Zach Benson
Oh, wow. Yeah, you know, I think it was in the subject line, I put idea. And so I like to use the subject line idea, a lot. And, you know, in the first line, the sentence, I, I make them feel like, I understand their mission or goal, like what they’re trying to accomplish. I make them feel like I’ve done my homework, and I’ve done my research. So I listed out the different bullet points of what I liked and and how I could help. And basically, just, my call to action was like, hey, we’d be willing to do this for free for a year. And then after that, if you like the results, like let’s discuss something more. So I think that’s really what piqued your interest, because I think a lot of people, they, they want to try to taste the Kool Aid, they want to use a service. But, you know, it’s a lot of people don’t like, like, pull the trigger, I think because they’re scared, they’re scared of the unknown. They’re scared of like, being burned, scared of like wasting money on something that might not work and get them ROI. But when you come across and say, Hey, I’m willing to, I believe in your mission, I want to be a part of it. I like what you guys are doing, like, let’s work together and create a win win. And and, you know, we’ll do the work for free. I mean, that’s a no brainer.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, no, I like the fact that, you know, there is a, you put a time period on there. So that if they like it, you know, it’s not like this is free forever. But if you like the results, then, you know, we can work together further and in a year is a long time, you know, to do something that’s very generous. What How do you address what’s the catch? Or is that even in their mind? At that point? It’s like Know what? Yeah,
Zach Benson
yeah, no, catch really, I mean, no strings attached to think when you can help somebody. Just help them and give freely and try to just provide value and do what you can because you can. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
I’m gonna do I’m not saying there is a catch. I’m just saying like, are they thinking, Oh, well, after a year, then we’ll have to pay them. So that’s the catch, or do you get any pushback with that email being like, well, what’s the what’s the catch here years a long time.
Zach Benson
Yeah, and I mean, we had several calls. So I think they, they were just like, really, like I really piqued their interest because they’re like, Okay, well, let’s, let’s see what he can do in a year. And they, I think they were just willing to, like, give me a shot. So it was a lot of like, luck too, I would say, but I think, you know, when you when you’re willing to give your time, and give your energy, and you can communicate to that person that you want to work with, that you really want to work with them, and you want to gain experience and you want to help them you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really cool, it’s refreshing to see. And that’s how I’ve gotten a lot of these big names as clients is, I’ve hustled my way in, I put to get my foot in the door. I’ve proved myself I just showed them some amazing results. Maybe for a little bit less. I didn’t wasn’t my year anymore, you know, you know, maybe like a month or two. And you know, that five x 10 x by business.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah, I love that. You know, it’s really good first and by a friend colleague, mentor, Brian Kurtz says, you know, 100 zero, like, just give first don’t even expect anything in return and just try and give and help people. What, you know, are there any particular people that you’ve studied or you look at to for copywriting cold emailing, because it seems that you’ve included a lot of those, like really essential elements to and you’ve got to some really important and busy people.
Zach Benson
You know, to be honest, like before, all this stuff like this marketing stuff, I was a breakdancer and I taught dance all around the world 50 countries was on. So You Think You Can Dance a TV show for a little bit, and just taught dance all over the world. But how I was able to do that was not because I won the TV show. I it was because I put myself out there and I wasn’t afraid of rejection. And so I learned quick and fast early on that okay, a lot of people are afraid of to look bad, afraid of making mistakes, afraid to put their services and themselves out there, whether it’s like you’re listening to music and freestyling and dancing on stage. Or it’s like you’re trying to cold call or cold email someone I think a lot of us are afraid of like what that person might say. And so I’ve learned that it was just it was a numbers game and and through trial and error and making a lot of mistakes. When I was trying to reach out to dance studios, like I kind of figured out a way to you know, pique interest in and seal deals through email. So I did I have not really read any resources. I think I should I think I could probably get better for sure. But no, I love it. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
yeah. So who are some of the interesting people you were able to connect with? Because of the Dubai what you were doing with Dubai?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so from that um, I connected to some really like big influencers and in LA like the the Fat Jewish and I he’s like a comedian guy. Like
Jeremy Weisz
he actually Jewish and fat or what?
Zach Benson
Yeah, yeah. Go to the Fat Jewish, it’s just post really weird, crazy stuff. I’m able to get connected to The Mccords like her big influencers in Hollywood. People who who’ve launched movies like 200 movie campaigns, like rings, The Hobbit Chronicles of Narnia like Toy Story, all of those things. So it really like just, like, blew up my network. And, yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
let’s talk. Let’s talk about um, I know, we have we have a lot of stories talk about we’ll talk about you know, how Russell Brunson and what were some of the things you did with with him and his company. But I figured we just take a look at Instagram for a second. And like, I think I told you off camera, say I am a total total Instagram newbie, like, I just go into Nature is Metal, and then I binge watch it and then I get out. That’s what I do. Okay. Oh, if anyone hasn’t checked out that channel, that’s like, I don’t know, maybe it’s too graphic for people that but yeah, um, so I searched motivational, there’s any in particular, so you’ll just, you’ll just kind of riff off of whatever you see and talk about some of the you know, I know you talk about big mistakes people make on Instagram, you talk about you know, different growth hacks and other things. So I don’t know if there’s any particular account here on Yeah,
Zach Benson
innovation while I mean, if you just type in the word so we have motivation up right you can see good thing down says 233 million posts on motivation. So if you if you go scroll up top and click on motivation, the third row right here, yeah, got it. You know, it has 233 million posts on it. So what I’m saying guys is like, you’re, if you’re using that hashtag that’s super basic generic that has hundreds of millions of posts on it, the likelihood of you actually showing up for that hashtag is is like zero, because so many people are using it every several times, you know, 100, thousands and thousands of times a day, right? It’s like you won’t ever be seen. So what I recommend is that you when you’re doing hashtag research, because hashtag research is a very important thing, that you need to learn how to do the right way that so that’ll help you get your content seen and grow your account. You want to type in a basic hashtag like motivation, like, let’s say that you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a coach, you’re an author. So you’re gonna find hashtags that are related to regrow hair, and ancient Yeah, you see that, and go ahead and click on Like, maybe, like, motivational quote, or, like self motivation, like one of those. And you’re going to kind of narrow down so you went from 233 million posts to now it’s, this one only has 2 million points. 602 point 6 million posts, right? Yeah. And then you can narrow down even more and find like, like, let’s say, like, motivation is key, click on that one. Now, this one has like, half a million. And so you’re gonna keep narrowing down your hashtags, until you find hashtags that have between, like, 25, to 50,000 posts on them, you know, 50, to 100,000, posts, hundred to 200,200 to 500,000. hashtags, and you’re going to write them down, you’re going to create multiple sets, and you’re going to use these hashtags. When you post content. And this, the hashtags are what gets your content seen. So if you don’t get use hashtags, the only way to be seen as if you pay Instagram money and boost and promote your post, Scott.
Jeremy Weisz
So hashtag research is absolutely key. And it’s it’s like the, you know, SEO for Instagram, you know, like someone trying to rank for a really broad keyword, it’s gonna be really hard to do.
Zach Benson
Right? Right. So you got to niche down, narrow down, find smarter ones, I would say create per hashtag set, like create about 25 to 30 hashtags, create multiple sets of hashtags, and use them use maybe two to three hashtags in your in your caption, and after you post, copy and paste the rest of them into the first comment, and start to see like which ones performed the best throughout the month, which ones give you more engagement, likes, views, impressions, followers, and, you know, start start using them now. I
Jeremy Weisz
love it. Thanks for sharing that. Are there any other who’s a good maybe account to look at to break down maybe what they’re doing well, maybe what they need to improve on?
Zach Benson
Sure. I mean, so we’re talking about motivation. I mean, like, I mean, we could talk about like, Gary Vee or Russell Brunson or one of those guys showing go is his account,
Jeremy Weisz
Click Funnels or is it Russell Brunson
Zach Benson
A Russell Brunson. So, yeah. Two L’s Brunson. brun. Yeah, there we go. Okay, well, he he’s on private right now. I think they’re doing a promotion. Let’s choose. Let’s use Gary Vee. Russell, Russell’s a client client of ours. Let’s do Gary Vee. So his account is open. So let’s let’s first like look at his bio. Okay. So I think a lot of people, like when you’re crafting your bio and writing your bio, you actually want to write it in a note in the notepad, right? So you want to basically write it out, um, off the Instagram app, so that you can use emojis, you can like, line everything up. So it’s looks like really nice. And then Instagram also, lets you put in one link, okay, so on Gary Vee, like his profile, like, there’s a couple of call to actions, right? It’s like, text me. And then you’re gonna get into text funnels and text follow ups and sequences. And then he also looks like he has a new article with entrepreneur.com. So he’s like, Are you surprised
Jeremy Weisz
that that he puts he’s linking onto an article here as opposed to all the other content he has out there? Does that surprise you? Or no,
Zach Benson
you know, I, I think there’s a specific reason. So I mean, if we if we We go there, we could check it out. But I think I think he has a lot of content. He’s like, everywhere. He’s on Twitter. He’s on YouTube. He’s on Instagram, right? Um, he has a lot of good content. So as you scroll down, you can see his highlights. Okay, so if Yeah, if you if you even scroll up a little bit more, um, you can see like how he has you know, his his his podcasts right his stuff about music the scroll down. So a Gary Vee does his his headliners. His text is really good. Like, yeah, it gets pizza. David bought 8000 horses before something. Yeah, he’s good at getting people to click. Right. So you always have to think about like, how can I choose a thumbnail on my video? How can I use like, the right text on the video to get people to click because when people go to your page, you have like, literally just a seconds before they choose to click on something or choose to, to leave and you want to you want to keep them staying on your page. So
Jeremy Weisz
he glenstone one sticks out big time. He’s using
Zach Benson
Yeah, like cartoons and making it fun. And, you know, he’s, he’s, I think a lot of these influencers right now are using more cartoons. And those are working pretty well. So
Jeremy Weisz
so he’s doing a good job overall.
Zach Benson
And you know, the thing is, is that you guys can use this too. So if you see other cartoons, like even from Gary Vee, for example, or other very motivational pages, you can use like a second very strategy called repost strategy. Or you could repost it onto your page, give you know Gary Vee or whatever account credit and then write something and say like, what that what it means to you and tie it into your personal life in business. Mm hmm. So
Jeremy Weisz
is there anything he you think he can improve on here?
Zach Benson
I don’t know. I mean, he’s pretty big now. Yeah. Like, I don’t know.
Jeremy Weisz
Random like who’s another one maybe that you consider, you know, just prolific or big in whatever the marketing entrepreneur space but you may have never seen their Instagram account. You know, Gary Vee is probably you know, he’s obviously, you know, one of the top experts in you know, social media in general, but who would usually look up just to see what their account looks like.
Zach Benson
Hmm, and you any names fact pattern? Um,
Jeremy Weisz
let’s see. Um, you’ve interviewed a lot of people. Let’s see a who’s who I’ve interviewed. Maybe. Let’s let’s take a quick look. Actually on Inspired Insider to see who it is. Um
Zach Benson
Yeah, there’s so there’s so many things I think, though that Gary Vee does a pretty good job on on his account.
Jeremy Weisz
Let’s see here. Um, you know, oh, let’s look up Kim Walsh Philips. I love Kim’s stuff. Kim do you know Kim Walsh Phillips.
Zach Benson
No.
Jeremy Weisz
Okay. Yeah, she I love her stuff. She’s always doing some amazing stuff on social media too. So let’s take a look at her account. So Kim, if you’re listening we’re hopefully this will help you out a little bit. So let’s look at Kim’s stuff.
Zach Benson
So So yeah, I mean, pretty pretty. So for the bio like, like because her username is Kim Walsh Phillips Yeah, a trick that we’ve we do for a lot of our clients accounts is instead of putting the name twice, Kim Walsh Phillips Kim Walsh Phillips that second one see where you’re pointing that like, in the bold the bold letters, like you can actually put
Jeremy Weisz
Oh, yeah, I see what you mean right here. Yeah.
Zach Benson
About a great marketing ninja. Yeah, yeah, you can actually put like three different keywords that you want to show up for and rank for so when people are searching like she she could put digital marketing ninja right in place, have to replace a name. Or like, let’s say that your author or podcast host you could put other keywords in that name section that you want to show it for. And this is like a really cool SEO trick.
Jeremy Weisz
Right, Kim? If you’re listening, change it. Yeah, what else? Um,
Zach Benson
you know, just simple things. Like I think like, you know, you saw on Gary V’s profile, he did a down arrow. Yeah. So I think you always want to be directing people to stuff and make sure that like Think of ways that you can cut down on Arrow into the URL. Yeah, down arrow to the URL, maybe like ad put like ad one k email subscribers. So then her spacing could be better with that fire symbol. Hmm. You know, maybe like putting a two other emojis in front of like fueled and, and maybe created another line there. So that is just consistent with three emojis. Maybe using a profile picture that’s a little bit closer, like, or if like a headshot, like that’s
Jeremy Weisz
the zoomed in more.
Zach Benson
Yeah. And then if we scroll down, you know, maybe click on a couple of her posts.
Jeremy Weisz
Like this one, maybe?
Zach Benson
Sure. Yeah. So yeah, definitely, like use hashtags, like,
Jeremy Weisz
so she doesn’t have hashtags.
Zach Benson
Well, I don’t know. Maybe if you click on the comments, click on that plus button. Yeah, scroll up. Yeah, sorry, using some work some hashtags.
Jeremy Weisz
So I have the post, but then in the comments, put a bunch of hashtags like you were saying
Zach Benson
before. Yeah, exactly.
Jeremy Weisz
Because that’s like low hanging fruit for her.
Zach Benson
Yeah. So these are just a
Jeremy Weisz
couple for get ranked. But yeah, and different things. Exactly. Yeah. Kim, put some hashtags here. Yeah. What else? So should I go to the back to the home
Zach Benson
yeah, exit out exit out of that. Okay. Um, I don’t know she has very like yeah, I yeah, I would just like switch it up with like, different types of pictures. Yeah, different types of pictures videos like put like, kind of that that text on the video like you saw Gary Vee do like so they know like, Okay, well a lot of these videos like they have the same thumbnail so what is the difference people wanted at a first glance be able to tell like what what what is
Jeremy Weisz
a Yeah, a lot of packs done all the all the thumbnails.
Zach Benson
Yeah, but I like how she’s always smiling and a lot of pictures like she’s she seems she’s got a lot of positivity, positive energy vibe. So it makes the page fun. But uh, you know, I like to see more text on the videos and okay. Clear with different influencers and people that love it.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. So let’s talk about Russell Brunson. Yeah. How’d you connect with him in his company, and what did you do for them?
Zach Benson
So Russell Brunson. So, I actually spoke at this event called Traffic Mastery Life. Ed O’Keefe. Shout out.
Jeremy Weisz
I love Ed O’Keefe Oh my god. It’s a hustle. That’s the best and was in Chicago. Zach.
Zach Benson
This was in Nashville. This was in
Jeremy Weisz
Nashville. Traffic event.
Zach Benson
Yeah, yeah. So I think
Jeremy Weisz
Ed is amazing. If anyone is not heard of him or doesn’t know him. You know? Have you eaten his waffles yet? Wakeup Waffles.
Zach Benson
Yeah, yeah, foods, wicked foods. He’s got those new waffles. I think they just came out the chocolate flavor. So excited to try really good stuff with smart guy. And basically,
Jeremy Weisz
smoke is one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done. You know, he has seven kids just to give anyone who does not know Ed, you know? He runs um, you know, just big companies and he has just is about family. So anyways, Zach keep going yeah, I love it. So you you spoken his traffic mastery. It was a I’ve heard so many good things about that event. Specifically,
Zach Benson
that’s where I met Tony G Ship Offers that’s where I met Click Funnels right John Parks VP of Web Traffic was in the in the audience. And during break right after my talk, he was like, hey, like, we got to talk like let’s let’s do some stuff like let’s, let’s do some stuff for my account, the Click Funnels account, and Russell’s account, and boom, I we proved ourselves with the Click Funnels account, and in John’s account as a tester, and from there then we got Russell Brunson’s account and we’ve grown it several hundred, like probably 400,000 followers. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
I think it was over 700,000
Zach Benson
Yeah. And
Jeremy Weisz
when we, when we looked at it,
Zach Benson
we’ve been working with them for about two years now. So over Yeah, over two years now, so definitely, that event also changed my life.
Jeremy Weisz
Why?
Zach Benson
Because I got to meet Tony G. And Click Funnels. Yo, shout out to Ed.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. So what is how is Tony G influenced you? Because I know I was I was talking to him yesterday. And he’s like, just tell him about his day. And he’s like, I’m really talking to Zach and a little bit. And I’m like, well, funny enough. I’ll be talking to Zach tomorrow. So what what is Tony G taught you,
Zach Benson
Tony G. I mean, he’s we’re just like a friend, mentor and just like some good dude who brings a lot of great people together at his dinners, and you know that that he throws it during different events like traffic and conversion. So that’s how I met him really was through that no case event. And then we, we had a couple of dinners in San Diego and met his friends. And we’ve had a few phone calls, I was on a podcast. So I guess it’s just like, the cool thing about Tony is that he tells people like, what they need to hear and what they need to hear to grow, and go the next level. And it’s cool to talk to somebody who, who has built up a company like Ship Offers now to where it’s at today. And just to learn from another like super successful entrepreneur, on how to like, you know, just organize your life, be disciplined. You know, I got into like, the meditation and 75 harder from him, and just like cleaning up all my processes and my systems for SR Graham. He’s helping me do all that. So it’s,
Jeremy Weisz
so what did he tell you specifically that you need to hear? Because he just come cut straight through it. And he’s told me things. Jeremy, you need to get more sleep? Like what’s wrong with you?
Zach Benson
You’re right. No, the thing is, the thing that he told me that I needed here was that I need to make my sales processes better. Hmm. Okay. I would say I’m pretty good. But like, it’s, I’m never satisfied, like I’ve never, I feel like there’s always room to improve and to grow and to learn from somebody to make, bring more clarity to the whole process. And that’s really like, what he’s helping me with, right, because we’ve built up a brand now where we were working with some pretty big brands, like the Ritz Carlton Clickfunnels, you know, all these celebrities and stuff, but, but still, it’s cool to know that like, Okay, I need to improve this or that, or, like, make this a little bit smoother, to give people a better, you know, a sales presentation experience.
Jeremy Weisz
That makes sense. So what have you done? Or what are you thinking you’re going to improve with the sales process?
Zach Benson
Oh, man, we’re working on it right now. But I think it’s just like the whole like, like the the deck like making it super simple and easy to read making it right now. It’s like, way too long, right? So just simplifying it removing a bunch of slides. And the, the key thing that I learned from our talk was that I really have two companies. I have a Assistagram.com. And then I have a Assistabrand.com. Right, which basically, we help elevate people’s brand presence by getting them seen, known and heard all over all over the place through getting them on top rated podcasts.
Jeremy Weisz
Hmm. So it’s almost like a next level PR type of thing.
Zach Benson
Right? Right. Right. Because I think a lot of people they want to they they want to do be on stages, speak on virtual summit summits, be on podcasts, they want to be in Forbes and all these online publications, magazines, they want to get their story out there about themselves.
Jeremy Weisz
So one is growing their actual account, the other is getting a good PR and getting them on other big accounts. Is that
Zach Benson
right? Right, that basically just getting them seen and known everywhere, right, like podcasts that have millions of listeners to get in them, you know, live streams on other Instagram influencers accounts that have millions of listeners and followers. It could be Yeah, it’s all of that.
Jeremy Weisz
Zach, you know, um, I was listening to I was doing research about you and digging in, and you said something really interesting. And you said something, sometimes you recommend people buy Instagram accounts.
Zach Benson
Yeah, I recommend people buy by the Instagram accounts, because you then have an account that you can use to grow your other account that you’re trying to focus on. Okay, and you can also use that account and that you buy and switch it, delete the content and rename it to your own, which then gives you a bunch of followers that you can use for other projects of yours, because it’s really, it’s really hard to grow. So the in 2020, it’s a lot harder to grow Instagram accounts. So a growth hack would be buying the accounts, buying assets, just like you buy houses and other like, you can buy websites and domain names and people’s blogs. Great. You just buy a traffic source.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. Makes perfect sense.
Zach Benson
Buy the audience. Yeah. And then from there, you you grow it, you leverage it and you you promote it and and build it.
Jeremy Weisz
So what are the criteria you look at when and then how do you approach them to because probably most people aren’t approaching them. Hey, let me buy your Instagram account. what’s the what’s the criteria? Yeah,
Zach Benson
criteria. So step number one, I look at the name, okay? It’s got to have a good username because your name is your most important asset. Step two, I look at the following. I only want to buy accounts that personally have like over 50,000 followers minimum on the account. Three I look at like the engagement on the post. Is this a dead account? Like has this been an inactive account for a year? When was the llama Enza? When was? When was the last post? What was the most recent activity? I’m taking all those things into consideration the audience were the followers from poor cities, what countries? How many impressions? How many profile clicks, how many website visits so I do buy. We buy like inactive accounts because we know how to revive them and boost them up again and get them alive and driving. But then we also buy accounts that are millions of followers. So I you know, I do that because it’s just like a business. Right? Some people have been in the game for a while. They may be have seen some cool things happen. See some success. But now they’re very like, hey, I want to move on. What’s next? And
Jeremy Weisz
so if you’re, you’re always looking for the next one. If someone has an account, like let’s say the perfect account, and they’re listening right now, and like Zach, call me I want I would love to sell it to you. What would that ideal account right now look like? What are you looking for?
Zach Benson
You know, for me, like right now like I’m in I’m in the big I’m like big in the travel space. So I basically I’m buying a bunch of travel accounts. So I already have over 40 travel accounts. Yeah, myself, ranging from a million followers, 5 million followers to like, you know, 50,000 followers. So, for me, I’m just trying to take over the hotel industry. So we have @besthotels we have @luxuryhotels. So I’m really buying these travel accounts, because travel is my life. And I have my own travel Academy, where I teach other people, digital nomads, photographers, videographers that want to travel for free, they want to work from anywhere. And so I’m buying all of these accounts, because then these people that are in my Academy, they can buy them from me and then they can start doing what I’m
Jeremy Weisz
a jumpstart, you give them a head start.
Zach Benson
Yeah, because they buy they buy a page so that’s the asset that they can use to post their photography and pictures. And then
Jeremy Weisz
that’s an awesome bonus like buy my course will give you an account that already like 20,000 whatever.
Zach Benson
Yeah, and on top of that they get get to be a part of my 12 million travel network. Hmm. So there’s a lot of benefits to joining the club and then we go Where can people find it? Yeah, well, so the actual course name is called tribe tribe influencer influencer Academy but if you want in it’s not actually life right now like is we’ve we’re only added like secret VIP access so if you want in you have to email me and hit me up through a Assistagram.com but then, you know we we can make it work for you.
Jeremy Weisz
Are there any like with the hotel industry now? Like, you know, obviously the rise of Airbnb, are there any good keywords? You know, people probably can’t use those trademarked or those terms in their their name, but are there any like that that you’re looking to buy? That’s not Airbnb, but I don’t I don’t know. Something that’s that’s that side of things.
Zach Benson
Yeah, little so like, I I bought luxury hotels. Right. So if you go to luxuryhotels.com it’s it redirects to marriott.com. Hmm. So I buy things that are in that are associated with everything’s because that elevates my, my brand identity. Right? So when I can say I’m the founder of @luxuryhotels, and then people go to luxuryhotels.com and it goes to Marriott. They’re like, Whoa, and then I can show them that I’ve done I’ve done videos for Ritz Carlton and a lot of the Ritz Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
you have some amazing videos. I mean, if someone’s watched some of your videos, I mean, what are some of them? Just to give an example what are some of the places you’ve traveled and made videos
Zach Benson
for? You know, yeah, like cosa Moy, Thailand, Ritz Carlton, Bali, Indonesia, Ritz Carlton I mean all over Asia all over Europe all over the road really like? Now deaves is one of my favorite places so I’ve Yeah, gotten like 20 nights in the Maldives. I got one hotel that gifted me 125 nights in Bali. Wow. for free. So I could use I use 50 nights for myself straight. And then I gave the other hundred like 75 nights away to my friends, my clients and my business partners. Nice. So I gave like a 10 night stay to somebody and very 10 year anniversary and optimizer. Yes, you know, there’s cool things. So that’s what I like to use it for. Yeah.
Jeremy Weisz
Read I like to live vicariously through you. I wake up in the morning kids are screaming, like, let’s see where Zach is. Oh, cool. He’s like swimming in like just clear water somewhere. I love it. How do you value it? How do you value the account? When you reach out? How you decide on what to pay?
Zach Benson
You know, it’s you can always kind of ask around, right? And you can say like, you email these people, you send them a direct message and say, Hey, like I’m interested, I’m in the market to buy an account. I like your page. Have you ever considered selling it? And, um, you know, sometimes they say make an offer or sometimes I make an offer. I guess you know, for like, let me tell you how I got into this guy’s like, before all this dance marketing stuff, I was dancer I hurt my back. Same guy who got me into dancing. He called me up and was like, Zach, you need to get in on this Instagram stuff like me and my brother, were making a lot of money, growing people’s accounts like, Hey, why don’t you invest with us. So I spent $10,000 my own money, when I barely had any, had asked my dad for some money, sent that cheque over to my friend in Miami. And I owned ended up owning 10% of a 400,000 follower account for $10,000. And whatever that account made, I was paid 10%. And so eventually, I made my money back. And with that money, I used it to buy and grow other people’s accounts. And so they ranged I mean, like I just had a friend sell his million follower account to a big company media company in LA for over $300,000. Well, so some of these are expensive or more expensive than houses. It just depends on the nmae, someone
Jeremy Weisz
says Do you like make an offer? I would have no idea. How do you value this thing? I mean, you probably have a broad network that you can kind of tie it into, but how do you even value it?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so I mean, so he was able to sell that for that price three over 300,000 because it was like a couple million followers. I had a good name. You know, he had a good network, he could continue to manage and grow it and, you know, they’re basically buying into all of his contacts and stuff, right? So, um, but I mean, you can you can find accounts that are like in the travel space or any like niche like motivational pages or fitness pages. If you have an e commerce supplement company and you sell fitness products, you could buy a fitness page, that’s maybe a 50,000 follower page or 100,000 follower page for like, just, you know, less than like 10,000 bucks. Hmm,
Jeremy Weisz
yeah. You you have another business on your hands. Zach with that.
Zach Benson
Yeah, people. Yeah, I mean, this what we help people do really is they come to us the we either sell them account or we grow their own account.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, Stefan, Justin, Justin Goff and Stefan, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if you guys are listening to this, like some of the brands that you guys help with copywriting and you should contact Zach actually and maybe talk about buying some fitness Instagram accounts and then selling their supplements or their potentially because they know they have a big network of through the copy accelerator of people who are I mean, they do more than than supplements. But But yeah, there are a bunch of those those type of companies or
Zach Benson
Yeah, I think it makes sense for for anybody like that, like whether you’re like in real estate, right to buy like a kind of a luxury homes like repost account, we’re in the fitness space, you want to be a personal trainer or like a coach, like there’s so many different things that you can use these for. Whether you’re trying to connect with celebrities and influencers, to get them to promote your products. If you approach them and reach out to them from an account that has 100,000 followers on it, you’re likely going to get a reply. versus if you try to reach out from from your personal account and maybe only has 100 followers, you’re not going to get answered. Right. So I see it as just like also a numbers game, right? Like you can get more jobs and you can connect with more people. Because you have bigger numbers,
Jeremy Weisz
you know, Zach if you’re not, so I want you to walk through how it works a little bit because so someone’s like Zach, this sounds awesome. I want to hire you. Okay, because you have a combination of actual humans and software. So talk a little bit about how you help people and what you do.
Zach Benson
So Assistogram like to 2015 16 we had our own software, it’s like we grew people, thousands of followers per month. And it was working well and, and then, you know, Instagrams algorithms changed and became smarter. And now, Assistagram. Think of it as like your own personal virtual assistant. That’s just like, grinding on your account hours a day doing hundreds to thousands of manual actions, right? So straight up human power 100% human power now, we pair you up with other influencers that are in your industry in your niche. And we do shoutouts until you grow your followers, right. So we do everything A to Z from creating all your content posts in free seven days a week, doing the hashtags, doing the engagement groups to grow and build your account. And so, you know, it’s as simple as scheduling a strategy call, going over the options and then assigning, assigning you, your own growth manager to give you a hands off experience. And then there’s different levels of service based on what they need. Right, right. So we have basic, like starter packages. That that just give you growth rate. So let’s say that you only want 10,000 followers, so that you can unlock the swipe up feature. So when you have 10,000 followers, you unlock this secret thing where you can do story swipe ups, and basically in your Instagram stories, you can drive people and promote something and send them to your offer. And so a lot of people come to us because they just want 10,000 followers, like let’s say that they want something more complete, then they go with the commercial package. Where is that done for you? content, you know, posting, like getting your own growth manager to do everything for you. Right, everything for you. do outreach lead? Gen. I mean, you know, that’s more of the whole whole whole works pack package.
Jeremy Weisz
Nice. And so what you were talking with Tony G, it’s kind of two different companies. Um, is it still it’s all embedded in that that those services? Or is it? Is there a separate type of service for the kind of the PR the reach side of things?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so we have, those are separate services, services, but they all they all tie in together. Because a lot of people they need, they need the right press, and the right amount of followers to get verified to get the blue checkmarks. You know, the stamp of approval by Facebook and Instagram. We know what it takes to get that done. So really, like, people want both, right? They’re like, when people Google my name and search about me on Instagram. I want I want to give off that feeling like, okay, like they think like, oh, man, I’m like, I’m legit, I can read a story. I can listen to his story, I can search for him. or her on Instagram, they have the blue checkmark, they have a lot of followers. Okay, I want to do business with this person, this person seems like, legit cool person. And so it’s really just peeking their interest. And once you get people to actually read more about you and check more into you, you have an opportunity for sale, but I think a lot of sales like don’t happen because people don’t have this social media presence. And then they’re like,
Jeremy Weisz
well, Zach, that you companies or people you want to be working with?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so I mean, you know, really anybody who just wants to grow their personal brands, anybody who wants to get on
Jeremy Weisz
who’s who’s an actual personal brand that you’re like, I would love to run their account.
Zach Benson
Yeah, so I love like, like working with like podcasters, entrepreneurs, authors, writers, you know, anybody that has like an e commerce business supplement company, or like any, like physical products, like those do really, really well on Instagram. And so those are really our two like client avatars very just means authors or
Jeremy Weisz
two or no,
Zach Benson
yeah, authors as well, because they want to sell more books, right, they want to become best sellers. So we can achieve that. And get that done for them through by getting them on top rated podcasts, you know, podcasts that have a lot of listeners and selling things through Instagram. So when you have bigger numbers, right, like even if you’re looking to write a book, you can get a better publisher because you have a bigger following and audience. They’re looking at all of those things like okay, well, this person actually gives my company exposure. If we sign him, what will the benefits be for us. So if you have a big audience in the community and a big Instagram page, you’re going to get better deals.
Jeremy Weisz
I want to talk about some of your favorite authors. But let’s talk about your book. Reach. Yes, reach whenever you’re Listen, this, you can probably go on Amazon, go on Audible talk about Reach for a second. I love the title.
Zach Benson
So Reache is my new book that I’m working on. And it’s how to, like connect with anyone grow your influence, and basically create a lifestyle business. So I’m teaching people like all of my secrets on how to like network with people how to reach out, do this cold email, do this cold, cold calling stuff, how to find creative ways to stay in touch with the people that you meet. And just the book is really about just how I have done that with both of my businesses, right, the dance business, traveling 50 countries making $1,000 an hour just teaching dance, to you know, creating the like this, Assistagram company, right? So basically teaching people how to do all of the stuff that I did to grow my business.
Jeremy Weisz
So check out Reach whenever you’re listening and may already be out. What, what’s a creative way what’s Give me one way that pops in your mind of one way you use to stay in touch with someone.
Zach Benson
You know, I’m pretty like, I’m old school when it comes to that, like, my everybody, Charles Bird, Charles Bird, Bird, he’s got like a really cool tool that he does uses and to stay in touch with people. But you know, what I do is like, I try to, like, take everybody’s Instagram profiles, right? So I connect with them on Instagram. And then I also get their, their business card if they have them. And if they don’t, then if I connect with them on social media, and I add them on Facebook, and I also add them on Instagram. And you know, for the first like two weeks, what I do is I I engage with their content, right? And I, I find content that I resonate with, and I like I leave a genuine comment. I express a genuine interest. And then I say hey, you know, it’s really good meeting you at this spot. You know, I’ve earned this, I think that we could do this. It’d be cool to hop on like a you know, 15 minute networking call next week. And, you know, so that’s, that’s the way that I do it connect offline, essentially.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. Yeah. Who are some of your favorite authors? Books, lately?
Zach Benson
No. Well, lately, Mmm hmm.
Jeremy Weisz
I’ll say some of mine. So Chris Voss Never Split the Difference. You know, amazing. One of my favorite books. Definitely. And had him on the podcast. Oren Klaff. Flip The Script. Love the book. Awesome. I had him on. I love Shoe Dog, the founder of Nike, like talk about I feel it I felt it was like entrepreneurial therapy, Zach, you know, like, you see? You think oh, Nike, right? And you just see just twists and turns and ups and downs.
Zach Benson
No, I like those. Um, I guess like, a few of my friends just launched some books like Michael Bernoff Average Sucks. I got that book. I got this other book called The Purse String Effects by Wendy it’s like how to like sell and sell to women. And so those are two books that I that I got. But yeah, so I check out those but like my all time favorites, like old school books. Yeah. My favorite book of all time. Yeah. Is this one called The Travelers Gift? Hmm. By by Andy Andrews. And he kind of goes back in time to like all these like legends like King Solomon, and Abraham Lincoln. And you know, just all these cool, like, people and ask them questions and I love it.
Jeremy Weisz
I’m not I’ve not listened to a read that one as well to check it out.
Zach Benson
Check it out. Check it love it.
Jeremy Weisz
You know, Zach, we talked about journey. And the journey is ups and downs. Right. And some interesting things from your journey. You know, just talk about how for the letter R influenced you?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so I couldn’t say the letter R until I was like in my 20s. So I had the speech impediment. And, you know, I remember going to the speech therapy classes in elementary school that I hated going to. And I remember one day like I said, Enough is enough. I’m going to quit and remember my speech therapists at the time saying hey Zach if you quit like you’ll never be able to say the letter are no one will be able to understand you. And you probably won’t a mountain too much. And I was like in elementary school when I heard this
Jeremy Weisz
they actually said that you’re not gonna you wouldn’t be a mountain too much. If you don’t say the letter R they that’s what they said Do at the time.
Zach Benson
Shes’s like you can’t you wouldn’t you no one will be able to, you know, understand you and you won’t be able to talk to people and so you’re You know, limiting your potential, right? Like you need to, you need to, like, stay with me keep paying for my classes, and let’s fix this problem. But I was just a kid I wanted to play. I was like, yeah, it’s good enough. And I, you know, that’s the kind of like, I just get the job done Ryan with fast action taker, I see something I want to do, and I do it and, and, you know, so I really hurt me though. I wasn’t able to, really. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school. Kids made fun of me. I hated doing public speeches and talks. I got made fun of a lot. And so, yeah, it caused a lot of problems. You know, I got really bad grades. My parents thought I was gonna end up in jail because I was getting in trouble and fights so much. And so life wasn’t looking too good for me until I found dance. And dance kind of changed my life. It became something like my fire, you know, something I was actually good at and passionate about. And I and I was able to express myself through my moves. And
Jeremy Weisz
through someone, one of your friends gave you a tape. What happened with that?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so my buddy, he was just like, dude, you’re Asian. He’s like, you need it. Like, you’re the Asian sensation. Like, you’re, you gotta you gotta learn how to do the breakdancing stuff. Like, like, all Asians gotta be good at dancing. You know, like, that time, it was just me. And then there’s two other upperclassmen who are like really good at breakdancing. And so I was like, you know, you’re right, I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna live up to my agenus and watch it and do this. And you know, it’s funny watch that DVD that video and started practicing and working and me and and others that did, it made, a crew started traveling with the competing, and eventually I was winning competitions, eventually made it onto. So You Think You Can Dance the TV show? I auditioned three times didn’t make it all the way. But it was on a couple episodes and just use that take my dance career around the world. And, you know, eventually, through all of that, I became more confident. I stopped trying so hard. And I just started putting myself out there and speaking to people and talking to people. And then I soon realized, from this Leadership Academy that I went to one one summer in college that this girl was like, you don’t have a speech impediment, you don’t have anything wrong about you like your normal, just talk normal. And people need to hear your ideas in your opinions, because your voice matters. And it needs to be heard by the world. And from there. I just
Jeremy Weisz
found my voice. Hmm. Yeah, you gave a TEDx talk people, I encourage people to watch and listen to that. I think that was a couple years ago. That you you did that. It’s It’s amazing, you know, from probably at the time being self conscious talking in general to now you speak on stages all over the world.
Zach Benson
Yeah. So it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Um, but, I mean, one
Jeremy Weisz
of the things that strikes me, Zach, about you is, you know, I don’t know if it was always like that. But now, you know, you’re just you’re not afraid to put yourself out there, you’re not afraid to fail, or to, you know, make mistakes.
Zach Benson
Right, right. Right. Cuz, um, I don’t know, I’m not afraid to just like reach out to somebody and make an offer to text them or message them and make a pitch and see what happens. I mean, if the worst thing that happens is rejection and, you know, maybe it’s not the right timing, but, um, I think I just got over like all of that, because I’m also fluent in a couple languages. Like I was adopted, I was born in in Korea, and then I grew up in Iowa. Didn’t have my like, first Korean food until I went to Korea to find my birth mom. Hmm. And then I learned the language, I was like, okay, in order for me to build a genuine relationship with her, I need to learn the language. So I studied to class learned on your own, yeah, went, took some classes, made some friends taught myself and then and then also, like, I was, I am fluent in Spanish. So I lived in Spain and Mexico for like, two years. And, you know, became fluent in Spanish. So I just learned from like, learning languages, like a like when you first start your accent is not the best like, but if people really want to listen to you, and try to understand you, and if you put an effort and you try, like you can get the message across. Like, yeah, and and, and I think a lot of people are afraid to speak or talk or make mistakes because they think that they’ll look funny, they’ll look bad, and people won’t get them or understand them or call them stupid. But when you’re learning the language, it’s like you kind of have to put yourself out there to to master it. Really. You know, you Not going to be good when you first start talking it, but the only way to get good at it is to practice and to learn from others so that you, you can say it correctly. No.
Jeremy Weisz
Zach The other thing that strikes me with your your journey is you know, breakdancing was your life. Yeah, at the time. Yeah. And then you get injured. Yeah. And you can’t break down anymore. Right. So what were you going through, mentally, internally at the time,
Zach Benson
you know, hold on a second, let’s say, I need to plug in. Or change. So guys, I’m in my parents basement right now. I’m in Iowa. And it’s good to be home. But um, yeah, there’s like some. I don’t have all my techie equipment and stuff. Right?
Jeremy Weisz
So it’s no Maldives. But it’s probably amazing to be back with your family.
Zach Benson
You know, family’s family matters most is everything to me. But when I was, and they’ve always supported me, right, so back to your question, even when I hurt my back, and I injured myself and the doctor came in and just like Zach, I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to dance again. like to hear those words. Like I hit rock bottom, I just, I cried. I was like, What am I gonna do? Because I remember the advice that my financial advisor told me when I was like, 20 years old, and he’s like, Zach, well, what happens if you can’t use your hands anymore? What happens if you can’t use your feet? You can’t dance? What are you gonna do? Like, I was like, Man, I’m in good shape. I’m like, you’re not rock solid, like, nothing’s ever gonna happen. And when that was taken away from me, I became very depressed and, and, you know, my life was gone pretty much like, my dance life was gone. And yeah, it was kind of a dark, sad times. But then my family supported me, they cheered me up, they encouraged me. Like I said, the guy who got me into dancing got me into Instagram. And so I could still use like, my, my skills and my strengths to help other people. Get out there to the world. And that’s what I learned when I all of my years dancing and teaching workshops is that there’s so much talent out there. There’s so many amazing people with amazing ideas with amazing skills, like even better way better dancers than me. And I was like, Well, what, what? Why can’t they like, go out and do it? And I really like a lot of them. It was hard, because they didn’t know about business. Like they didn’t know about marketing themselves. They didn’t know about PR, scaling and growing and selling. And so I was like, Okay, well, perfect. Now I can use Instagram to help other people launch their stuff, and sell their stuff and get their products and services out to the world. And so it was kind of a blessing in disguise. Because, you know, I don’t think I would have ever got into Instagram if the accident didn’t happen. Totally.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. You know, I know we’re right about the hour. And I don’t want to gloss over one big piece of you know, the story in your life in general, you set out on a year’s journey to go find your birth mom. Right. Right. From your, you know, from Korea, I grew up in Iowa. And then you finally I won’t, you know, give away the story. But what happened?
Zach Benson
Yeah, so it’s always been something I wanted to do. And I was like, I just want to like, see what like what she looks like, you know, and see, like, you know, what we have in common and what our personalities and like and so, basically I made a five year plan. And during college, I did an internship with my college president sere one. I lived on two dogs a day for food. I perform 1000 hours of community service, I helped refugees find jobs and homes for a year with this resettlement agency called Road Relief. So that was year one. year two, I was like, I want to go find my birth mom. So I moved to Korea, I moved to the city. I was born in what’s called Busan, which is like the second largest city in Korea, kind of down by the water and south, South Korea. I taught English so somehow, like I passed like, my, the, to be an English teacher, right? Like, I don’t know how I pass like,
Jeremy Weisz
that’s what you did there when you were there. You taught English.
Zach Benson
Yeah, yeah. And I almost didn’t even pass like the training like, it was very close. But somehow, my friends helped me pass the test and the exams. And then I I taught English at a private Academy from 4pm to 10pm every day, and then, during the day, I was studying Korean I was practicing breakdance and then trying to find my mom. And for almost a year, nothing, nothing. Nowhere nothing.
Jeremy Weisz
And I was just gonna just keep going. Like, if it took two years. What were you thinking at the time, like I’m gonna give it a year. I’m just gonna keep going till I find her.
Zach Benson
Well, I wanted to because I don’t like to give up. I always just keep trying to try and try and try and but for like my parents like they’re like, you know, think Thank you should come home like it’s time to use a college major. Like, we’ve invested a lot of money and it’s cool that you’re giving back to humanity and trying to find your mom but I think if you can’t find her after this year, you should probably come home but it was just that like after we had that talk and about when my teaching contract was up, like I got an email and they said, Zach, we found your mom, like, when can you come to Seoul? The Capital One can you come to meet her and I’m like, I’m gonna come tomorrow and hopped on a bullet train speed train got there. Walked into the door. I was like, what do you what am I supposed to say? Like, aren’t you guys gonna prepare me or anything? Like, they just opened the door and like, just going and going. And then my mom came she was standing there is grant up to me gave me a hug was like I love you, son. Love you. Like, I’m so glad that you came back. And yeah, man, it’s just an emotional hug my mom for the first time to see her and a little bit weird as well, because we had, we had translators, I still wasn’t fluent in Korean. And so we had translators like going back and forth. And even though we couldn’t understand each other very well, by ourselves, like, after that, it’s that that day that we met, she’d come over to my my flat she’d I was I met her son and daughter. They’d cook me Korean food. They she’d like clean, she took care of me. So I felt like her love through her actions and just being there showing up.
Jeremy Weisz
I can’t even imagine that. Yeah,
Zach Benson
yeah, even imagine. Yeah, yeah. So it’s very special time in my life. We’re still still in touch now. So after this month in Iowa with my Iowa family, I’m headed back to Korea. So I’ll be spending the rest of the year out there. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz
well, Zach, first of all, I want to be the first one to thank you. Thank you for sharing your your knowledge, your story. It’s, you know, really motivating on so many levels. And I want to just encourage people to check out Assistagram.com and check out your website. Here it is right here. Check it out. And anything anywhere else we should point people towards check out your book, book Reach. Also, anywhere else we should point people towards or any final words.
Zach Benson
I think that’s it. I mean, you guys like I’m happy to connect with all of you. Feel free to reach out. Hit us up on at Assistagram.com or just you know. Find me on Facebook Zach Benson. We’d love to connect. We’d love to hear your story. Awesome.
Jeremy Weisz
Yeah. Thanks, Zach. Really appreciate it.
Zach Benson
Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate Jeremy
