Webinar Wins & Chat Bots: Andy Audate’s Digital Success Story

This transcript is auto-generated and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (00:01.444)

Welcome out to BizNinja Entrepreneur Radio. I’m your host Tyler Jorgensen and today I have the honor and the privilege of talking with an entrepreneur who has a little bit of both sides of the coin. And what I mean by that is he’s actually done brick and mortar before doing all this digital stuff. And I’m a huge fan of talk with entrepreneurs that have done both because I think that they have a different perspective on business than people who have just done one. So welcome out to the show Andy Audate.

 

Andy Audate (00:29.57)

I’m super excited to be here, Tyler, man. You are rocking the game and I love the variety of voice that you have, my friend.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (00:33.662)

thank you. Everyone says I have a face for radio. here’s my thing. I know that you were one of the youngest franchise owners of a specific franchise, right? Which one was it? T -Mobile. And so you were young in the game hustling. When was the moment that you first realized you were an entrepreneur?

 

Andy Audate (00:47.116)

Yes, T -Mobile.

 

Andy Audate (00:56.274)

at when I took my mom’s lemonade from the kitchen and went outside and I took her cups, her glass cups and plastic cups and I went outside and I sold each one for a dollar.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (01:07.612)

Yeah, was good old mom, the venture capitalist funding your first venture. So you’re out there hustling. Would you pay mom a percentage to cover the cost or are you just keeping the profits?

 

Andy Audate (01:18.542)

I was keeping the profit, I was keeping the profit. I’m talking about, I’m going to grab your $4 lemonade that you bought. I’m going to go outside and I’m going to sell a cup for a dollar. And I got 15 cups out of that lemonade, kept the 15 bucks. And that’s when I said, aha, Eureka, this is the game, 100 % profit margins. I love it. Let’s do

 

Tyler Jorgenson (01:37.566)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there’s not a lot of businesses that have 100 % margin, that, you know, starting the first one from stuff in your mom’s kitchen is one. I think real, like a lot of entrepreneurs start that young. You’re just as a kid, you’re seeing problems differently, you’re solving problems. And what was your first entry into kind of real business?

 

Andy Audate (02:00.974)

The first business that I started was the, well, like a legitimate, like legal business. When I say legal, I’m talking about LLCs, LLCs and so forth, know, S -Corps and organ, essentially a structured business. The first one was when I did the cell phone store. I started off as a sole proprietor. I made like 150 grand and then someone suggested I incorporate the business and that’s when I incorporated the business. So many entrepreneurs are like, hey, let’s get the LLC started.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (02:08.327)

Yeah, yeah,

 

Andy Audate (02:30.528)

set up the structure and the bank accounts first. The first thing I did was I went out there and I sold the product, which was cell phones, and then I made some cash and then I had enough money to pay the accountants to set up the business

 

Tyler Jorgenson (02:41.49)

Yeah, I think a lot of people will, they get hung up on all the things they think they need instead of just testing out the idea. Can I do this business? You know, get, make a couple bucks, make a couple sales, and then you can afford stationary and accountants and all this stuff. Why did you get out of cell phones and into, and we’re going to go into now what you’re working

 

Andy Audate (03:03.918)

So one of the reasons why is as an entrepreneur, I expect freedom. I expect that I can have the utmost freedom by being my own boss in this scenario. And in 2000 and I think this was 2015, I, there was a, there was a storm that was taking place in Rhode Island, which is where I’m from the smallest state in the country. And in this storm, I told all my employees, said, Hey guys, you don’t have to come to work. There’s no one driving around to buy a phone today. There’s a storm up to my, up to my waist.

 

And what T -Mobile did is they sent out ASRs, is account service representatives. They manage the franchises in specific territories. And they were driving around looking at stores if they were open, essentially looking to find if anyone was closed and my store was closed. They sent me, my ASR called me and said, hey Andy, you got it, your location is closed. And I said, yeah, I know. I closed it, man, no one’s buying phones and I’m out paying payroll just to have someone sit there.

 

And they said, you have to open. then they gave me all the legal lingo. And I said, I felt smothered. I was back at a job. I just worked for another corporation and I take majority of the risk. So I remember I was cleaning my car off. already gave my team the day off. I was cleaning my car off and I said, I’m never going to be put in this position again. I want freedom. And that’s what started the venture to create a digital business where it doesn’t matter where I’m at. I still make

 

Tyler Jorgenson (04:26.706)

Yeah, I think sometimes a single franchise owner, a single location owner, you have all the worst parts of being an employee, right? You have all the responsibility, you still have the job, you still have to do everything, but you also then have liability and all these other things, unless you’re gonna really scale brick and mortars or multiple locations, you really stay in that risk and lack of freedom section. So you decided you wanted to go into digital, what’d do?

 

Andy Audate (04:54.882)

So I transitioned, my first transition was, this is between you and I, Tyler, and everyone that’s listening. My first transition is I became a personal trainer, actually. I went online, I was in my fitness journey. I was heavy into fitness at that time. And I said, hey, I’m going to hold you accountable. I don’t have the NASM certification. So my job is I’ll hold you accountable. pay a fee for me to hold you accountable. That was the beginning of me going down this rabbit hole of identifying what’s going to be my thing. So I went

 

a personal trainer, became a motivational speaker. I sold eBooks. This was around the eBook era. And I sold eBooks. created eBooks. This was before chat GPT. And then from there, my knack for speaking, especially this happened at church, my knack for speaking, and someone prophesied over me and said, hey, you’re going to be a speaker. So I went, I thought I was going to be a rapper when they said, you’re going to speak, you’re going to orate.

 

But I ended up becoming a motivational speaker and I traveled with Les Brown, the motivational speaker. We would travel around the country. My job was to fill up the seminar rooms for him. And then from there, I started making money speaking and selling online courses. And that’s where I essentially settled that for a couple of years. Selling online courses and speaking on stages and filling up seminar rooms for big motivational speakers.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (05:59.571)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (06:14.546)

So for someone who desires freedom, for someone who really says, I wanna have control, speaking is neat, but it also means you must be one place at one time, right? So I know that you segued and started doing webinars. Was this a part of that like a consistent pursuit of freedom where you wanted to still be able to speak, but also have some flexibility?

 

Andy Audate (06:39.534)

The webinars were, I was forced to do webinars and especially during COVID -19. So in 2018, envisioned this concept of hosting events under Andy I Date brand, my personal brand, because I was tired of marketing another person’s name. And I said, hey, I want to host events under Andy I Date brand. I was completely fearful of doing that. And then I waited a year. So 2019, I finally made the decision. So now,

 

Tyler Jorgenson (06:56.478)

There you

 

Andy Audate (07:08.174)

The tour was set for 2020. had 13 cities booked, Ohio, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, 13 cities. was 13 cities. North Carolina was one of them and New York was another. And then from there, because I had a relationship for marking other people’s names, I already had those relationships there and I already had an email list there. So I knew I was going to be able to fill out the room. The first event was in Atlanta, Georgia in March of 2020.

 

So 2019, I commit, it took me a couple of months to set up the entire tour, establish relationships. First event is March of 2020, COVID -19 happens. I called the hotel and I’m like, hey, I’m gonna ship out my AV equipment. And they’re like, hey, look, you heard of COVID -19? And I said, no, I got an iPhone 11. I never heard of this COVID -19. What are you talking about? And that was the start of a downhill era for the in -person events. And then in order for us to transition and

 

Tyler Jorgenson (07:59.87)

For sure.

 

Andy Audate (08:03.084)

to all my sponsors and speakers, just took it online and that’s what became the webinar game for

 

Tyler Jorgenson (08:07.996)

That’s pretty awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about a couple of things you’re working on. So one, I want to hear more about what you’re doing with webinars, but I really want to hear about what you’ve created with chat automation .io.

 

Andy Audate (08:20.238)

So number one with webinars, because I had the skillset of speaking in front of large groups, I realized that you can take that same skillset instead of selling one to many on an in -person stage where you’re responsible for AV, where you’re responsible for flying people in, equipment, so on and so forth, food, beverage, hotel costs. You could do the same experience online and get better results. So in 2020,

 

I had a day that changed my life forever, which I made $75 ,000 on one webinar, left the event and went into my living room and my wife was watching Netflix and she had no clue what took place in our spare bedroom, right? Because there’s no audio, it’s essentially soundproof. I added the Home Depot stuff on the walls. So I’m over here like, and you’re to get this and you’re get this and you’re to get this and you’re get this and the total air price is this and why today?

 

Tyler Jorgenson (08:58.76)

Hahaha.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (09:02.443)

Yeah.

 

Andy Audate (09:14.126)

And everyone just got an influx of 1400 bucks from the government at that time. And a lot of it went to me and I sold my product and I left and walked into my living room and I said, babe, I’m not doing an in -person event again because I just made 75 grand without having to fly out anywhere. And I’m going to spend the night with you on Friday night, watch TV. So webinars is a tool for you to communicate at scale. Instead of you host doing one -on -one sales calls, you can put a large group of people in a zoom room.

 

Give them an opportunity to understand what your message is, why you do what you do, a little bit about your story, know about your business, and make an offer so that way they can know who you are like you and trust you, and ultimately make decision to purchase from you or not. And you can do that at scale.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (09:55.804)

Yeah, absolutely. So when you did the first one just on Zoom, from where you started with webinars from a tech stack and a difficulty and a complexity, have you kept it really simple or have you really leveled up the

 

Andy Audate (10:11.98)

I’ve leveled up my game. When I first started, actually my wife recorded a video of me. I was in the living room. had those two screens that you buy from Best Buy and my laptop was on my wife’s living room. That was one of my first webinars and I didn’t even have a PowerPoint. It’s like I failed to remember that piece of the puzzle. And the first one specifically, no PowerPoint. I dressed up in a whole suit, blazing everything.

 

and I didn’t have a PowerPoint, I forgot what I was saying, I forgot to make an offer, made zero dollars on that first webinar. So it’s been a progression since. I’ve leveled up to the point where I do one a month every single month and I’ve been, I’ve done over 344 of them. Sometimes in a month we’ll do two of them, sometimes we’ll do three, sometimes we’ll do four and sometimes it’s I’ll bring in other speakers to host my webinars. However, today it’s like a full on studio, got a whole headset mic.

 

Got lights, got extra cameras, got a 49 inch curves monitor with all the things that I’m working on. So it’s a whole production today, but before it just started off in the living room with no headset, with no microphone, just my voice and a laptop.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (11:06.504)

Yeah.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (11:20.038)

I think it’s really good that you said that your first one you didn’t make any money. Because I know a lot of people that have gotten into, they say, I’m gonna do a webinar, and they don’t make money on their first one, so they stop. They’re like, it didn’t work. And it’s like, no, no, no, that was just getting in a rep, right? You just gotta get in the reps. What is your word of encouragement to people who have maybe tried webinars in the past, but need to, you know, it didn’t work for

 

Andy Audate (11:44.706)

You got to keep going. You got to keep going. If I had said at the lemonade stand, man, I didn’t get a valuation and exit this business for millions of dollars, I should have stopped business. That would have been a wrong move at the lemonade stand, It’s the fact that I kept going. So if you’re listening and you’re like, hey, I did my first one, I did my second one, I did my 10th one, I did my 15th one, and I still am not producing the results, you got to keep going. It’s very similar to lifting weights. It’s very similar to doing any new skill set. The more you do it, the more you progress.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (12:14.628)

Absolutely. So talk to me about the power of chat automation.

 

Andy Audate (12:19.086)

So when I hosted my job in filling up seminar rooms, I would go to different businesses and I would need to sell tickets. So here’s what that looks like. Here’s just so everyone understands what that looks like. A motivational speaker books a city and they’re going down to a specific city. Let’s just use Dallas, Texas. They booked Dallas, Texas. And then when they booked Dallas, Texas, they might pack up, they might have a venue for 400 people.

 

They’ll typically hire a marketing agency to go and sell tickets, to run ads, so on and so forth, to sell those tickets. Now, out of the 400 seats that are available, let’s say the marketing agency only sold 200 tickets. What they’ll do is they’ll call an FSR, a field sales representative, and they’ll fly them down, pay for the hotel, pay for the rental car, and they’ll say, hey, we need an additional 200 tickets sold, and you have four or five or maybe six weeks left in the cycle to go ahead and market.

 

this event because the ads aren’t performing the way that we need it to perform. And it makes more sense for us to send somebody down. Now, when I get down in that city, I’m going to go to all the real estate businesses. I’m to go to all the car dealerships and I’m going to go do a free presentation. So for example, if I call Honda and I go to Honda, I’m going to say, can I do a presentation for 30 of your guys? And they’ll say, yes, come in and motivate them, give them tools. And then at the end, I’ll sell tickets.

 

So if I get 30, 40, 50 people in front of me, the manager, with the manager support, I may be able to get half of the audience to buy tickets. So 10 meetings could turn into 150 registrants. That’s the strategy to put bodies in the room. Now, when I would go to these events, I would pass out a legal pad asking each person for their name, email, and phone number on a document, on a sheet.

 

So I would pass out this piece of paper and I said, can you put your name, your email, phone number? I’ll send you more information later. Now here’s what always happened, especially with the bigger rooms. I never got everyone’s name, email, phone number because it would take so much time. And then somebody had a coffee and it would spill and then they’d have to rip it off and reset. And then the pen would break. So I always had these problems getting people’s name, email, phone number. And that’s where the money was at. So I thought about this concept, child animation.

 

Andy Audate (14:36.46)

And I had to build it years ago in Zapier and Text Magic and a bunch of other softwares together where I would tell an audience member, the entire audience, text me the word winner to my phone number. And I would give you this thing for free. And I would therefore generate their name, email and phone number of every single person in the audience. Now today, our software ProGretta does that for our clients where you can set that up in less than four minutes. And you can have a chat automation where someone could

 

text you a specific keyword and the software will automatically respond to that person asking for their name, email, or phone number. And so you’re collecting their data, but you can also automate a sales appointment on the backend. And all of that can be done automatically, whether it’s one person, 100 people, or 1 ,000 people at any given

 

Tyler Jorgenson (15:23.73)

See, this is what I love about people who have worked in the streets as well as in the digital world. Because the idea of taking the things that used to work and still work technically when you’re out, but just making them better with technology is so powerful. So you replaced the messy, sloppy notepad into an automation system that gets people immediately into your CRM. You used to have to go home and try to transcribe all of those messages into some type of a system.

 

hopefully you could read everyone’s handwriting. Yeah. Or, you know, is that a seven or a one? You know, and so now you’ve got everything there. It’s all dialed in. And then now you use this for yourself, but you also then offer this as a software, as a service, right?

 

Andy Audate (15:54.476)

Yes, that’s a problem.

 

Andy Audate (16:08.184)

Correct. Correct. So not only is it great for our speakers who are in the field, but also for people who are local brick and mortar businesses. So for example, in the cell phone, in the brick and mortar space, the way that I would do it is I would say text the word, like we have hair salons, for example, utilizing this. We have insurance companies. Text the word quote to this phone number to receive your free quote. And that starts the sales process. We have companies as big as Progressive utilizing this. Franchises of

 

utilizing this technology. And the way that it starts is text the word quote to this phone number and our chat automation kicks in. It captures the name, email, and phone number of the prospect and then sends it to the agency and then the agency can now follow up. And this is somebody who’s driving by a billboard or someone’s walking by your store, never entered in your facility, but you now have the name, email, and phone number of someone who’s genuinely interested to do business with

 

Tyler Jorgenson (17:02.108)

Yeah, absolutely. So Andy, in addition to all these cool things you’re working on, I know that, like you mentioned, you’ve been on a fitness journey, you’ve had a lot of things going on in life. What is one major challenge that you had to face over the past decade and how did you overcome

 

Andy Audate (17:18.114)

My biggest, one of the biggest challenges that I had to face was probably imposter syndrome. Coming from where I come from, the smallest state in the country, I was raised in the smallest city in that state. So I’m from Rhode Island and I was raised in the smallest city in that state, one square mile from one end to the other. And one of the things that I had to really fight was the fact that I see some players that are big online and on the internet and on stages. And I asked myself, how can I compare knowing that I come from the smallest state in the country, the smallest city.

 

raised around drug dealers, gang bangers, and so forth. How could you compare and add value to the world like these people are? That’s one of the biggest things that I had to face. what I ultimately let myself know is that’s an attack by the devil to keep me small because there is a group of people that’s depending on me to be successful. And those people aren’t going to receive the benefits if I don’t show up. And that’s my message to the world is there’s a group of people that’s depending on you, regardless of where you come from, your background, your origination.

 

There’s a group of people depending on you to be successful. So if you can identify what’s your avenue of success and you go all in knowing that you’ll be attacked spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, if you keep prospering, you will win. That’s number one. And number two, there’ll be a group of people that will thank you for it down the

 

Tyler Jorgenson (18:36.03)

Andy, that’s awesome. I really hope people find, follow you on social media. We’ll link all those things in the show, but I believe it’s just Andy Audate on most socials. They can find you pretty quickly. But to me and to you, sounds like as well, business isn’t just about making money, right? It’s also about having a life that you enjoy, having lifestyle freedom. What is one personal item on your personal bucket list you’re going to accomplish in the next 12 months?

 

Andy Audate (19:02.488)

Having a baby boy. Hehehehe. I’m The Thrist.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (19:05.325)

Do you already know it’s a boy or is that what you’re manifesting? Okay.

 

Andy Audate (19:08.12)

That’s what I’m manifesting right now, My wife ain’t pregnant, but I’m manifesting, man.

 

Tyler Jorgenson (19:14.684)

Alright, we got three months to make that. That’s a good one. is this your first? Do you guys have kids?

 

Andy Audate (19:22.764)

Nah, no kids right now. My kids, my current kid is my company. So no kids right

 

Tyler Jorgenson (19:26.974)

Yeah, man. good luck on that transition. It’s a really awesome stage. Nothing more rewarding than raising kids. no, man, I have four old ones. My kids are old now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my youngest is 14. So yeah, they’re getting older. But Andy, really appreciate you coming out on the show. Everyone, please go give him a follow. Give him a shout out. Let him know that.

 

Andy Audate (19:34.744)

Do you have little ones?

 

So you say you’ve gone through the journey four times

 

Andy Audate (19:44.172)

Okay, got

 

Tyler Jorgenson (19:53.714)

There ain’t no imposter syndrome needed over there with Andy Audate. He’s the real deal, brings the fire. I’m grateful for you. We’ll have tons of really of bonuses and stuff in the show notes. So please check out bizninjaradio .com. Check out Andy’s episode to catch all of those links and to all my entrepreneurs, my biz ninjas, wherever you are, it’s your turn to go out and do something.

 

Andy Audate (20:14.52)

Yes.