[Top Agency Series] From Struggling Waiter to Affluent Business Owner With Anatoliy Labinskiy

Anatoliy Labinskiy is the Founder of Golden Stream Media (GSM), a boutique e-commerce growth agency. With seven years of experience in sales, digital marketing, and business development, he has served international clients across various industries, including e-commerce, construction, gas, banking, and event organization. Anatoliy is a four-time winner of seven-figure awards in the e-commerce space and is an official member of the Forbes Business Council.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Anatoliy Labinskiy talks about his PDF book, Steal My Ad
• How Anatoliy went from working several part-time jobs to being a successful agency owner
• Anatoliy’s experience building, marketing, and losing numerous online businesses
• The challenges of managing an agency during the war in Ukraine
• Case study: transforming a struggling company through creative advertising solutions

In this episode…

How does one transition from struggling to make ends meet to achieving personal and professional success? Do you have the entrepreneurial determination, grit, and tenacity to transform your life?

After losing multiple part-time jobs and barely paying the rent on a master bedroom in a small Dubai apartment, Anatoliy Labinskiy came across e-commerce. He launched and lost several online businesses before discovering the power of compelling advertising copy. When marketing a product, Anatoliy emphasizes the importance of developing succinct, witty advertising copy that drives sales and increases your return on ad spend. His PDF book Steal My Ad shows you how to structure each offer to demonstrate consumer value.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Anatoliy Labinskiy, Founder of Golden Stream Media, about his journey as a Ukrainian agency owner. Anatoliy explains how he went from working several part-time jobs to being a successful business owner, the challenges of managing an agency during the war in Ukraine, and how he transformed a struggling company through creative advertising solutions.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Anatoliy Labinskiy on LinkedIn
• Golden Stream Media (GSM)
• Steal My Ad: How to Sell Like Crazy With Right Marketing Hook? by Anatoliy Labinskiy

Related episode(s):

• “Overcoming Grief, Hiring Amazing People, And Building a Successful Business with Chris Martinez of Dude Agency”
• “[Top Agency Series] NFTs, the Metaverse, and Advertising in the Digital World With Chris Madden”
• “How to Make Your Website Visitors Do What You Want with Martin Greif, President of SiteTuners”

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. We have Anatoliy Labinskiy of Golden Stream Media. And Anatoliy before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out the podcast. We had Chris Martinez, founder of Dude, and he helps agencies scale by providing web development services. Chris Madden talked about NFT’s the metaverse and advertising. I’m new to the NFT space. So I really pressed him on the questions of what he did with his agency. And how he’s used NFT’s in his agency is pretty interesting and how to make your website visitors do what you want with Martin Greif the President of Site Tuners. And he actually did some full site breakdowns on the episode. So watch that one, make sure you watch the video. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to their dream 100 relationships and partnerships, and how do we do that? We help you run your podcast, we are a strategy, accountability and execution for your podcast. So it makes sense for your business. And for me, Anatoliy the number one thing in my life is relationships, I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, I’ve found no better way to do that than the profile that people and companies I most admire in this planet over the past decade. And share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions go to rise25.com. I’m excited to introduce Anatoliy Labinskiy is the founder of Golden Stream Media. And going through media is an e-commerce growth agency which helps to generate six and seven-figure results for their clients. In less than five years, he went from a simple waiter to a successful business owner. And one thing that we’ll talk a little bit about which he gives away some of the secrets, which is kind of interesting, he has a Steal My Ad PDF book. And he’ll share where you can actually grab that, but he shares his formulas is ad templates so that you can plug and play their winning ads. So Anatoliy thanks for joining me.

Anatoliy Labinskiy  2:32 

Hey, Jeremy, appreciate it for inviting me on this beautiful podcast. And I’m really excited to share as much value as I can to your audience. And hopefully it will be workable for some of them.

Jeremy Weisz  2:43 

Let’s start with the Steal My Ad. So why share some of your formulas because sometimes people keep those close to their chest.

Anatoliy Labinskiy  2:53 

Oh, first of all, like the rule of my life, like just, we are in the service business. And like share as much as you can more than like people asking, and you will succeed. I mean, you will never have problems with the clients, you’ll never have problems with the business success, if you want to be just sharing. And that’s actually what create my mentor for me in my mind when I was there starting back in 2017. So that kind of Steal My Ad PDF, it’s really polite, so many people don’t understand the value of it like, that kind of ad copy structure, that kind of structure allowed us to make over eight figures, which is over 10 million so far, it’s over 14 millions in the clients results just by using the simple template, which gives us perfect approach of the Avatar which we are looking for. So that’s why like if you guys had an e-commerce just go and download that that’s for sure it’s going to be valuable for you.

Jeremy Weisz  3:54 

So what are some examples that are in there?

Anatoliy Labinskiy  3:57 

So there is the ad copies, actually, not like there is a structure of the copies which is like how you have to use the copy like what is exactly excitability of your offer. How the do you have to show to people like that they are going to be saving time on this offer, what kind of value you have to put in what kind of line so exactly like step by step the structure, the skeleton of your ad copy, like putting the value in reducing the time cost or who cost on the financial part. And everything of that there is a perfect formula, which we just combined in all together with the examples and building out for your particular industry your perfect formula and start testing out, three to five different ad copies to test it out on the testing campaigns. And for sure you can find it the winning one. You just need to use the formula and edit your own sentences in.

Jeremy Weisz  4:54 

Where can people check that out just so we can point them to it.

Anatoliy Labinskiy  4:58 

Yeah, perfect. You could find it on our website, go to goldenstreammedia.com. And there is going to be the line our packages, and in the bottom is going to be their PDF, Steal My Ad, which you can download it by using the code from the podcast.

Jeremy Weisz  5:15 

It’s interesting about interviewing successful people, it looks on the surface like it was an overnight success. But we know it takes years and years and years and sometimes decades before we hit that. And this has kind of been true with your journey as well. And even with your clients journey, is that always you hit it right out of the gate. And you’re like, Oh, now all the ads are running on Full Tilt. You’re being successful with the campaigns, it takes a little time to tweak it. There was a point in your career that you were putting stuff on credit cards, and it wasn’t working. Take me back to that, that time period.

Anatoliy Labinskiy  6:00 

Oh, I don’t want to go too far. But yes, actually whole journey is all about fail to be honest. Like it’s not there. Well for sure, not overnight success. And there is for sure, like nothing like I woke up and start making results. I back in 2017 My wife said to me that she’s pregnant and I was completely broke. We were renting the simple master bedroom in the Philippines of a couple apartments just a simple master bedroom so we didn’t have even our own apartments and I understood that if she is pregnant and we were living in Dubai at that moment, she will lose her job and she will lose the insurance and it means we won’t be able to cover even apartments because you have to work together to be able to pay for the bills and I just like went to the pharmacy to buy another test and to double check everything and I just stuck to us 35 degrees February 2017 And I like stuck and promise to myself that I will make things opposite when my baby will come in this world I will not allowed him to go to what I’m going now and that’s where our journey started. Like I started searching online for different things what can make me money and I’ve in the past I was a waiter in that particular moment I was already working in construction company as a salesperson because I love sales I’m good in sales and I was just like try finally get the job in the industry. But didn’t get paid well because I just got first job what was offered and I start searching how I can make money online and then August in 2017 When my wife already went to you we Ukraine because we had no choice I sent her to Ukraine and stay in Dubai by myself. I moved to the apartments with seven other guys in two bedroom apartments. We were like sharing the beds in the same rooms and I start searching what could be working and in August 2017 I found out what is e-commerce it’s insane for me it was just like aha moment I’m calling that I’m gonna be repeating that word again and again aha moment which is I found before it was doesn’t matter what I’m going to be doing I just want to make it money nothing else I’m gonna be doing whatever is needed but when I read what is e-commerce what is all about Facebook advertising itself, I like whoa, I want to figure it out how that works. I just like I don’t know well how I don’t know when but we’ll make it work. And from that particular moment, paler started I launched my first store it was mikeyticketzone.com It wasn’t like a CAT STORE drop shipping model and I lost them everything what they had from the part-time jobs which I have from my main job all the savings. I lost my baby’s about to come in October September October I like to test in less hell everything and nothing wasn’t working out just because I wasn’t following one simple strategy and didn’t follow the KPIs. I didn’t know what this KPI is on the advertising. And actually that was my first fail and my fault that I didn’t follow the simple steps. So basically it was continue happening till the middle of January 2018 where I found a mentor like I already had no money on behind and I already owed some money to people like because like I wasn’t able to run it anymore but I was like taking money from others parts working more on part times didn’t sleep and like just like invested and promise to myself that I’m going to be making it happen. My wife said I will divorcing you if you will not stop it. I was addicted. My eyes were like crazy. Like I had a blink like rounds. around my eyes. I was like yellow for having the yellow face because I was sleeping up to three hours a day, up to three hours a day. Seriously one or two nights in a year. I slept 40 Min. It’s a day, that was the help. I don’t recommend anyone that. But I was like working on five different jobs for four times one main job. And plus I was studying e-commerce and advertising. So basically in January, I found out mentor, I decided to give a try on the last month, it was only $47 a month for the group coaching, where he will analyze my ads during the call. And that was just like, oh, this is what should I do? Like, first, almost five months, I was wasting money without even understanding the KPIs. It’s strange. So it was just newbies mistakes. And I just used to do what he said, and made my first $8,000 in the 15 days of working together in the group coaching. And this is where really officially story begin with the e-commerce results.

Jeremy Weisz  10:53 

Your wife comes to you and says to you, what do you say back?

Anatoliy Labinskiy  10:58 

I said, oh, it was couple it was several times this kind of conversation. But I said to her every single time. I know how it looks. I know I completely understand you, but I won’t quit. This is something what is going to work? It’s never nobody sharing their experience in life. Nobody shall be like who you asked me in the beginning of the podcast about the sharing. I said, no, people are sharing for free. They just saying why can you just need us questions, Facebook groups, that moment, it was super like trendy Facebook groups. I was started asking questions from the right people. And like, no, it’s a scam. And if you want to stop it, I will divorcing you. I said, whatever you’re saying now, I understand it’s not serious. But if you’re serious, I will accept it. But I have to let you know I’m doing that for you and for our son. So sorry, be patient. And that was like always the answer. But sometimes it was harder. But I was trying to convenience.