital marketing and organic social media could make or break a business. Now, with her agency GrowPro, she’s on a mission to help martial arts school owners grow without getting lost in the tech.

We cover:

• Turning a side hustle into her main hustle… that took over!
• How Cris had to face her fear of LIVE video
• How her authenticity as a "Tomboy" led to controversy, then virality

Cris’s story will make you think twice about what’s possible with a little grit and the ability to pivot when needed. Hit play now.

Follow Cris Rodriguez at:

https://www.growproagency.com/
https://www.instagram.com/crisleerodriguez/
https://www.facebook.com/CristinaLeeRodriguez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cris-rodriguez
https://www.youtube.com/@GrowProAgency

Follow Ken Okazaki at:

https://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/
https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazaki
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-capitalists-with-ken-okazaki/id1634328251
https://open.spotify.com/show/09IzKghscecbI7jPDVBJTw

Content Capitalists YouTube

Transcript

I think the worst thing an entrepreneur can do is to build a business that you grow to hate. I do think you can develop the skills that you would need just to get the job done, but man is it so much more enjoyable when you actually like what you're doing. The Content Capitalist Podcast.

KEN: Hey, welcome to another episode of the Content Capitalist podcast. I've got a guest with me today and I've been seeing her videos on my feed. And what's really cool is action, the dynamic martial arts demonstrations and the entrepreneurship kind of wrapped into one. And I don't know if anybody else doing this.

So I want to welcome Chris Rodriguez to the show. Content Capitalists, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you Ken. Really excited to be here and appreciate the invite. You know, every time that I'm scrolling and,

BOTH: you know, forgive me for making a toilet reference, but like, you got like five minutes and, and then when you show up, it's always interesting. I'm like, what is she going to do? Is she going to flip the guy and then talk about an armbar hold or talk about money or business?

Cris: I don't know. Right. So that's, What I feel every time you come across it is what's it going to be about? What's going to happen? And every time it delights. So I really wanted to get you on the show. And I'm really glad that you said, yes, Chris. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Excited to unpack whatever questions that you have. Well, I'm going to start with, you know, the big one is what is it you do in your business? What is your business about? Yeah. So, uh, my entrepreneurial journey started back in 2012 when I opened a BJJ and MMA school called Gracie Pack. I've been a lifelong martial artist. It's what I knew what I wanted to do. When I was a little girl, I would draw blueprints of what my school would look like. And I opened it when I received my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt back in 2012.

And When you become a business owner and entrepreneur, if you want to be a good one, you have to collect skills. And one of the skills that I really leaned in on was digital marketing. There was something just really cool about opening your laptop, being able to launch a Facebook ad or a Google ad, and literally have leads on tap.

And I really fell in love with that process. And people notice, they see what you're doing. They're seeing pictures of your classes being full and they're reaching out. Chris, like, you know, how, how do you have that many students? And my answer was, well, you know, I'm just doing digital marketing. And they said, well, will you teach me?

And I said, sure. So I have a degree in education. I do believe teaching is one of my superpowers. So I started teaching other martial arts school, how to run Facebook ads, how to run Google ads. And I did it through an 8 week course. And at the end of the 8 weeks, they came to me and they said, Chris, this was amazing.

I learned so much. But I don't want to do this stuff. It's hard. The platforms are always changing. Will you do it for me? And that's eventually how GroPro Agency, my digital marketing agency, was born, was out of teaching other schools how to do that. And I figured, you know, I'll take on 10 clients. This will be a little side hustle.

And, I instantly realized I bought myself another job. And, just from word of mouth, continued to grow and grow and grow and realized, okay, well, this side hustle might actually become bigger than the main hustle. And it did. And, uh, we started GrowPro Agency back in April of 2019, built it to about 30, 000 MRR.

And then COVID hit and we're running ads for martial arts schools and all the martial arts schools are shut down. So what do they do? They cut their marketing. And at that time, I reached out to Josh Nelson of seven figure agency and came on board as a client. And through his teachings, we were actually one of those businesses that ended up.

skyrocketing through COVID once the, you know, PIP loans came through and the EIDL loans and, the agency just grew so much to a point where it needed to start becoming my main focus. So early in January of this year, I made a very difficult decision and sold My baby, I sold my martial arts school so that I could completely shift and focus on, GrowPro.

And our mission is to help martial arts school owners gain more freedom in their business. You don't open up a martial arts school because you want to learn Facebook ads, you want to learn Google ads, but you got to do those things. And we are currently Sitting at about 470 clients and I have 34 in person team members here in Tampa, Florida, which you don't see quite as often post COVID in the marketing agency world.

Most people have, you know, fully remote teams. They're hiring in, the Philippines and Pakistan and, our business model is, just different. It is in person. So it's a little bit about where it started and. Kind of what we're up to now. That's really cool. When you told me that when you were a little girl and you were drawing blueprints for your martial arts school, was this an influence from your parents? Did you have friends that were into it? Like what sparked that? Yeah. My mom trained judo in the Bronx when she was a kid and she would always talk to me about how much she loved it. And when I was a kid, she was doing aerobics classes at the YMCA and in the room right next door, there was martial arts classes going on and, you know, I was always glued on, watching that.

KEN: And, one day she picked me up from school and said, you want to try out martial arts? And that day was March 15th, 1993. It's a day that forever changed my life. That is so cool. So do you think that like, if it wasn't for that, early influence, like what do you think you would have ended up being if you didn't have that martial arts, you know, in your family and stuff? Like, do you have other tendencies, skills, fascinations? Yeah, I probably would have been a teacher. It's what I ultimately went to school for, so I got an elementary education degree from the University of South Florida. I figured having that degree with working with children would translate very well into owning a martial arts school. definitely would be a highlight to a parent that would want to sign up their child that, you know, the instructor, had a degree in education, but I would probably be doing some form of teaching and it would probably be, you know, in a classroom setting if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now. Yeah, it's interesting. Sometimes I wonder, like, is entrepreneurship a genetic thing? You know, are we born with it or is it like circumstance? And it's a tough one. You know, you really won't know because you can't, you know, rewind and redo life. Uh, so that's kind of what I was wondering. 

 I fully remember sitting at the dinner table, as I was growing up and both of my parents, you know, successful white collar workers, the, they worked in the pharmaceutical industry and every night at the dinner table, I just remember conversations about how much they could not stand their bosses. that really hit me. That resonated with me. And it was like, man, I, I don't want to have a career where I don't like my boss. So maybe I should just become my own boss instead. yeah, well, that's, a good one. I mean, that, that probably affected you for sure. young age.

Cris: percent.

Hearing that. Well, I'm really curious about one thing too. You said that when you started your martial arts school, you picked up on ads pretty quickly, Google and Facebook and other people didn't. Why do you think that you? You know, figure that out faster and other people, even after you spent four weeks with them, still couldn't or didn't want to do it themselves. Like, what's, what do you think set you apart? Yeah, so I was born in 1985, and I feel very blessed because I had an analog childhood. I can remember riding around my bike until the streetlights came up, playing basketball But I also had a computer in my bedroom by the time I was, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old. And this, fortunately was, pre social media.

I'm glad I didn't have to go through high school with social media as kids do today. But I feel like because I was introduced to technology at such a young age, my parents allowed me to have a computer in my bedroom, probably not their smartest idea. but I was constantly on it. And I feel like in the martial arts industry, there are a lot of what I will call vintage school owners.

People that did not have access to computers growing up. it's so interesting, you know, when we hop on discovery calls or onboarding calls with new clients. them even struggling to get zoom open or knowing how to share a screen or, you know, remembering what their Facebook password is. So I do feel like I was at an advantage just due to the timeframe and the time period that, you know, I grew up in.

 and I just really love being at a laptop. I feel like it's mission control and I can solve any problem in front of it. And I think for some business owners, especially if they're a little bit older, they didn't have that same experience. and the other aspect is, you know, martial artists, like you don't open up a martial arts school because you want to become super wealthy.

You do it because you have a passion for it. You have a hobby for it. And oftentimes they don't make that transition of being the technician To becoming the manager and eventually becoming the entrepreneur or the business owner. So they really struggle with that, you know, just because you're a great martial artist or a great instructor, that's not going to make you a great business owner.

And I will say my parents being in like senior management roles, I did get to see, you know, kind of what the inside of working in a business world looked like through their eyes when I was growing up. 

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I always talk about that. I'm curious, like when you were running your business, your martial arts business, let's say like five years in, like how much were you actually making, like top line revenue versus take home income? Yeah, so martial arts schools on average make about 10, 000 a month in revenue, and in most other industries that would be considered very, very low. And that's, you know, the average kind of martial arts school. Are there schools doing six figures a month? Yes, but it's pretty, pretty rare. It's a very, very small percentage.

Within three years of opening the school, we had hit a half a million dollars in revenue. So about five years in, we were doing about 575, 000 profit in brick and mortar when you have massive expenses like rent, right? Your rent is going to be one of your biggest expenses. Payroll is going to be another expense.

you know, 20 percent is, actually pretty decent in operating a martial arts school. And I think that's one of the things that attracted me so much more to an online business is that your profit margins can be. Much higher than, typically 20%, not to say 20 percent isn't solid in a marketing agency, but you're just in a different boat.

So you have access to, you know, a higher, profit margin. Yeah. so if you're running a martial arts school and you're taking home a six figure income, that would be like the minority. Like most people are not. Is that what you're saying? Correct. Yeah.

Wow. That's rough. and just the amount of physical work you're doing and the, you know, the time you're spending there, it's amazing how many people get into it, isn't it? Yeah, you know, it's, interesting that there are groups of people that, believe that you're a mcdojo if you try to. make revenue in your school. And, you know, to become a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, specifically, it takes about 10 years. And if you think about other professions that it takes 10 years, whether that's a surgeon or a lawyer, those are multiple six-figure positions.

And I absolutely believe if somebody has dedicated their entire life to a practice that You absolutely should be making money. And if you're not making money, you can't reinvest that money back into your business to make it better for your customers. So you're actually doing them a disservice if you're not trying to grow and scale and bring in more income to the business.

But it's very interesting in some of the martial arts cultures where, you know, if you're actually making money, people look at you like a sellout. And I just think that's. Absolutely ridiculous, right? you don't question the surgeon who spent 10 years in school. Why should you question the martial artist who dedicated their entire life to get to that level?

KEN: You know? Yeah, for sure. well, the culture of martial arts comes from. like Chinese monks, really. And they have that, you know, that purism type of, you know, ethos. And I think there's value in that, but then you, you're trying to translate that to a modern world where you're not living in a monastery and you don't have people giving you donations and food.

Cris: Like, no, you, you're the one that's got to provide that. So that's where I think the mismatch is. And I don't think there's anything wrong with the ethos, but it's just not compatible. And you got to switch out a mindset as a business owner, not as a monk. Right. And that's, that might be the confusion is. I'm curious. When did you decide to become the face of your business? Like actually put yourself on video on social media. Yeah, I mean, since day one, you know, even pre COVID, I was hosting zoom sessions prior to offering that eight week marketing mastermind course. I was putting out digital products in the Jiu Jitsu world. and. I personally have not struggled with being on video. It is a skill that you have to develop. The only kind of fear I ever had was live video.

When Facebook Live first came out, that really scared me because I'm a perfectionist and I thought, oh, what if I say the wrong thing or I don't like the way that it came out. But in today's world, There has to be somebody that feels comfortable getting on camera and whether that is the visionary whether that is somebody else in the company, whether that's the instructor in the martial arts school, or, you know, the COO of the agency, somebody needs to have that skill set.

And it is. For somebody that it does come natural to, you know, I see a lot of people struggle with overcoming that fear. The 2nd, you know, 1 of these is, put in front of them. But at the end of the day, if we're not sharing who we are, if we're not sharing where we've been. I would

think your goal as a martial arts school owner and as a business owner is to make as big of an impact as you can.

KEN: And you're doing your potential future prospects and customers a disservice if you don't lean into learning that skill. so yeah, I've only ever really had fear around Facebook lives, but I've been able to overcome that. Got it. I'm looking at some of your posts. I got them saved up here. And, uh, one of them, you said, uh, should you really love what you do? And, uh, you're talking about, you

know, you gave your perspective on that. Could you expand on that, about that question?

Cris: that people ask when it comes to business. Yeah, you know, I decided to open up a martial arts school because I absolutely loved martial arts. But what I can tell you is, you don't know what you don't know in business. And I did not seek out a business mentor in the beginning of my martial arts school. So I made a lot of errors. I made a lot of mistakes.

And what ultimately ended up happening is this thing that I was so passionate about, this thing that I loved so much about, well, this was now how I had to feed myself. And that adds an entire level of pressure. And then you start adding in employees, and now these are the employees whom I'm responsible for making sure that paycheck goes through.

And I actually ended up falling out of love with training in the martial arts the first few years that I. had my school, uh, because that, that was the thing that was supporting me. I mean, I still loved to teach, but the physical training aspect, I really just kind of fell out of love with it. Because even if you're trying to train in your own school, there's always going to be a student coming up to you and asking questions.

You don't really just get to be that student anymore. And, you know, for me, I ended up falling out of love with it. Do I believe you can have success in a business? That you're not passionate about and you don't absolutely love. I do think you can, I do think you can develop the skills that you would need just to get the job done, but man, is it so much more enjoyable when you actually like what you're doing?

And, you know, my biggest fear. And this is something that Dan Martell always says is, you know, I think the worst thing an entrepreneur can do is to build a business that you grow to hate. And I want to make sure that that never happens because there was a time period in my life where I didn't really like, you know, operating the martial arts school, anymore.

And that really just comes down to ensuring that. You have the people in place and you have the processes in place so that you can focus on the things that you absolutely do love, the things that do light you up. And one of those things for me is content creation. I meet with my, uh, videography team.

KEN: We meet once every two months, we film for two to three hours and batch about 60 of those reels. And. I absolutely love and look forward to that. So if I can fill my calendar with all of those things that light me up, I will ensure that I don't build a business that I grow to hate. Can you break that down a bit more? You said you meet once every two months and you spend a few hours bang out like 60 videos. Is that what you said? What's that process look like? The prep time before that, the strategic, you know, direction, like what's going to go in it and what's the objective? And then what happens 

Cris: after. yeah, for sure. So I keep a content library inside of a Google spreadsheet. Anytime I'm on social media, something resonates. I take a screenshot that goes into a special folder on your phone. I have a notepad in my iPhone if I'm listening to podcasts. I'm writing it down. I read on a Kindle. Anything that I highlight when I'm done with the book, I export it out.

And I always look at my calendar for meetings, trainings, conferences and events that I attend. And I basically use those four different areas to pull together topic ideas that I can speak on. I literally have thousands of them on a spreadsheet and I use that not just for video and real content. I also put out a piece of written content every single day in a Facebook group that I have.

Typically the written content that lands the hardest, that gets the most comments and likes. is what I'll lean towards when it's time to go and film. So I was a huge believer in scripts. I would use BigVue TV app. I would write everything out word for word. And when I hired this company that does, the video editing and the posting, they said, no scripts, you're not allowed to do it.

 I remember the night before in the morning of, I was so nervous about this. And he was like, you're going to do great. I would send him the topics that I would want to speak on. He creates the hook because that is the most important part of that video. He feeds me the hook and then I just go from there.

And that was the process that we started from day one. So prior to meeting together, I'll go through my content library of ideas. I'll look at the posts that I've put out in written context. That have performed the way you know the best and then we'll use those videos. But, I wasn't really great at coming up with, you know, hooks.

 I would come up with like, this is how you do an armbar from the mount. And he's like, how about we say this is the most painful submission from the mount, right. it's the same concept, but two completely different hooks. So that is something that is a huge success. value add for me with outsourcing to another company that they do that work.

Um, they also do, you know, research on trending topics and, things like that. but yeah, so I just show up, he feeds me the hook. I talk. I boast that my middle name is one take. So it's pretty rare that we have to do more than one take. And we bang out about 60 reels in two, you. Sometimes three hours.

yeah, it's, it's a mixture of content as you've seen, and, you know, happy to kind of unpack what the thought process behind that is as well. But after we film, they edit. That's all I have to do. I'm the talent. I just got to show up and then I walk away. I don't even see the video before he posts it, which in the beginning, you know, you see, you get the little notification that, you know, your video can be viewed.

And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what does it look like? And we've done some controversial stuff that has gone viral, you know, so you're always kind of nervous about that, but yeah, I don't even see the videos before they post it. They just post them. 

That's a lot of posts you made where you talk about how owning a six figure car is going to make you rich. Tell me the thinking behind that. Yeah. I mean, it's, click baity is, is what it is, you 

KEN: Yeah. So I get that you're, we're playing with things that, you know, like some are for the views to get a more reach, right? What you're doing is you're getting some, the comments and people, you know, who are going to agree and disagree But then, like, when you do that, is this, is there an intention to, like, broaden your reach, and then bring more people to your more focused content?

Cris: Or is it, Uh, sometimes you just feel like, I'm just going to have fun and say what the heck I want to say. Like, what's the strategy behind that? Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I mean, that was the first time I ever posted a picture of my car like publicly, and it was definitely outside of my comfort zone. It was a recommendation that they made. They said, Hey, you know, I think this will be a great backdrop for your videos. You know, how do you feel about it?

That video, I was not one take that video took quite a few takes because I felt a little douchey to be honest with you. I really did, but it performed and it did get the views. It did get the reach. initially when I kind of first went on this course, Posting a video every day. It's been about a year and a half since I've been consistent.

Never missed a day. I was doing it by myself, you know, selfie style on the phone. I'm editing with the captions app, you know, very amateur, but I was able to get my reps in. I was still using scripts back then. but it was all business related content and I was not seeing follower growth and when I decided to hire this company, I said, I want to do business related content.

I want followers that are martial arts school owners because that's my avatar. And he said, okay, we can do it, but you're not going to see follower growth and. Said I don't care. I want martial arts school owners to follow me. We saw like no follower growth. I was lucky to get about a thousand views, on a video.

BOTH: And like, I didn't think the videos were bad. I thought they were, you know, good, but the market's going to tell you whether it's good or not. And he said, can you just try it our way once? So we went through about 30 videos, did another batch, just was not hitting. He was like, can we try some jujitsu videos?

Cris: Well, I didn't even have my uniform with the gi that you wear. So I was in a suit jacket, a baseball hat, and a pair of jeans. And I shot some jujitsu videos. And they exploded. And hindsight being what it is, well one, somebody doing jujitsu in a suit jacket and jeans on the floor with a baseball hat, that's gonna capture some attention.

And it did. And I got a lot of hate on those videos. Um, you know, one of the things of having viral videos land is, you better have some tough skin, you better be in a mental state where you can handle that. And I didn't handle it very well in the beginning. It was very hurtful. I would have to be very conscious of the times that I would go on social media.

I couldn't just, you know, you're standing in the grocery line and like, open up the app because you see this influx of all of this hate. So I had to be very intentional about when I was going to go in and then. You know, do I respond to these people? You know, is it witty responses? Is it, man, what kind of human being responses are you?

But we started doing jujitsu and that popped off. So the next round we did half jujitsu videos and half martial arts videos. And I've been seeing about a five to 10, 000 follower growth every single month following that recipe. Now. I would

say 80 percent of my followers are now martial artists. They're not martial arts school owners.

However, the other 20 percent are, and I wasn't even getting that other 20 percent when I was just doing business content. So that was the mindset behind this. Let's throw out a, you know, a bigger net. Yes, the majority of people that are going to follow you are martial artists, but also instructors will follow you and school owners will follow you.

And in the marketing videos that we do, you know, we'll do calls to action, drop the word marketing below or drop the word book below to grab a free book. And that has been generating business for the agency. So that's kind of been the strategy that has helped with follower growth. Is there ego involved in follower growth?

100%. Like there, I mean, anybody that like denies that, I'd say, ah, you're probably lying. Like it is pretty neat to have 40, 000 followers versus 4, 000 followers.

KEN: It definitely gets you excited to, to put out more stuff and you put more effort into it and to really think about like, Hey, what am I going to show? How am I going to show up for 40, 000 people versus? you know, a few hundred. Um,

BOTH: yeah,

KEN: another thing, I mean, you just, you said there's like 80 20 split between, you know, martial artists and owners of martial arts schools.

That might be similar to like the split in like, you know, the actual martial arts industry, like people who are teaching and instructors and then the people who are actually learning. So another thing, you know, what I just thought of is like, if I was a student and I did karate when I was a kid, not very well, but I, a little bit.

And. If I saw something, I'd probably, you know, like what you do, I'd probably forward it to my teacher and say, Hey, would this work? Or what do you think of this technique? And then if you come from that angle, then you'd actually be reaching the owners as well. if you're teaching technique and then the students see it, they might bump it up to their, their dojo master.

So, yeah, that would 

BOTH: work.

Cris: And it has, it has. We have had, you know, people share and then the instructors start following me and the school owner start following me and. you know, we are starting to systemize the process of reaching out to new followers, when you are getting, you know, hundreds of followers on a day to day basis that can literally become a full time job with outreach, but we're following the Dan Martell process of, you know, the this or that.

KEN: Are you here for the content? Or do you own a martial arts school to start generating more of those conversations? But it is a lot of work. And in my marketing agency, we've really gone the authority play. So I've written a book. I do a lot of speaking. I do webinars every single month. We have the Facebook group. We have some really strong JV partnerships as well. And we run Facebook ads. So we really have like a sales machine that is producing anywhere between 20 to 30 new clients a month. And now we have this other avenue that is really, we haven't even tapped into that. We're really excited to start, you know, leveraging. so it seems like we've got a few friends in common. You mentioned Josh Nelson, Dan Martell. probably influenced by a lot of the same people.I'm curious about something, and that is, uh, you made a post probably a couple months ago where you addressed your haters in a video about people getting all weird about is this is Chris a boy or is Chris a girl what's going on tell me your thinking behind that and why you decided to address that publicly and you know because it was probably a

Cris: not the kind of topic that you expect to be talking about on your own show normally right Yeah, you know, I mean, it's like you go back to Eminem and 8 Mile and you just overcome the objections before somebody else can continue to bring it up. you know, it's social media is just, I will tell you my faith in humanity ever since my follower count has gone up, my faith in humanity has gone down.

You see. Just some very not nice, you know, human beings and the fact that there are people in this world that feel comfortable to tear other people down that you don't even know anything about and are just sitting there typing away. is sad. and, you know, at first I got mad, so I'd go back and forth.

I mean, I even went on chat GPT to like, try to figure out. Witty responses that were like, not too mean, you know, but weren't too nice. And I'm like, what am I what? And then they reply and you just go in this back and forth and it's like, why am I wasting my time? And then you like start clicking on their profile and you see, oftentimes it's a private profile, you know, so you can't even see into their life.

Or if it is a public profile, it wouldn't necessarily be somebody that I would have in, in my inner circle. And one of the things that one of my really good friends, Matt Arroyo, he also is a UFC fighter. he also uses the same company. He's seen massive growth, 500, 000 followers in under a year. He said, you know, Chris, like,

do you present like a normal, like feminine woman? And I'm like, no. And he's like, okay, well, they're just calling that out. Like, that's what they're seeing. So they're calling that out. And that kind of shifted my perspective on it. And he was like, do you think you have a unique voice?

You know, I think Laila Hormozy is another really great example of like a female that has a

unique voice and she, you know, 

KEN: yeah like when i 

hear your voice It got in my head 

Cris: and now I now I see the resemblance. Yeah. You know, she got a lot of hate, you know, because of her voice and she called it out. She's like, yes, my voice is deeper than most women. And it was just to 

kind of 

just have a, this is my message to you. And also to help inspire the people, because I've had a lot of friends, personal friends that know me reach out and they're like, I'm so sorry that these people are saying these things.

I've had friends go into like hour long battles back and forth with these people. Like, you don't know her. How dare you speak about her that way? so I also did that show others that. Even though this is happening, I'm still willing to put myself out there because it's just that classic. You can be in a room with a hundred people, 99 people tell you you're great.

One person tells you you're not great. And as humans, we focus on that one person that said there was something wrong with us. The other interesting thing is that a lot of the hate has subsided. And what has happened now is that the tribe of followers that are there, they jump in anytime somebody might come in and start say something nasty.

And these are people I don't even know, and they're defending me. And I thought that was a really interesting switch that happened, you know, as I continued to put out, you know, more, more content, but no, I don't sound like the normal girl. No, I don't look like the normal girl. And, you know, I think that's, A couple of the things that make me very unique and very special and I think you have to lean in on that, you know, I mean, I don't want to be average in anything in my life.

KEN: Heck no. Heck no. Did you feel a certain weight come off your shoulders when that video went out or 

BOTH: did 

it 

just 

Cris: Yeah, no, I did. I did. I was glad it landed. So I came up with the, I did a video about tomboys, um, because when I was growing up, that's what everybody just saw Chris. She's a tomboy, right? She likes sports. She likes playing outside. She'd rather hang out. You know, shooting basketball hoops with the boys instead of sitting on the sideline with a lot of the other girls.

And I did a video about how I think it is interesting that the term tomboy, you don't hear that nearly as much as you did in the 90s and in the early 2000s.

BOTH: 2000s.

Cris: So I did a video about that, you know, explaining like, no. You know, you guys see you're asking, are you, are you a girl? Are you a boy? Like, do you guys remember what the term tomboy is?

Like, that's me. And that video got a ton of positive feedback. You know, hundreds of thousands of views. It's still bringing in new followers on a, on a day to day basis. And I was nervous about putting that out, but I feel very strongly about that because there are. A lot of, you know, young girls that are tomboys and there's nothing wrong with that.

Um, so I just wanted to bring light on that, you know,

KEN: Yeah, I have a feeling somebody is going to be inspired by that and start some kind of, you know, group called Tomboy Premier or something. You know, it's going to 

Cris: there is a 

hashtag called save the tomboys. There is a, that

KEN: Oh, okay. So somebody's, somebody's on it. Somebody's on it. You know, before we get too close to the end, I want to get into the part where we talk about how is the social media attention and the content creation tying into your business. Could you give us a quick overview? What are the mechanics? Somebody finds you, follows you, and then somehow something magical happens and you get clients in the door.

BOTH: What's that magical part in between? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not one magical bullet. And

KEN: Of course.

Cris: think Hormozy says it's a lot of, you know, a lot of mini

I'm speaking in, uh, in facetious terms, but let's break it down a little bit. How does it happen in your business? Yeah, I mean, the, the overarching, you know, concept that I get really excited about is when I meet somebody and they say, Chris, I see you everywhere, right? That's like, that is the aim for me in what we're doing with social media. So, yes, I put out the reels every single day. Um, I post those on my personal accounts.

We don't even post it on the business account at all,typically because they just don't get good reach because Zuckerberg wants you to pay if you want to get reach on your business page. And then what I do is from those videos that I put on my personal account, I look at what had the highest amount of saves, shares, and views.

And whatever those videos are on a monthly basis, I go into the Facebook Ads Manager and I use that as top of funnel. paid ads. So I'll take five to 10 of the reels that landed the most. And these are the marketing reels, because that's what I'm trying to sell. So the marketing reels that brought in the most views.

And I show that to cold audiences. I love using a software called LeadEngage. It allows you to scrape Facebook groups and Facebook pages. So I, it builds those Facebook audiences in the for you. And I show those reels. to that group of people. Then everybody who watches those videos, I just do a 15 second through play.

If you got to the 15 second through play, I retarget with a lead magnet. That's where we're going to go ahead and collect their name, email, phone number. I Have have a sales team, I've got a sales manager. I've got a BDR, I've got an SDR. So the SDR is immediately hitting the phone following up, where did you get that lead magnet?

Um, what else are you having problems with? Because we have a data enrichment resource, which is a spreadsheet of like every single value add that we have, whether it's a webinar, a masterclass, a lead magnet, an ebook, and we see if there's anything else that we can help them with. And then I also set up engagement retargeting.

Audiences on Facebook. So anybody that's engaged with my social media, our contact email list, anybody that's been to our website and anybody that watches my videos. And then that campaign is a direct to discovery call. So having them book an appointment to meet with our BDR to see if, we align and if our services can help them out.

So that's kind of like the paid media strategy, but the Facebook

BOTH: Could you break down BDR, SDR, and some of these acronyms for, for all the rest of us? Yeah, sure.

Cris: So sales manager oversees the sales team. The BDR is the business development rep. That's basically your closer. That's the person that's taking the credit card over the phone. SDR, sales development rep. That is the fancy terminology for appointment setter.

So you got an appointment setter, you got a closer, and then you got a manager that oversees that. Um, and I think people that, Say Facebook ads don't work. just because they do not have a solid follow up process. They call the lead once they don't get ahold of the lead. The lead goes into the black hole of leads that they never follow up with.

And they say, Facebook ads is a waste of time. If you're spending a dollar on that platform, you have to have a rock solid follow up process. Call it the trifecta, phone call, email, text message, and you have to be. Tenacious about following up with those leads, but in a way that provides value. We're not calling them and saying, Hey, can you get on a discovery call?

We're calling them and saying, Hey, what other challenges are you having? This is how we can potentially help you. so that's, you know. I literally just shot a podcast on this process today. So get me all amped up and excited. But that's the paid strategy side of it. But again, we've got the organic Facebook group that I post in every single day.

I do a webinar every single month. I have 24 speaking engagements this year alone. So I do a lot of traveling, getting on other people's stages in person, but also, you know, on podcasts like this. So those are the, really the authority play to me. it's the long term play. It's not, you know, going to make you a millionaire overnight.

KEN: but that has been the best angle so that. Whether somebody sees a jujitsu video or a marketing video, they know, Oh, that's Chris. She's the martial arts marketing girl. Yeah. I mean, you're right in that Venn, you know, business, martial arts, Chris. you were to look at the, you know, what you, how much you focus on the ads platform and the organic platform. Sorry, not platform, but the, you know, department and then the actual sales and follow up out of a hundred. Like, how would you kind of percentage those three things?

Cris: If we were to look at those three components in like terms of like your energy, the money, the personnel, Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm fortunate to be at a stage in our business where I have a really rock solid team. So to me, like, I don't worry about sales. We're at a hundred percent because I have three people that have done that. sales was the last kind of major role that I gave up. And I stopped doing that right when we were at about a million dollars in revenue.

So I held on to that, you know, pretty long, but we're operating at 100 percent in sales. In terms of, marketing, I do still run our Facebook ads that we do for an agency. The reason is, is one, I absolutely love it. I mean, it's the whole reason why I got into the agency world. Two, the platform's constantly changing and it allows me to keep in touch with what is going on, especially now with Facebook, trying to dump so much resources into the AI aspect.

I mean, every time you go into the ads manager, you know, they're making the settings so that it's all AI. You have to literally click in just to be able to do manual settings inside. So it helps me keep a pulse on, you know, what is working and what isn't. I do have a marketing director that will. Set up the ads, and create the campaigns, and then I just go in and I'll audit it, and then I'll run it.

But, that is something that I still do have a hand on. But, I enjoy it, and it's our main service. I mean, this is the thing that we are selling, and if I'm going to be the authority in the space, I can't lose touch with what that main service is. Now, am I running the ads for any of our clients? Of course not.

Um, but that allows me to really keep a pulse on, on that. I will say organic content is probably where I spend my most time. You know, as much as I love chat GPT and AI, the writing, you know, no matter how much I train it, it's, it's not writing like me. And I think that that is a superpower. I mean, there's a reason why the root word of authority is author.

You, you have to be writing. And, um, so I would say personally, my energy goes more into the organic than anything else, but I've got a great team that can handle, you know, a lot of the, other aspects.

KEN: yeah. I want to ask the question again in a different way. And your answers were awesome. I love how you've got your team taking care of stuff, but if we were to look at it like from, a company wide perspective. And where I'm coming from is I think a lot of people think that the ads are the end all.

BOTH: Like you run an ad and there needs to be money coming in the bank, right? Whereas what you explained earlier is there's authority, there's ads, and then like organic authority, right? And then you've got Your sales and follow up. For example, if w were to look at total net amount of energy per amount of money to be put into those several categories, I want to give people users a perspective how big be to get

KEN: the marketing and marketing authority of a business all needed together 

really 

well. 

Cris: And not just lean on one, you know, their over developed bicep on their right arm. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think I had multiple companies going through COVID and if COVID taught us anything, you can't have all of your eggs in one, marketing channel. you know, martial arts schools that were growing solely because of word of mouth or solely because they had a partnership in education with the local elementary school.

They're no longer around. It was. The businesses that did have eggs in different baskets in their, you know, marketing channels that were able to be flexible and able to pivot off of that.

BOTH: I couldn't tell you what the exact percentage is, but if it's three different buckets, and I'm gonna tell you 33, 33 and 33, that there's not more effort put into one over the other because it is a cohesive machine that has to work together.

Cris: I don't know if that's the answer you were looking for, but

KEN: it's, it's, it's, 

it's great. you know, I, sometimes I come across on my feed people who are, Sales mentors and to them, you know, to hammer everything as a nail, right? And then there's the marketing guys, and then there's the ads guys, and then there's the, the viral guys. And, uh, I think that they're all trying to sell you the idea that their solution is the solution when as a business owner.

Like what you mentioned, the solution is to have these three things, you know, braided together really strongly. And that's what makes a, you know, a strong cord, you know, a powerful weapon. And,you explained 

that so well 

Cris: Yeah. I mean the, the one thing. We did not talk about is the product or the service, right? I mean, that to me is where the majority of the effort should go into because you can have the, you know, best marketing in the world, but if you have a crappy service or product, like you're going to put yourself out of business even faster because you're so great at the marketing aspect of it.

KEN: So to me, it's, product and service that needs to. have the bulk of the effort, the fulfillment of the thing that you are doing. I think if any, if anywhere, that's where the scale would tip heavier would be in that aspect. I want to talk a bit about the, where you're going with this company. Like you've, you've gone from,

martial arts gym, I mean, uh, school owner to agency. Now, is there a next level to this? Do you want to take like a chairperson, a chairman position and then just be on the board and have a CEO takeover? Or is there something else you 

BOTH: have 

Cris: in mind? Yeah, great question. Where do I want to take this? To the moon, right?

BOTH: Um, My goal right now is to ensure that I am creating something big enough that can house the goals in the dreams of my team members. The hardest day for me ever as an entrepreneur is if I have to fire somebody or. Somebody leaves and the somebody leaving part actually stings more to me than having to let somebody go.

Cris: It was almost a form of rejection in some way. And I never want anybody on my team to feel like whatever their personal goals are in life, they cannot achieve if they work here. And the only way that you're going to attract top talent who do have big goals is to continue to grow that, you know, umbrella of the company.

So that's really my main focus. Yes. Do we have three year goals, five year goals, 10 year goals? Of course, we operate on EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. We have a vision traction organizer, which is a document that says, this is who we are. This is where we're at. This is where we're going. This is how we're going to get there.

but really the next. Stage of our development is going to be through acquisition of another agency. Our 10 million goal, I do not believe is feasible only staying in the martial arts industry because we do not offer websites. We're only social media marketing. And 000 a month. Well. If the SBA says 10 percent goes to marketing, like they got a thousand dollars to work with, with their marketing budget.

It's, it's not a lot. Right. Um, and it's not like I'm, fishing out of an ocean here. it's a large lake in terms of martial arts schools. There's about 30, 000 of them. And most of those are in clubs. You know, they're like in YMCAs, they're not brick and mortar schools. So I would love to be able to acquire.

an agency around the 30 to 60, 000 MRR mark, that would be in a similar dance, gymnastics, yoga, you know, potentially small fitness boutique gyms. That is really how I see the next phase of our company. And then the other service that we are currently not offering is print marketing. And I would love to be able to offer that through a white label service just because it's massively expensive to house the machinery, you know, to be able to do that in house, but print marketing and then acquisition of other agencies is really what we are, leaning to.

Where our challenge is going to arise is that I do have an in person business model. And if I buy an agency that has a fully remote team. What would that transition, you know, look like? Because I feel very strongly about the power of an in house team. And I'm one of those people, if, everybody's going to the right, I'm going to the left, you know, you see all of these marketing agencies, the majority of them, like I'm in Josh Nelson, seven figure agency.

There's 300 agencies in this program. There's less than five of us that have an in person model. I mean, that's just, that's kind of crazy because if you think about marketing agencies, 10, 20 years ago, everybody was, you know, in person. And I just believe that we can move a lot faster in person. We do a hybrid, you know, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday in office, Tuesday, Thursday work from home.

So there is that benefits that people are looking for post COVID world. But the culture aspect, I think one of the hardest things is to

build a strong 

culture, 

KEN: I crave it. Like I'm sitting at home right now. I've got this little home studio. I've got team in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines. I'm in Japan. And damn it. Sometimes I wish I could just, you know, just walk up 

Cris: the troops into the conference room,

KEN: Look at the laptop screen together and just say, move this there.

Perfect. Great. Let's go. You know, like, and also get a read on like, how are they doing? You know, like, are they low energy? Are they okay? You know, that's, it's a different thing. And it's since COVID we've been a hundred percent remote. So when you're talking about this, I'm just getting all emotional. Like you, you are influencing me right now.

I'm just like, dang it. But 

Cris: There are days where, um, 

KEN: in person, right? With his, uh, with his agency? Oh, he 

did. And then COVID, 

Cris: now

fully 

KEN: never went back. 

Cris: Now, so I actually own the office buildings that we're in. So I think there is, you know, there's obviously, uh, investment, you know, opportunities for that as well. But again, I'm not gonna lie. There are days where I'm wondering like, Hmm, what would that laptop lifestyle look like?

Because there are days I don't want to come into the office, but I do feel. A responsibility to come into the office because my team is, is that a hundred percent necessary that the visionary is in office every single day? No, I think that's just some personal mental stuff I have to overcome, but. I don't think we're meant to just stay in our house and work in our home by ourselves all day.

KEN: And it's amazing the amount of people that are applying to work for us that are coming from fully remote positions because they miss that in person community that occurs when you do have an office. Chris, I got to wrap it up. I got one question I want to close this off with. And it's this. The question is, what is the question that you would ask yourself when You were thinking about content, like you're thinking  about like, how am I going to reach the most amount of people? What's the strategy going to be?

Is there a question that helps you to get into that creative mode, come up with the best content or a question you could ask the viewer that will help them to think a bit more like the way you think when you make your best 

Cris: content? mean, you've got the entertainment stuff, right? And I'm just going to say that that's not the majority of the stuff that I do. So let's just put that aside. But the question is, is. How does this serve my, my audience? And if the answer is it really doesn't, because I think sometimes we prefer to put content out that like serves us that we like looking at it from the frame of how does this serve the person that I want watching it?

KEN: has been a good question that I've asked myself to produce good quality content. How does this serve my audience? That's a good one. I'll use that myself. All right, Chris, thank you so much. I enjoyed this time. It felt like it just went right past, Like I usually don't feel like I feel like we've been talking just 20 minutes. Uh,  everything was really valuable. I'm going to be dropping links down below for anybody who is listening on the podcast, go to the show notes to Chris Rodriguez, Instagram is at the best place or is there somewhere else 

BOTH: we should send 

KEN: Yeah, no, come follow me on IG. Let's go. All right, so we'll put that there. Is there a website or somewhere where people, if they wanted to download something to learn a bit more about your agency, they could, you know, someone wants to get right to the meat of 

BOTH: it? 

Cris: Yeah, 

KEN: GoProAgency. com. GoPro stands for growth professional, so go check it out. I got a bunch of free resources, regardless if you're a martial arts school owner, all my webinars are on there, lead magnets are on there, so if you're a business owner, you'll at least get some really great ideas on different marketing strategies you can implement. All right, guys, I highly recommend go check it out. If you're on YouTube, it's down in the description. And other than that, I will see you next week.

No hassle, worship here, we're a different breed. Action is what we got if action is what you need. Us content capitalists, we're breaking the flow. Cuz the old ways stay, new stories to be told. So content capitalists, get to the press.