[00:00:00] 

[00:00:47] Young Improfiters, welcome back to the show, and I am smiling ear to ear because today we have an amazing conversation with Rudy Moore.

[00:00:56] Rudy is the direct response and paid ads [00:01:00] king. He knows everything about this topic, and you guys know that I love to talk marketing, so I'm so excited for this conversation because Rudy He really knows his stuff. Now I've interviewed so many great marketers from Gary Vee to Russell Brunson. And Rudy reminds me of these folks so much because he just truly knows his stuff.

[00:01:17] He's responsible for so many celebrity brands. He's the genius behind it all. And he's so good at what he does. He really knows the ins and outs of direct response marketing. So I can't wait to pick his brand. We're going to learn everything about it. Everything about paid ads, how to make converting ads, how to use psychology, how to create great funnels, how to warm up our leads, the difference between organic traffic and paid ads traffic and how we have to treat that traffic.

[00:01:42] We're going to talk metrics. We're going to talk LTV. Again, this is truly a masterclass when it comes to direct response. So without further delay, because I seriously can't wait for this conversation, here's my conversation with the man in red, Rudy Moore 

[00:01:57] Hala Taha: Rudy, welcome to Young and Profiting [00:02:00] podcast. 

[00:02:00] Rudy Mawer: What's up? It's great to be here. 

[00:02:02] Hala Taha: I'm excited to be here too. I feel like we're going to have so many lessons for all of our entrepreneurs tuning in right now. Rudy, I was doing some research for the show and I found out that you have a goal of becoming a billionaire.

[00:02:15] And like me, you've been an entrepreneur since your teens. So tell me, why do you have this big audacious goal of becoming a billionaire? 

[00:02:23] Rudy Mawer: I get asked this question a lot. I think a lot of people think, Oh, why does someone need that much money? And I was explaining this yesterday to a friend.

[00:02:30] If you're a pro athlete, say you play basketball, your goal is to win the NBA. If you're a sprinter, your goal is to win an Olympic gold medal. So I think to me, I'm very competitive. I came from a sporting background. If I'm in business to me, the billion dollar mark signifies all the things that I want to create in the world around business.

[00:02:51] So impact. Legacy changing the world in a positive way having amazing teams and products and [00:03:00] international reach all of those things are summarized by building a billion dollar company and look, could it be worth 500 million and still do all those things? Absolutely. Could it be 4 billion or 20 billion and do all those things?

[00:03:11] Yes. So for me, it's a bigger goal of Being the best version of myself, winning what I would class as like the gold medal in the sport of business and impacting the world. 

[00:03:21] Hala Taha: I love the fact that there's some intrinsic goals tied to that big billion dollar goal. I think that's really important so that you stay motivated.

[00:03:30] So, you've had an amazing career journey and you're still really young. By the time you were 26, you scaled your first multi million dollar business. By the time you were 30, you had four multi million dollar businesses that you helped scale. And now you're known as this celebrity marketer for A List Celebrities, you run ROI Machines which is a top direct response agency.

[00:03:50] Can you just give us a high level of your career journey? Like how did you get started in all of this? How did you end up scaling businesses? 

[00:03:57] Rudy Mawer: so I was a typical kid in school, like buying and [00:04:00] selling, hustling. I actually got banned from selling in the playground when I was like 8 years old. My entire life when I was a teenager, I built one of the largest gaming communities in the world, built my own websites, really got into tech, right?

[00:04:13] When computers were taken off 20 years ago, was eBaying buying and selling on eBay, making thousands of dollars as a teenager, then continued my hustle. When I turned 18, I became a personal trainer. But instead of just working in a gym, I built my own website and ranked number one for SEO in my area and built a bit of a personal training business, ran nightclub events, then started buying real estate with all the profit I made from personal training.

[00:04:40] So I bought a few houses as a student, rented them out to my best friends and all my college friends. So typical entrepreneur, and then moved to America at 23, 24, made my first million within a couple of years of getting out here in the fitness space, took that company to about 8 million. That led to a advertising [00:05:00] agency where we were spending tens of thousands of dollars a day on Facebook ads and social media ads.

[00:05:05] I think at our peak, we spent up to 300, 000 a day on social media ads. And then, yeah, I've done a lot since, built a ton of companies, ran a 300 employee company, built all these brands with celebrities and built our holding company, which now we have a bunch of trainings and courses and celebrity brands.

[00:05:24] Hala Taha: What a wild career and you obviously are a person who really thinks outside the box. You really believe that life is limitless. And I think a lot of that had to do with your upbringing and your parents, your environment. So I found out that your parents were Olympians. How did that really shape your perspective on life and entrepreneurship in general?

[00:05:44] Rudy Mawer: Someone asked me, And I'm sure you maybe will ask at some point why the red and the red to me, when I started my personal brand, I've always been different. And at my first time, remember being different is if you know anything about England, they're obsessed with soccer. It's basically their life and the success [00:06:00] of the English soccer team or their own soccer team they support is going to dictate their happiness in life.

[00:06:05] And I remember during the, uh, world cup, the soccer world cup, I decided to support Brazil and Brazil knocked England out in the semifinal. So I was very unpopular. Uh, In school that day, the teachers actually asked me to stay home, and instead of staying home, I turned up later that day in a Brazil shirt.

[00:06:23] I think I got bullied all day and beaten up about 20 times throughout the day. But, I've always been different, right? And I've always not been afraid to stand out and do my own thing, and I think my parents gave me that, not because they were financially successful, but My mom was a gold medalist in triathlon and my dad was the Great Britain team manager.

[00:06:41] So he was actually the manager of the Olympic team, the Great Britain triathlon team. So I got to travel every weekend. I was going to races around the world, hanging out with the best athletes in the world. And it really just showed me you can achieve anything in life. You can be unique. You can do whatever you want.

[00:06:58] If you really believe in [00:07:00] yourself and work hard. 

[00:07:01] Hala Taha: I know when I was. In my teens, like 18, 19, I worked at Hot 97, and I remember just meeting a new celebrity every day. I'd meet J Lo, then Jay Z, then Chris Brown, and sometimes I'd be hanging out, having dinner with them, going out with them. And it made me realize that these are just normal people, and that anything is possible.

[00:07:19] And so, environment is so important, and who you surround yourself is so important. I know that you moved to America at a pretty young age. You said 23? You moved to Miami first, or where did you first move to? 

[00:07:32] Rudy Mawer: I was in a small town in england no one liked money i liked money and i would speak about money and trying to make a bunch of money and become a millionaire and i remember my girlfriend at the time she'd kick me under the table if i was at dinner with her family or someone if you talk about money it's like you're bragging and this terrible thing in england in my city.

[00:07:53] The idea of success was you earn a hundred grand a year and drive a range rover and you know in miami it's like every [00:08:00] second person probably does that right so it's just. I realized that was the wrong environment for me and all the big successful people I followed actually through podcasting and social media when it really took off like what, 15 years ago, they were all in America.

[00:08:14] So I was like, I've got to get there. So I moved to Tampa, Florida. I actually did a master's degree in sports science, which was my first business because it's very hard to get into America. So easiest way was to do a master's degree. Um, While I was there, I applied for a full long term visa. So I got an 01 visa, which is classed as an extraordinary individual.

[00:08:33] So I had to submit evidence of my businesses and I had recommendation letters from some of the biggest companies and celebrities and athletes in the world, and that's what allowed me to stay in America. And so I grew a big office in Tampa and then last year opened an office in Miami, which is what I'm sat in right now.

[00:08:50] Just because it's, you know, again, it's a level up, right? Tampa's a level up from England. Miami's a level up from Tampa, more money here, more celebrities, more opportunity. 

[00:08:59] Hala Taha: And [00:09:00] so Rudy is sitting in a big red chair right now for everybody who's tuning in. He's got an awesome studio, nicer studio than I do.

[00:09:07] And he just started podcasting. So This big, shocking red color that you've plastered all over your office, your social media, you walk around with like a red furry coat, even when it's not cold, right? Yeah, it feels So, tell us why the red? Why are you so adamant about the red? And are you getting sick of the red now that it's been a while?

[00:09:31] Rudy Mawer: I like gimmicks and I like being different. So I'm not sick of the red because I like people when they laugh or make jokes about me or comment in a friendly way. Really, I love the red. It's great. I like that stuff. You know, again, I like to be different. I'm not sick of it. Yeah, I will say I'm a big fashion.

[00:09:48] I love fashion. And so I have in my Tampa house, I have a whole wardrobe of designer I like that. Black jackets and stuff. I can never wear again. It's very sad. And occasionally when I'm shopping, I see this awesome coat [00:10:00] or jacket that's black or gray or blue. And I'm like, Oh, I wish I could buy this, but that's the only downside.

[00:10:05] But no, uh, yeah, my whole office is red. So we grew a 12, 000 square foot office in Tampa, 50 staff, everyone had to wear red. They got sent home if they didn't come in uniform, which was red. The, you know, The whole office was red, the Miami offices are red, the brand's all red, the cars are red and people even ask me when I'm on stage, yes, my underwear is red, if you're wondering.

[00:10:25] So all in on the red, all in. 

[00:10:27] Hala Taha: What has that done for your brand? How do you feel like it's impacted your brand? 

[00:10:32] Rudy Mawer: I would love to say I came in with this exact plan, that wasn't the case, but I think one thing that made me successful is I'm really good at looking and learning and adapting and pivoting and then going all in.

[00:10:42] So I started my personal brand. Really when COVID hit, I really wanted to grow my personal brand in the business marketing world. I'd already done it in the fitness space. I had a million followers there. I've sold out events around the world, had a Facebook group, 60, 000 members, and I saw the power of it.

[00:10:59] And so I was like, [00:11:00] okay, well now I'm moving into the business space. I'm going to do the same here. So I brought someone in to run my agency. I went all in with my personal brand and we did 25 million in three years. Just selling courses, programs, coaching programs. So we grew up super fast and I'm saying that because I think half of that is because I went all in on the personal brand and the social and the organic and stages and all of that sort of stuff.

[00:11:24] So it had a massive impact. I don't think I would have grown it to that amount so quickly without the brand. But during that time, we were just getting feedback. People were buying courses, programs. I had this red backdrop, nothing as extreme as I've got now, but it was kind of similar to this, if you're watching on video and people loved it, they were buying 20 K mastermind saying, I don't even know who this guy is.

[00:11:45] I just see his red ads everywhere and his branding's on point. And he clearly knows what he's doing. Luckily touchwood in this industry. Do you feel I know what I'm doing? It's not just a facade, like half the industry we live in is. And then I was going to events when COVID lockdown [00:12:00] ended and all the friends that I'd known for five years were like, dude, I love your branding now, like how you did this whole red thing.

[00:12:06] So it just got more and more and more. And I'm a very extreme person, which is sometimes great and sometimes terrible. So I just went all in. All my cars are red, I made all the offices red, I made all the staff wear red, and I played into it and now it's very recognizable and I'm well known for it. 

[00:12:23] Hala Taha: I think the key thing is that you're memorable, right?

[00:12:26] There's so many other influencers out there, and you do have the knowledge to back it up and the credentials to back it up, but the red just makes it memorable and makes you stand out, whereas other people might have to be seen 10 times to be remembered. Maybe just once is all you need to be remembered.

[00:12:43] So how can other people replicate this? Like aside from picking a bright color, how can other entrepreneurs replicate this? 

[00:12:49] Rudy Mawer: let me bring it home for everyone listening. It's not about a color and a lot of people say Rudy, do I need to do all yellow? I'm like, no, no, no. What I teach is you need a, and I'm going to use this word, but I think everyone needs [00:13:00] a gimmick.

[00:13:00] Right. I've been fortunate enough to work with a lot of WWE wrestlers, some of the biggest in the world. I grew up watching and it's been very cool, but the biggest lesson from all the wrestlers is they all have a gimmick and, and the WWE, I mean, became a billion dollar company because it was so good at building characters.

[00:13:16] You've got the rock, you've got Hulk Hogan, you've got all these characters and they all have these gimmicks, right? And really what a gimmick is in my eyes is something memorable, something that you stand for. It could be a brand message. It could be a color. It could be a technique. It could be anything, right?

[00:13:34] For me, I ended up going for the red and it was my favorite color and it means standing out. But if you're listening, what do people know you for? What do they come to you for? What are you the expert in, right? And you're a great example. Like, whenever I have anyone ask me about a podcast or they want to get into this media space, I tell them to go find you and I've connected people with you and sent a lot of people to you.

[00:13:56] So, you know, I think everyone's goal should be how do I become what I [00:14:00] call a category king or an expert or a go to person in whatever I do, right? And that's a really great first step. 

[00:14:08] Hala Taha: I love that category king and I am, you're right, I am the podcast princess, so that's a perfect example. So I know that you are, speaking of category kings, you are the king when it comes to direct response marketing, also formally the king of, maybe still the king of Facebook ads, but that's going to be a question, are Facebook ads still relevant?

[00:14:29] But talk to us about direct response marketing. Entrepreneurs are listening to the show, but direct response is the. Complex word. I don't think people really know what it means, so break that down. What is the definition of direct response? 

[00:14:41] Rudy Mawer: Yeah, direct response marketing has been around for many years.

[00:14:44] It's like the underlying type of marketing behind a lot of big brands. Okay. And I think marketing, you can always split into two sides. You've got more like organic branding, fluffy social media marketing and branding. And then you've got what I call [00:15:00] more hardcore direct response marketing and to give you an example, if you're listening, direct response marketing is where it's a big promise or a big claim, or it's very clear.

[00:15:09] It's like lose 27 in 27 days with this two minute morning meditation, right? That's what direct response is. Cause it's a clear, Hey, do this and you will get this outcome. Branding would be more this fitness influencer that talks about weight loss and has all these different ads and social media content and something that they're known for, you know, eventually the goal of a brand is to build more like a Coca Cola or a Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton doesn't need to say.

[00:15:38] Buy this handbag and everyone will think you're rich and famous and this is what all the celebrities and it's a status symbol that would be direct response for Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton doesn't need to do that because it spent a hundred years or whatever building a brand. But when most of us start out, we're not Louis Vuitton or Gucci or Coca Cola or Nike as much as we wish we were and want to be.

[00:15:58] So, I think [00:16:00] more Beginners actually need to learn some level of direct response because it's what gets attention and it gets people to click and it gets people into your world, which is where you can then start impacting them. 

[00:16:11] Hala Taha: So just to break it down, there's direct response and there's brand. The other way that I think about it is direct response is like immediate, right?

[00:16:18] You're looking for immediate conversions, immediate leads. Branding is more of like awareness, long tail. You might get the leads later on, but it's more about getting. People familiar getting people warm. So what are the main ways that people do direct response? What are the main channels? 

[00:16:35] Rudy Mawer: Any platform that you can advertise and get some sort of an instant reaction is great for direct response.

[00:16:41] So for me. I don't do much in SEO. I don't know much about it. I think it's a good background thing to run, but if I build a new website today, there's a very, very small chance that I'm going to instantly rank number one on Google for a keyword. But what I can do is build a website today, build a social media, [00:17:00] Facebook and Instagram handle and profile.

[00:17:01] And set up an ad and I can get genuine leads, customers, and clicks to my website that same day or the next day maybe. So that's the big difference, right? And it's, a lot of people say really, well what's better? It's like asking what's better, diet or exercise? Yeah, you kind of need both long term, right?

[00:17:16] But you might start with one to really get going and then add in the second one and refine over time. So yeah, I think direct response, any social media platform where you can reach people instantly advertising on Facebook, Google ads, YouTube ads, all of those LinkedIn ads, and then most of the time you'll see direct response more with cleared landing pages and what we call in our world funnels.

[00:17:39] I like to call them more like sales processes where there's a clear angle, right? Someone's going to click that link on a social media ad. They're going to give their email. They're going to get redirected to a five minute video. And then at the end of the video, it tells them to book a sales call, or it tells them to buy a 200 product.

[00:17:56] That's more direct response. 

[00:17:57] 

[00:17:57] [00:18:00] 

[00:18:01] when it comes to social media, would you consider actual social posts if there's like DM retargeting or many chat automations? Do you consider that direct response as well? 

[00:18:15] Rudy Mawer: Yeah, I think you're definitely getting into that. And what's kind of weird and interesting, I'm glad you had this question because I wanted to bring this up, is in the last five years, there's been this merger, right?

[00:18:24] So five, ten years ago, all I did was direct response because that's what I was doing. How I learned all of this stuff and I just ran ads and funnels and you didn't even really need a brand but I really notice about You know, in my journey between five, 10 years ago, the power of the brand, I saw it, my own fitness brand.

[00:18:40] I saw it with the influencers I was working with. And that's why consciously about four or five years ago, I've really made an intention. I've spent millions of dollars building my brand because I saw the writing on the wall and I saw the future is going to be powerful, personal brands that also understand marketing.

[00:18:58] And if you look at. [00:19:00] Any of the biggest brands in the world, the ones that are crushing it, or especially the influencers, they understand both sides. They understand how to build a brand, how to build an audience, how to go viral, and then how to monetize it. 

[00:19:12] Hala Taha: So for me, I've been heavily focused on the brand aspect and building organic brands.

[00:19:18] So LinkedIn is one of my main platforms. And I have a course and my agency is just inbound leads from my brand. I don't ever have to do ads or anything like that. For my course, at a certain point, we're like, okay, let's test paid ads. So we hired an agency. We spent 30, 000. I sell out my course just organically, but we were like, Oh, let's just double the amount of people in the class and just do paid ads.

[00:19:43] Totally flopped, did not work at all. And I think the reason why is because on social media, people are so bought into me before they even think about buying the course. They see my stuff, they attended my webinars, I give them so much value. And when they're [00:20:00] seeing me on Facebook, they have no idea who I am.

[00:20:02] Even if they go attend a webinar, it's still not enough to convert them. It totally tanked for us. So talk to me about what I did wrong. 

[00:20:11] Rudy Mawer: It's so common and it took me a few years to really understand this in my agency and see the difference. So I now tell people straight up, and you're like an amazing case study, if I had this conversation with you, I would say, hey, when you go into cold traffic, You've got to realize it's like starting a second business.

[00:20:28] So you can't take everything that's working now, all your funnels and everything and copy it over and run ads to it and assume it's going to work. I wish that was the case. It would be easy if it was sadly, it's not because, and you already answered the question as to why, because people don't know, like, and trust you.

[00:20:45] And that's the amazing thing. If you can pull off growing an actual genuine organic personal brand and tribe. The life in business and marketing becomes way easier because you can throw up, you know, what I'll call a half baked landing page, a mini landing [00:21:00] page, a bit of a headline, a bit of a sub headline, a few bullets, a quick selfie video, and you'll get thousands of people by because they love you.

[00:21:08] But then if you go and run that to Facebook ads, it just doesn't work, right? Again, everyone asks, well, which is better, Rudy? It's like, look, if you can build a brand and tribe and community for sure, go do that, but realize that takes a lot of time, right? And you're also an exception, right? Whether you know it or not, you know, there's a lot of people that want to launch a podcast, they don't become you.

[00:21:26] Right? So it's really hard to become the next Mr. Beast, right? It's really hard to become a five, 10 million business organically. And it takes a lot of time. And that's why i like ads because i think a lot of people a they don't have the personality for organic social when i meet them i'm like you're not gonna film a video every day for the next three years and pull this off but you could have a really great landing page and some influences and you have an amazing supplement or whatever product and that could crush it for you so part of it's knowing your personality part of it's [00:22:00] knowing your goals and paths and.

[00:22:01] Like most things in life, you can start with exercise and lose a bunch of weight. And eventually you're going to say, well, I need to now really refine my diet to get even healthier and fitter and get my six pack. And you might start with diet and say, okay, I lost a bunch of weight, but now I'm skinny. And I really need to do some strength training to look better.

[00:22:18] So I'm going to add that in. And it's kind of the same for you. You went say the diet route and you go, okay, well now to get to that next level, I should add exercise too. I went the exercise route. And then I go, okay, well, to go to that next level, I got to add the diet part in. And there's no right or wrong.

[00:22:32] It's just two different paths that join eventually when you get to a certain level. 

[00:22:37] Hala Taha: so if I did want to try paid ads again, how should I do it differently? What should I think about? 

[00:22:43] Rudy Mawer: Easy way to understand paid ads and direct response is I always teach people, people are selfish. And if you don't tell them the benefit or the outcome in a couple of seconds, they're not going to listen.

[00:22:53] And that's very different to. If they're a loyal fan, because they'll listen to you for an hour, talk about your favorite color or your [00:23:00] favorite restaurant, right? Cause they love you. So you've got to treat it like they have no clue who you are and they only care about themselves. So let's run through it.

[00:23:07] Tell me the outcome of this course that you were trying to sell. 

[00:23:11] Hala Taha: So basically I was driving people to a webinar that I usually drive my organic following to where I teach them a little bit, and then I have some promo and sell a masterclass. 

[00:23:22] Rudy Mawer: And what does the masterclass teach? 

[00:23:25] Hala Taha: It's a two day LinkedIn workshop.

[00:23:27] Rudy Mawer: Okay. If they go through that, how's that going to change their life? 

[00:23:31] Hala Taha: I 10x their social media visibility and leads on LinkedIn. 

[00:23:36] Rudy Mawer: Great. So I would run everything reverse engineered from the final part, right? So I would go, in this webinar, how to 10x your social media and lead flow for your own business through LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

[00:23:48] Here's the case study of how I did it. Here's 10 of my clients do it. Here's the three things you're going to learn. Three core principles in this webinar. They attend the webinar. You teach the core principles and then you go, Hey, these are all [00:24:00] the core principles. If you want to go off and learn and implement these like I've done for the last five years.

[00:24:04] Now, you know where to start looking. If you want to just get my system where I've already put all these together and you can just copy and paste it into your own business, click here to buy. It has to start kind of reverse engineer it a little. It has to be very intentional to the outcome. They're already starting the first time they see you knowing, okay.

[00:24:22] This person is going to teach me how to 10X my lead gen through LinkedIn. And then you're teaching through it, and then it's linked to the offer. So that's part of it. And then you also just have to understand, economically, from a data standpoint, everything's going to be watered down. So if you're getting 50 percent of people showi