Adam Torres and Neil Ateem scaling companies.
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Show Notes:
What are the best business models that successful online companies use? In this episode, Adam Torres and Neil Ateem, Founder of Multiplier Agency, explore the Multiplier Agency and how it’s helping companies scale.
About Neil Ateem
Founder of Multiplier, a Marketing Agency that specializes in helping companies achieve substantial revenue growth.
With an 12-year journey in the marketing field, my background in tech, particularly computer science, adds a unique layer of expertise to my marketing approach navigated diverse sectors, beginning his career in the corporate oil and gas realm and eventually transitioning into the tech sector.
Hailing from the Caribbean, his professional journey has taken him across the globe, including Asia, and is currently based in Mexico. His career includes a prominent role as the former Head of Subscription at Mindvalley, where he played a pivotal role in building their subscription product, scaling it from $0 to over $20 million per year (now exceeding $100 million).
His experience extends to crafting successful campaigns for renowned names like Jordan Peterson, Catcha Group, and numerous others. With a history that encompasses product launches, marketing strategies, subscription models, and digital product expertise, well-versed in a range of industries, including fintech, real estate tech, SaaS, and online education.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Neil Atim and he is founder over at the Multiplier Agency.
Neil, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me. All right. So big topic, of course, for our audience helping companies scale their revenues, scaling mission driven companies that transform their customers lives. So we got big entrepreneur and executive audience, and I know we like this topic, scaling, scaling, scaling, I guess just to get us started, how did you get started in terms of wanting to help companies and work with business owners?
Like where’d all that begin for you? So, I mean how far back do we want to go? Right. Come on, man. Were you selling candy in school? Were you, what were you selling? Comic books, baseball cards. How were you helping people? What were you selling? Maybe I started off selling the best things that you should be selling as a kid.
You know, I used to cut out like bikini pictures and sell it to the other boys. In school, but yeah, I turned my life around now. That’s good. , after you got out of that business, what was the first serious business? I started an agency, a marketing agency specifically like 12 years ago.
That was my first one. I think businesses just get started on their online presence doing ads and stuff. And this was the early days of like Facebook ads and everything, you know, when. You would get like crazy written. So that did really well, man. The good old days, right when it was all free and we didn’t know, I didn’t know what I should say.
Go ahead, . Yep, exactly. And then simultaneously I was studying computer science and you know, the path of getting a stable job and everything was, was set out, you know, that was ingrained in me. Mm-Hmm. Growing up in the Caribbean and everything. ’cause that’s where I’m from now. Mm-Hmm. , I live.
Everywhere, but at that time, that’s, that’s where it kind of started for me. And then my passion kind of moved away from computer science, from programming, from dev into marketing strictly. And that’s why I took the leap. I took the jump and I moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to work for a huge mission driven company called Mindvalley.
So I had a couple years at Mindvalley. I became the head of subscriptions there. Wow. And I grew their subscription products. So I transitioned the company from transactional revenue to subscription revenue. Mm-Hmm. Did really good numbers. Here was 20 million in one year. Now it’s doing over a hundred million a year.
Mm-Hmm. and in product offer cutting down from over three dozen products. So. Since then I’ve, I’ve resigned. I left the company during COVID and then since then I’ve been like on this path of building up this agency and helping companies scale, you know, and since then I’ve been working with some really good clients around the world.
Jordan Peterson did a launch for him coaching other big companies in this space. And yeah really passionate about marketing. So to me, it’s like it’s, it’s a hobby for me almost. That’s amazing. And yeah, big fan of, I haven’t attended anything, but I know many people that have gone through the mind Valley processes and attended some of the events in Jordan Peterson.
We know, I mean, we know who that is, of course. So great stuff. So you’ve worked with some big names, big brands scaled, you know, companies to large amounts. What are some of the things that businesses should be, whether it’s metrics or otherwise, that when there’s somebody says, Hey, I’m when they’re thinking about scaling what are some of those important metrics that they should be focusing on?
Yeah. Well, we know in the marketing world, there’s so much metrics. Because my position post is one of the main ones that I start with, of course, right. Because You should know how much does it cost you to acquire a customer? For sure. There’s a lot of speeder metrics to this, right? This could be you know, on the ad side, your ROAS and, and your cost per click and your CPM.
Like it goes on. These are great, you know, but. Sometimes companies marketing teams or individuals can, they get lost in all these numbers and piecing it together can be complex. So our approach that we have internally now with me and my team is that we focus just, so I mentioned one, which is the custom acquisition costs, right?
How much does it actually cost? you to acquire a customer. And there’s this, there’s a lingo that the business that is willing to spend the most to acquire a customer will win, but that is not always the case. It’s always case by case. It’s depends on the industry, depends on the product or service.
You’re offering all of these things. So there’s a lot of different factors So it’s important to look at benchmarks and what’s out there, but it’s important to look at What you’re spending to acquire a customer now One of the things is driving that customer acquisition cost down as much as possible, right?
No, on the other side, what you need to look at is your customer lifetime value. How much would a customer spend with you throughout your entire engagement, whether it’s one year, two years, five years, ten years, whatever it may be, and you want to maximize that as much as possible. Now, the latter. CLTV, customer lifetime value.
This is something that I see most companies fall short in. So I can give you a simple example, like let’s say a company like Mindvalley, they were selling individual products, you know, and the thing about individual products is nice. It’s transactional revenue. Someone buys a product from you.
Great. Woohoo. But what happens after that? And this is the book descriptions, right? To improve your CLTV So when, when you have someone on a subscription, you have reoccurring revenue, you have some level of predictability, you have revenue in the future, and you can maximize, of course, adding value to that person.
And of course they paying you for that in return. Right. So, CAC, Customer Acquisition Costs, CLVV, Customer Lifetime Value. when we think about, I like that you bring this up, and I like using, whether you want to use the Mayan Valley example or any other ones that you have, or just in general, like, when we think about a lot of individuals that want to go online or business models for online what are some of the models that you found interesting or attractive, like successful, that online business models?
Like, what have you seen? I hinted at it before, right? Subscriptions, most business models to ever exist. And when you think about biggest, the best companies in the world, some you can class it as a subscription. No, let me Microsoft one day. Microsoft got me. I remember I used to buy their software once upon a time.
And then all of a sudden, I think I went to buy it and they had me click on something. And I swear I’ve been paying Microsoft 6 or 5 a month for my entire life. And I’m like, Microsoft, how’d you get me for that? When in the past for word or whatever I was using, who knows? I just bought one product and if I had that computer for five years or six years or whatever, the amount of time was, I never paid to pay for it again.
Yeah. Now they get me maybe the four or 5 every month. And then they add that a little 10 percent change. And I’m looking at it like what another whole 30 cents. Well, you’re not going to cancel it or whatever the amount is, but for them, that’s real money, real money. So they got me Microsoft. That’s the one.
Yeah, exactly. And there’s so many other cases, Adobe, Apple, like every subscription, you know, you pay for Netflix, you pay for. Spotify, Apple music, Apple TV, Disney plus, like everything has become a subscription. And there’s a reason for that. No you mentioned something. You said they got you, but they got, they got me.
Microsoft got me. Go ahead. They got me. I don’t care. I don’t need that. Give me this. I used to buy it before. That’s the trick. I used to buy it before. What was the difference? But the thing about subscription with software specifically is that you get the updates when there’s bugs, it improves constantly.
And that’s what you’re doing. So I was one of those who would buy a software, I get a lifetime software. And then after a year or two, it just completely degrades. And I’m like, okay, this was not the best. It sounded good at the time, but I’d rather pay a couple of bucks a month and have something that is updated and working well, but yeah okay.
I’ll give you an example. I did a launch. I told you for Jordan Peter. Oh, yeah, no, he’s not the academy. So he went from just having an individual course and that is his offer or program or. Books and all this. Now he’s launching an entire academy around it, right? And he’s bringing in his other authors, other experts and stuff to deliver , their sessions, their teachings and building an academy out of it and making that, which makes complete sense because he’s going to keep bringing in well, his team and everything.
And then you have people building up a community around it as well, you know, so. There’s subscription, there’s community. So that is what we go with like online products and everything. But like I said, almost every big business in the world today is a subscription business or aim to be. And we can take that down to a small business level as well.
Like, let’s say you have a little coffee shop. It’s a neighborhood coffee shop. You may not see it as a subscription business, but it kind of is because you would have customers, that is 80%, let’s say. Who would be coming to get a coffee every day or every so they’re kind of on a subscription.
They’re kind of, well, you know these, these people are going to come in every couple of days, or a fixed number of times per week. Now on a bigger level, let’s say you have Apple. And what device do you have? What laptop do you have? I I don’t know. Mac. It’s a Mac. What is that?
The, the, not the Air, the, yeah, the bigger one. Is it the first MacBook that you own? No, I’ve had a couple. Yeah, I’ve had them way back when. So when you buy a MacBook, you may think, Oh, I’m buying a MacBook and that’s transactional revenue. Yep. Right. One time. The thing is, once you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you become a subscriber for life almost.
And every They get me too, Neil. They get me too. Almost. So that’s the thing, right? You won’t see it. It’s, it’s not. In plain sight, it’s not like you give them 10 grand and be like, okay, this is for 10 years of Apple devices. No, they’re going to get me. Yep. You come out, you buy the device, you’re locked in, and then you have to upgrade every couple of years because performance degrade, the battery goes wrong.
Like, So you become a subscriber for life there, right? And we may not see it, but it is so business that wants to take it to that level. Maybe not Apple level trillion dollar level. Of course. Well, Hey, come on, man. We could dream. Come on. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We’re entrepreneurs. This is an entrepreneur show.
We can dream. It’s okay. Yep. And the thing is You can think in that way. How do I get recurring revenue? So it may not be the single product that you offer or service, whether you sell an online course or you have a platform, like how do you continue to deliver value would 100 percent determine if customers are going to keep paying you.
So solving problems for your customers, you need to keep solving problems. So when you solve one, what is the other problem that you may have? And you need to be able to provide a solution for that as well. If it’s a device. I have a lifespan. So how can you expand on that and actually get them to come back to you, lock them into your ecosystem, provide the best.
Valley, or even having like add ons for something that you sell as a physical product, something that is complimentary. Like for example, I’m locked into these Oral B electric toothbrush, cause I need to change the tips of it. Right? So I got you too, Neil. I like it. So every country that I have to restock these tips.
For my oral B toothbrush and I love it. It adds value to my life. I love it. I agree. Yeah, it works really well. So I’m a subscriber there somehow. Right. Even though I have my credit card in full and I think, Oh, I’m willing, they’re willing because I have to keep going back to them. But you’re winning because you had great teeth.
So there you go. So that’s a win. That’s a win, man. That’s not by accident. No. So I want to get into a little bit about like channels for scaling. What are some of the best channels you’ve seen for scaling? Yeah. So channels for scaling. Well, there’s paid, of course for cold. Then there’s owned, which is the email list.
The traffic you get on your site, your blog there’s earned media. So it can be you getting press or someone covering you because your product is so great or services. So great. So there’s all these channels, but best now best on cold. Let’s say because ideally you need to tap into cold audiences, right?
A different language market or different country or same country, but someone or potential customers who’s never heard of your brand, your product, your service. Definitely. For now, it’s still ads. Like there’s nothing that is more in control that you have more control often ads because everything else is like it’s very hard to get the numbers on it.
It’s very hard to quantify it with ads. If you 10, 000 bucks and you get back 20, 000 bucks, that is concrete data, right? So you can. Not exponentially, but at least you have numbers compared to the channel. It’s very hard to quantify because , even with ads, it can be sometimes because sometimes you can track on a first click basis and last click basis.
Like someone may get exposure to your product, your offering. And that may be 10 months ago, but now. They decide to buy. So that’s hard to track, but yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s still ads and , it’s meta meta which is Facebook and Instagram still the best options, but what is important is the funnels, your acquisitions.
That is, that is what determines if it’s going to be a winner or not. And of course having the proper copy, the proper sales page structure and all of this super important. If you’re doing low ticket, high ticket physical product, online course, whatever it may be, but yeah, every element is really important.
So your creative side, how do you stop someone from scrolling and actually engage while they’re in line or on their bed, scrolling through Instagram How do you actually To actually visit a product at that point in time, you know so this is a science to it, but yeah, to close the point still matter to scale on cold traffic.
Yeah, that’s what I would think too. And I, I don’t think it’s going anywhere because , I mean, lots of different channels that come up and otherwise, but. They got the data, man. Everybody’s on that. I mean, the amount of people that are still on Facebook and otherwise like that mousetrap that was built a long, long time ago and people continue to feed in.
It’s just, it’s still the powerhouse. Yeah. Am I, am I off on that? I don’t know. There’s just updates and other things, but that’s still the one. It’s, it still is. I think just recently Instagram was still like the most downloaded app and stuff every single day, you know, so they’re not going anywhere anytime soon and U.
S. companies makes it even better because even with all the controversy with TikTok and all this, like it’s banned, you don’t know what’s happening there, but U. S. Born and raised and that So they’re not going anywhere. Neil, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show today and getting to know, , more about you, your agency, your history and scaling and how, how you’re helping other people scale.
What, what type of companies are you looking to work with that would multiplier agency? Like, is there, is it small businesses, mid middle market enterprise only, like we’ll give us a little bit of the lay of the land of what kind of clients you’re taking on. So the thing about us, we’re really bespoke.
So. I don’t say we do webinars and that’s the only thing that we do. Sure. So for, for now, the thing is we work with clients that do six figures and up but we have that are startups who just want to get their products launched to companies already doing 50 million and want to scale to a hundred million.
So we go, but we only have a limited amount of capacity anyway, because we’re a small agency. If we were doing one single thing, we can scale infinitely, just take on clients in that niche and, and just go that route, you know, but like I said, this is my passion. I like getting my hands in the pot and You like the pain, Neil.
You like the pain of making it work, man. I love it. I love it. I love the grind, you know this is something , that is dear to me, so I keep going this route, but yeah any mission driven company out there, , adding value to people’s life, I say is the number one thing for us. It’s how you make impact and it helps us make impact through you basically.
Whether you’re selling online courses, you have a platform, you have a service, whatever it may be. So long as it’s an online company, we can help you scale. Awesome. Neil, if somebody wants to follow up and to continue the conversation, how do they do that? Yeah, you can reach out to me on Instagram, on LinkedIn, or just go to our website, multiplier.
agency. There you’ll see a CTA to book a call. First you’ll need to fill out a little bit of info. So I’ll know if we’re a good fit and then we just jump on a call. I’m not going to try to pitch you or sell you on the call. It must be something that we’re both excited on to actually move forward.
Because like I said, we have very limited capacity with my team is very lean. We’re distributed across the world. And we do the best that we can for every single one of our clients. Yeah. Awesome. And so to the audience, just so you know, we’ll put, I’ll put the links into the show notes so you can just click on the links and head right on over and check out Neil’s site.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t hit the subscribe or follow button yet, I welcome you to do so. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re putting out new content, new stories, and bringing new thought leaders to hopefully help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button so that tomorrow you can get that and push notification that says, Hey, we got another episode. And then we got you to, at that point, not quite subscription cause it’s free, but then we’ll have you too. So, so hit that subscribe button and Neil, man, this has been so much fun.
I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me.