The Transcript Is Auto-Generated and May Contain Spelling And Gramatical Errors
Tyler Jorgenson (00:00.957)
Welcome out to Biz Ninja Entrepreneur Radio. I’m your host Tyler Jorgensen. And in this season, so far we’ve interviewed some really cool entrepreneurs. And today is no exception. I have the pleasure of interviewing a friend of mine and somebody who I met through the ClickFunnels world, but who has truly become a world-class marketer and someone that people go to as an expert in his field. Welcome out to the show, Chris Benetti.
Chris Benetti (00:31.094)
Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.
Tyler Jorgenson (00:34.009)
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re gonna dial it all the way back. Like, were you, do you consider yourself an entrepreneur like that was born an entrepreneur or did you evolve into this?
Chris Benetti (00:46.922)
I definitely think it was an evolution out of pain. Pain of the realization that to get ahead, I was going to just have to suffer or find a better way. And it was, you know, when I
Tyler Jorgenson (01:03.025)
Mm-hmm.
And so what was that pain? Like, I mean, it was like the age old, I hate the nine to five, or I just am not, financially this is never gonna work. What was that pain point that first threw you into entrepreneurship?
Chris Benetti (01:19.422)
Yeah, well, I actually started investing in property unintentionally at the age of 18. I bought my first house and my second house at 21. And my whole goal initially was, make myself financially free using property. But then the realization was, wait, I’m gonna have to work in the iron ore mines, which is where I have my qualification and my…
employment at the time, for a very long time to, you know, make enough money to do that. And so out of that, the Robert Kiyosaki’s, the Tim Ferriss’s, the Russell Brunson’s, the Anik Singal’s started appearing for me. And just made me understand and realize that there was better, more efficient ways to make money than to earn money, reinvest it and wait for that to compound over time.
Tyler Jorgenson (01:50.746)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:05.263)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (02:16.83)
you know, we could just proactively go out and make more money in the beginning instead of having a set salary. Um, and so that realization and pain of going, I don’t really even like what I’m doing anyway. And the thought of having to do it for another 20, 30 years is just so cringy. And the impact that had on my relationship, like I used to work fly and fly out two weeks away at a time, one week at home, 13 hour days, not nine to five, so we were literally like 4 AM to 5 PM.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:22.254)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:42.78)
Right.
Man.
Chris Benetti (02:46.462)
kind of thing. And obviously I had to get up and you know, go to sleep around that as well. So there was just so much pain in routine and the environment that I was working in, I was head to toe covered in iron ore mud every single day. That just made it really difficult to meet for me to imagine staying there.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:59.49)
man.
Tyler Jorgenson (03:04.141)
Yeah. And so what was your first big step? I mean, you got these legendary books that have inspired so many people to make a shift, but what was your first big step out of the iron ore mines?
Chris Benetti (03:17.706)
Well, first it was trying to do side hustles for like 30 minutes after work with my crappy laptop computer that I took to site with me. And so I watched Anik Singal’s inbox blueprint course, and try to do some affiliate marketing with email and you know, buying solo ads. And this was like, back in 2015 or 2016 kind of thing. And that was all the rage back then. It was like peak.
Tyler Jorgenson (03:35.784)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (03:43.174)
Uh huh.
Chris Benetti (03:45.61)
affiliate marketing back then. And essentially, you know, just tried that had no success. And that’s fine. It’s happens. But I, you know, I learned the software. And then I bought another course on like eBay drop shipping. And, and ultimately tried that and actually got a sale. And then that person refunded and I was working with the eBay in America. And it was a pain in the ass to get that thing returned to the actual place that I dropped shipped it from. And I just like
Tyler Jorgenson (03:48.463)
Right?
Tyler Jorgenson (04:14.35)
Right.
Chris Benetti (04:15.646)
was put it in the too hard basket at the end of the day. And so that all kind of led me towards understanding some email marketing software, understanding some like funnel or landing page building software, understanding how to list on marketplaces and things like that, which led me to Russell Brunson and finding funnels. And the direction that I took from that was I’m gonna get good at doing funnels. And I ended up losing my job at the…
Tyler Jorgenson (04:35.056)
Yeah.
Chris Benetti (04:44.318)
end of 2016, it was like September. I tried to do some affiliate marketing for ClickFunnels back when like they were just starting their affiliate marketing promotion, probably had 20,000 users or something, maybe less. And ultimately didn’t really have some success by myself there, but transitioned into doing an internship for a local digital marketing company for Kim Barrett, which I believe you know. And ultimately that just kind of…
Tyler Jorgenson (04:53.338)
Right.
Tyler Jorgenson (05:07.706)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (05:13.806)
took off my direction.
Tyler Jorgenson (05:16.109)
Yeah. And so, you know, one thing I like about your whole story so far is consistently looking back for, uh, looking at books, looking at courses, look and you know, finding an internship. How, when you talk to other people who are considering starting a business or becoming an entrepreneur, how often do you tell them, Hey, find a mentor, find a coach, find a course. Like how important is that?
Chris Benetti (05:41.918)
Hmm. I think it’s incredibly important. I think the action has to go with it as well. You know, it’s all well and good. And you feel fantastic when you buy a course, or you read a book and you feel motivated, or even get some advice from someone. But if you know, if you don’t take action on the advice, or the book or the course or the content, then it’s useless, you know.
Tyler Jorgenson (05:54.854)
Yeah.
Chris Benetti (06:03.434)
And I think a lot of people, they’ll kind of go through the motion of like buying thing after thing because it feels exciting and they get like a, a dopamine hit and they’re like, cool, I’m gonna finally make a change and then they don’t take action and then that is where they fall short. So I’m a huge proponent of education in the different realms and learning from people who first and foremost have the business that you want and also very important, the life that you want as well.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:03.901)
Of course.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:12.677)
Yep.
Chris Benetti (06:32.982)
because without everything aligning for you, you’re gonna find that, you know, potentially they’ve got the business you want, but they hustle a lot and they’re always busy and they don’t see their family, you know, kind of thing. And if you do the same thing and follow the steps of them, then you might find yourself in the same shoes.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:33.436)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:50.233)
Yeah, it’s amazing. You know, a lot of the things I talk about on this show are lifestyle design, the Tim Ferriss type stuff, and was lucky enough to have him as a guest on the show even at one point. But it’s amazing how it’s like a constant battle to keep that lifestyle design in place, because the average person is just making themselves so insanely busy. So let’s.
I want to talk about a little bit of what you’re doing now, because when you and I first met, we were both building funnels for other people, and there’s been a bit of an evolution there. And I really love what you’re doing now. So first, tell us what it is, and then how did you pick that niche?
Chris Benetti (07:32.79)
Hmm. Yeah, so we, we market books for business owners. And I make that distinction because not every author is a good fit, not every author uses their book to make money. Not every author has a business that the book is a, you know, lead generation tool and asset for. And so we specifically work with those kind of authors, people who have businesses first, and have written a book to elevate
accelerate what they’re doing in business on the front end. And essentially, you know, we run ads and build funnels to help sell books on the front and convert clients on the back. So people who buy the book becoming clients with without clients. It’s it’s been a definitely an interesting journey. And we’ve had tremendous success and also tremendous challenges, as most businesses do. You know, I don’t want to be
Tyler Jorgenson (08:28.381)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (08:31.23)
glamorous here, but ultimately, you know, the way that I chose the niche was because, well first and foremost, I used to run a funnel design agency, funnel development agency, conversion rate optimization kind of stuff. So I took that skill set and put it into smart author media. But, you know, I was just kind of sick of getting paid on a one time basis, you know, not having retainers really, you know, every single month starting from zero.
Tyler Jorgenson (08:32.602)
Sure.
Chris Benetti (09:00.822)
and so commoditized, you know, like there’s really no one, you know, there’s just so many people in the marketplace offering funnel services today, you know, ClickFunnels and Gusten Sun and, you know, people like that have just made it so popular and such an easy business model to do and all that kind of stuff. So smart author media and recognizing that there was a gap in the market was first, you know, what are the niches out there? And then what are the services that were not being
Tyler Jorgenson (09:03.662)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (09:10.833)
Sure.
Tyler Jorgenson (09:17.455)
Yep.
Chris Benetti (09:31.362)
provided to specific people. And so I had to look at several different niches. I recognized that authors specifically were being very well serviced on a writing perspective, on a publishing perspective, on a campaign style launch perspective, but not on an ongoing marketing perspective. There’s really no one who was doing paid ads for authors to help them make sales and to help them get clients. And so I just kind of went.
I’ll fit right in there. And it was after probably two months of market research and all of that kind of stuff. So there was a lot of setup initially. And then the intention really was, how do I get as well known in that marketplace as possible?
Tyler Jorgenson (10:04.678)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (10:15.065)
Yeah. And I, I’ve loved watching you select the niche and then go all in on it. So many times people are scared to plant their flag and say, this is what I do and say no, right? Especially if you were, I I’m sure you probably still have some of your older clients, but you’re not actively seeking new funnel clients. And, and it’s so hard when you have something established or you’re known for something to make a pivot, right? Um, and then there’s the opposite side where there’s people that are pivoting every, every three days.
and there’s a new thing going on all the time. But really love it. Share a couple of success stories with Smart Author Media and what you guys have done there.
Chris Benetti (10:53.054)
Yeah, definitely. So my oldest client, actually, Nigel Moore, we’ve had tremendous success with him. package price profit. He has a membership for MSP. So managed service providers, they basically do digital security for businesses, right. And they’re very technical people. They don’t know how to market they don’t know how to get sales, you know, they don’t know how to do contracts and all that kind of stuff.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:05.631)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:17.114)
Riot.
Chris Benetti (11:18.61)
And so he provides a membership that basically just like makes it as simple as possible, makes them your marketing easy packaging and pricing stuff easy, and just helps them make more money in business. And we literally give this book away for free in exchange for a name and an email address. And you know, we don’t we don’t give away heaps and heaps. But you know, over the past year and a half, we’ve given away about 5000 copies to a very niche audience, I should say.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:34.717)
Thanks for watching.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:45.467)
Right.
Chris Benetti (11:46.178)
And, you know, through that process, we’ve had hundreds of people, we’ve probably had about 10% of people who get the book trial his membership, which is pretty awesome. And that, you know, really has a quite a high retention rate, around 96%. So we’ve had about 450 people stay onto his membership at 47 per month. You know, we’ve made probably close to 150 grand on…
Tyler Jorgenson (11:58.171)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:15.565)
awesome. Yeah.
Chris Benetti (12:15.71)
by giving a book away free, no charge, right? Not free plus shipping, just free. And that continues to make like 20 to 25 grand a month, recurring revenue.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:26.853)
Very cool. You’ve done a few iterations of business and you’ve grown quite a bit. What was one of the biggest challenges that you faced or obstacles that you hit and how’d you overcome it?
Chris Benetti (12:41.986)
I’m definitely chasing two rabbits. Not many people know today because I’m so vocal about smart author media, but I actually have a software company as well that I was a 50-50 owner in. Now I have less ownership and do much less and obviously don’t promote it much at all. But we custom developed this solution and it came around shortly after I started the funnel agency. So in 2018, so it’s been around for a while now.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:45.617)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (13:13.062)
And man, when I first started Smart Author Media I was so adamant, you know, I worked on this business and starting the ideation and stuff with a mentor. And I just told him like, you know, Charlie, how can I work on both? How can I have both, you know? And it took me six to eight months of just grind and.
Tyler Jorgenson (13:22.415)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (13:35.454)
hey, you know, if you want both, you need to align both niches together, like the software needs to serve the same niche so that there’s vertical integration. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t focus on two And it just was, you know, after having it for, you know, five, six years, it was just such a hard thing to just say, cool, I need to let go of this and move on. And so I would just say, like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with focus and not chasing two rabbits.
or three or four, some people chase so many rabbits, it’s not funny. And ultimately the saying is if you chase two rabbits, you’ll catch none, right? You won’t actually succeed in achieving the success and by actually catching the success and getting one. So, just focusing and realigning focus to one business was probably the hardest thing for me.
Tyler Jorgenson (14:08.581)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (14:16.259)
Right.
Tyler Jorgenson (14:31.417)
Yeah. And so, I mean, you battled it for a while, but then you leaned into it. Was there some early validation that was the right move?
Chris Benetti (14:40.414)
Yeah, I mean, like my agency, it was a bit of a slow burn, but after about seven months in Smart Author Media, I started getting some good traction. I got Scott Oldford as a client, and then a few other bigger clients as well. And I just started having the best months in business ever. And it was all monthly recurring revenue based. And we were getting great results for clients. And so that just started compounding. And I’m just like, man.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:05.509)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Benetti (15:10.27)
making peanuts or, you know, really just like struggling with development and direction with a software company was just so much less attractive than just making good money on retainer with agency work. And the other benefit of Smart Author Media is it’s ads management mainly. So you know, building funnels is hard. Managing ads isn’t too hard, as long as you’re doing the reps to manage the ads, right? And you’re doing the things every week.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:34.523)
Riot.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:38.086)
Yeah.
Chris Benetti (15:39.09)
So, you know, it was just a much easier business model when it was making a lot more money and profit.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:45.181)
It’s awesome. And so as you started growing, right, I’m assuming you started establishing a little bit more of a team. And I’m cheating because I saw you share a little bit of a lesson on delegation and management recently. What have you learned about leadership and management as your company has grown?
Chris Benetti (16:04.778)
Hmm. Yes. Good question. This is, this is quite fresh. So the bandaid was only just ripped off last week. Yes, I you know, I think there’s two things. The first is having a clear direction as a team is important. And so we move to a weekly plan cadence instead of a daily
Tyler Jorgenson (16:09.914)
Yeah.
Chris Benetti (16:30.506)
you know, me telling the team what to do kind of thing. Like obviously the team has their roles and responsibilities and they know that, but they were still coming to me and seeking advice from me on a daily basis. If, you know, they were unsure about stuff, if they didn’t know what to do for a specific project. And again, most of our work is ads management. So it was really just a lot of communication about like what to do in the accounts, you know, my.
ads manager would come to me and go, here’s what I recommend for the day. And I’d have to like manually give approval or feedback. And instead what we did was we moved towards a weekly plan where I go, cool, this is the, these are the graphics that I want created this week. These are the ad requests that I want this week. These are the funnels that we’re working on this week. This is what I want as an outcome for each client this week. And…
the day to day, the budget optimization, the rolling out different creatives, the feedback on what copyright, copywriting we should change or adjust, targeting, et cetera, is the responsibility of each team member. It’s something that they can manage and they can do based on their experience and they don’t need me for. And I’ve just like letting go and allowing that approval to happen for them internally and know that, hey, they’ve got this.
Um, you know, I, I shared feedback on my page yesterday and you know, the, the team is just like very happy with the process. They love the responsibility. They love the fact that they’re not trying to write a recommendation that they think I will like. They’re just trying to focus on getting client results. And that’s what I wanted anyway, with the recommendations that they were writing. So it’s funny how that just, yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:12.501)
Yep. Yeah. But it’s amazing. Yeah. But it’s, that’s the challenge with management in some times is that if people are managing up to their manager and saying, well, I have to review this with them. Well, they’re probably going to want to just get approval. But if it’s like, no, I want to just manage the KPI and outcome and results, and then we’ll review the outcome together. It actually, it seems small, but it’s a big shift because that’s just humans.
Chris Benetti (18:29.943)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:41.833)
Most humans don’t want conflict, right? So they’ll seek to get the approval they can. Awesome, man. There’s a lot of things that have shifted in the industry and in the business and software. What is, you know, over the next, the rest of this year, what are some of your big goals? What do you think you’re gonna go after?
Chris Benetti (19:03.41)
Um, man, I, I’m going to start podcasting consistently again. And for me, it’s just relationships doubling down. Um, I really want to go to in-person events in Australia specifically, and just network as much as I can become as well known as I can in all the different sub circles in the world of business. Um, that are relevant, of course. And you know, part of that is I’ve been podcasting and being a guest on podcasts like BizNinja
Tyler Jorgenson (19:24.189)
Sure. Yep.
Chris Benetti (19:31.486)
like crazy lately, I think I’ve been on friggin 15 in the past few weeks. And also just having people on my show and, you know, talking to other industry experts talking to other best sellers and just trying to get a lot of different takeaways. And I’m just feeling motivated to just start like, producing content out into the world. So you know, for me, it’s networking, giving value.
Tyler Jorgenson (19:40.006)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (19:51.462)
Awesome.
Tyler Jorgenson (19:56.445)
Cool. Now you talked about it earlier on, you know, business and life and having that balance or the makeup that you really desire. What’s one item on your personal bucket list you’re going to accomplish in the next 12 months?
Chris Benetti (20:12.67)
Well, this is kind of cheating because it’s been in motion for the past little bit, but we’re actually going today to visit a new house that we’re building. So just resetting up our life in a new house, because I’ve been in this one for 11 years, is really like the goal, and having that set up in a way that we want to, with…
Tyler Jorgenson (20:17.361)
That’s okay.
Chris Benetti (20:40.406)
design choices, landscaping choices, and the family and the routines that we set around that and what we do. So that’s gonna be a big shift for me. And along with that, we’re gonna be five minutes from the beach. So I wanna start learning to surf and having that as an outlet as well. So it’s really just like an opportunity for reinvention by having a different location.
Tyler Jorgenson (20:55.557)
Yeah, absolutely.
Tyler Jorgenson (21:03.877)
Very cool, I love that. Always good to have some change. It kickstarts a lot of, creates a lot of momentum. Check out Chris Benetti on socials and definitely check out smartauthormedia.com Thank you for tuning in, listening, watching, wherever you’re catching the show. Now don’t forget my Bizninjas it’s your turn to go out and do something.
Chris Benetti (21:10.145)
Mm-hmm.
