Jason Wright is the CEO of Intentionally Inspirational.  He leverages Active Campaign to nuture his real estate client's leads to close more deals.

Jason shares 5 takeaways from this episode of the Close The Deal. Com Podcast: 

1. Best restaurant to close the deal in Indianapolis, Indiana
2. How Jason navigated his way from Upwork to finding's his unique niche
3. How Jason leverages Active Campaign
4. How Jason markets his marketing business
5. Jason advice on what NOT to do

Connect with Jason:

https://intentionallyinspirational.com/

Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonjwright/

This episode is brought to you by franchise & funding - find the right franchise for you - that's the one that feeds your soul.

Products we ❤️  for our health:

• Athletic Greens - AGI

Show Notes with Jason Wright

Intentionally Inspirational

Jason So I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs come and go and they'll say stuff like, oh, this isn't working. And I'm like how long have you tried it? Or five weeks or three weeks. So, most people give up too soon. Another thing I would say is you have to remember there's a really thin line between success and failure.

You can do something over and over, not have success. And then if you keep making adjustments, you might have success and realize… 

Ewell: That is Jason Wright. He is the CEO of Intentionally Inspirational, and what he's talking about is the journey. He understands all too well what it really takes to make it as an entrepreneur, and he's done it in a very specific market with the real estate investors nurturing their leads, leveraging active campaign to close more deals.

Now you're listening to the Close The Deal.com Podcast, and I'm your host, Ewell Smith. Now let's begin the show.

Jason, I wanna welcome you to the close the deal.com podcast. I know you're based in Indianapolis, and my first question to you is, I love connecting with people.

My background is promoting seafood and going to great restaurants helping, working with chefs. If you had a big client coming to visit you that, that was big enough to make the trip, get on a plane to come visit you, where would you take them to close the deal. Where would you take him to dinner? 

Best place to go to dinner to close the deal?

Jason- Interesting. First of all, thanks for having me on the show. Excited to be here. I would find out what they like to eat if steak and seafood. Downtown Indy's got a bunch of great choices. So does the north side. If they golf live on a golf course, we could golf. They like to shoot.

We go to the shooting range. You do a combination of those things as well. If they like cigars, you get a cigar bar.

Ewell: There you go. That's a good answer.

Jason: I would've somebody on my team do a little research and figure out what they were into. And we've got all kinds of good options for all those things there. So,

Ewell: What about steak? If I, let's say I was flying in and I said steak. Where would you take me?

Jason: I'd probably take you to Ruth's Chris or St. Elmos,

Ewell: Alright.

Jason: You can’t go wrong with those.

Ewell:  You doing good because Ruth’s Chris started in New Orleans. Started, yeah. Yeah.

Jason: Is one.

Ewell: Oh, man it's good stuff. All right. This is one of my favorite questions to ask. I love asking people, what are you grateful for? Maybe something from the past or something from today that's helped you get you where you are today.

What Jason Appreciates

Jason: Yeah. It's gonna sound weird, but I'm grateful for the struggle.

 I say that because this, when you struggle and when you're in pain and when things aren't going well in business, it gives you perspective, it makes you resilient, it makes you figure it out. Nothing keeps you moving like a flame under your butt we've been in this business seven and a half years.

My wife and I talk about this all the time, but first three years were pretty rough. Pretty rough financially. I couldn't tell anybody what I was doing. I couldn't explain it at all. I had no elevator pitch. It was very difficult to explain, so I didn't really know.

But that struggle has led us to a much more predictable place of success now. So a lot of times when I see somebody who's handed the keys to a business, never went through that struggle. And they're not the same level of entrepreneur at all. Yeah, I'm grateful for it, man.

Ewell: I like that. That brings me to obviously through those struggles you learn, you picked up some things and you saw an opportunity through that. I. And that opportunity is the problem that you solve

Jason: Yep.

Ewell: What is the problem that you solve? And then how'd you get there? And then we can talk about the solution, how you help people today.

Jason: Yeah, the problem that I solve, it's it's for the, we'll talk about the client business. I have intentionally inspirational, it's a name, but we're a very niche business. We help real estate investors with the backend of their sales funnel. So, it's specifically an active campaign. So, a lot of people in this industry aren't using any marketing automation.

Try to nurture new investors. They're not using marketing automation to raise capital for their deals, so using legal pads and post-it notes and a bunch of old school things. So, there's a massive need for what we do in that industry.

Ewell: Is that how you started your business in that direction did you come out the gate with that? 

Jason's entrepreneurial journey

Jason: No that's about five pivots over the last seven and a half years. We started off helping people with anything in digital marketing, whoever would pay me. So it's very broad. Starting off, obviously lots of competition lots of price competition, so I. We actually got started with Upwork. 

I was learning marketing for myself, trying to get my blog out there, thought I was gonna be an inspirational, like a motivational speaker that's saw the business got its name, and I started noticing people searching for help in the things I had just learned. So, it started very broad, very competitive, very tough to get traction with.

Ewell: Now what brought you to the active campaign so people know what that is? That's email. And

Jason: CRM.

Ewell: Now do you help them plug into a funnel system or are you just, or do you strictly use the email or are you integrating with funnel systems as well?

Jason: Yeah, so we just do the back end of the funnel. So what happens after people join your email list? We don't do any landing page design anymore, no paid traffic, but we basically have a templatized offer where we plug people in, we train 'em how to use it, we guarantee it for life, et cetera, et cetera. And it's for one specific industry.

So again, from where I started to where we are has niched down a lot over time. But that's how narrow it's now.

Ewell: Now, how did you land on real estate? Were when you started were you servicing every industry you could get your hand on and then how did you narrow down to real estate, 

Jason: Yeah, so it started off I need money, right? So, I'll work with anybody that'll pay me. And then what you find is once you get busy enough, you're like, man, my life sucks. All I do is work. So how do I get my time back? I started to see the correlation between terrible clients and low pay rates.

So,  I was like, I'm gonna keep raising my rates till most of these people go away. Discount. Then that worked. So, then I was like, okay, how do I focus on industries that have a lot of money? I worked with dentists and then I worked with some other industries, and then I had a couple real estate investor clients, which I really didn't understand what that was.

And I didn't there was nothing special about it to me at the time. But I met one in particular about three years ago. Real successful guy had a growing mastermind introduced me, introduced to this world and. If you want to be the active campaign guy, I said, a lot of people in our industry use Active Campaign, so I didn't have to educate anybody there.

He said, nobody's filling this void. So with what you're doing, you may consider making this your niche and owning it, and that's what I did. So it was a journey. It was never the plan. It was a happy accident. The whole business has been a happy accident. So I never planned to quit corporate twice and start a marketing company.

Ewell: Give us a little bit about your background. I a little bit about it. And by the way, you, so the listeners, you are the first podcaster. So, we'll have to talk about that too. That I've ever somebody else who has a podcast show that I've ever interviewed.

 Tell us a little bit about your background that led you to this point, to say, okay. And then there was a I say as a light bulb went off, or we flipped a switch that made you say, okay, I'm gonna, enough of the corporate stuff, I'm going into my own business.

Jason: sure. Yeah. So the real backstory began when I was 14. My obsession in life was fishing back then, right? So every year we'd get the new Bass Pro shop catalogs and say, Hey mom, here's the new tackle I need. Here's the lures I need. And at eight points, she was like, You have more stuff than anybody that I know that's an adult, so I'm not buying you anymore.

And I was like that's unacceptable. I need more. She's go get your own job and earn it. I was like, okay. So, I was like, what can I do that requires no driving? And I can make money right now. So, we lived in a cul-de-sac and I had three neighbors that never took care of their lawn. So, I knocked on three doors and said, Hey, can I cut your grass for 25 bucks a week?

And they all said yes. So I made 75 bucks a week tax free and was able to feed my obsession. So I got that taste of earning my own dollar very young. Fast forward getting out of high school. The first job outta high school, I was changing oil. Indie Lube, which is like a Jiffy Lube, six bucks an hour.

The work sucked. So again, I acquitted, started mowing grass. Built up a landscaping company for about seven years through college, and then eventually decided to shut it down so I could finish school because it got too big. It was like one or the other. So, my parents always taught me the only path is degree in corporate America, I didn't know any better.

Ewell: I heard the same thing.

Jason: So I got seven years into corporate. I was doing HR, sales and some safety, and I just reached a point where I was like, I'm working for family owned businesses where people were entrepreneurs and built these. I don't wanna work for anybody. I don't have any creative freedom. I'm never gonna be happy with the roles.

I get bored too quick. I wanna own my process. I quit corporate the first time and I tried to start a neighborhood magazine, which I never really was a big fan of, but my wife was like, okay, let's try it. And in about three months I ran outta money and had to ask my mom's sister to help us pay the mortgage and buy food.

Had to go back to corporate 'cause that didn't. Oh yeah, it was really embarrassing and had to sell a bunch of guns and outdoor stuff. I'm a big hunter just to pay the bills and I was like, this isn't working. So, I had to go back to corporate and I did that for about 18 months. But while I was there, I kept working on this business and I started to get some traction on Upwork with the marketing stuff.

It was like consistent money, monthly. It was part-time. And eventually my wife was like I was doing mortgages At the end. She was like, you're. Part-time. Money's a little bit better than full-time. Let's let you quit again and let's try this thing that's already working. So that was five years ago this month, ironically, almost to the day.

And it's been, we've never looked back. Could I ever work for anybody again? No. I couldn't even take seriously at all. But it's been a fun, it's been a fun ride.

How Jason leverages Active Campaign to serve his clients

Ewell: So, explain a little bit more how you help people. 'cause some people may not be familiar with Active Campaign, they may not familiar with a sales funnel in, in the way that it works. In what part of the sale, and I know you, it's very specific area of that you help people. Lay that out a little bit for the people.

Jason: Yeah, so the way I teach a sales funnel is in three simple pieces, right? The first piece is what we call traffic. It's grabbing attention online or offline and pointing it somewhere online. examples could be social media, podcasts, in-person, networking, et cetera. Okay? Second piece is what we call the front end, and these are the pages that people actually interact with.

Landing pages, web pages, et cetera. And the final piece is the backend. That's what we do. 

Ewell: Let me hop in here. This episode is being brought to you by franchise and funding.com if you are trying to figure out what the next step of your journey may be, it may include a franchise. If you've always had that desire, that itch, you wanna scratch that itch to start your own business.

A franchise may be your answer and you've got options. Check out franchise and funding.com, franchise and funding.com. 

Jason: What happens after people join your email list? you have a website and somebody ss in and nothing happens, is the website actually helpful? Not really. So, we focus on setting up pipelines and automations that help nurture, help close deals and help maintain the relationships with.

Someone's list. List and we just do it in a very specific industry. In one specific platform.

How does the marketer market his business?

Ewell: So how does the I'm gonna ask you this question. This is how does the marketer,  market, his business. How do you get your business today? Lemme go backwards when you got started doing this, then let's talk about where it is today.

Jason: Yeah, so when I got started Upwork is a platform that I learned quickly. It's the world's largest freelance marketplace. I was initially competing with the masses, right? Everybody's starting off, and I figured out quickly if I can get five star reviews and get a ton of 'em. I'll become top rated.

So, then I start competing with a smaller group of people. And if I get good enough in that category, I will fall into the invitation only crowd. So there's another side of Upwork that you don't see publicly. And I just would tell every client, Hey I'm gonna work until I earn a five star review. No matter what it takes, I don't care how much time it takes.

And I made that my focus and. Once it got to the point where I was invitation only, there's actually really good money and really good clients there. Reputation, word of mouth testimonials is what drove the business and it's really no different today. I don't use Upwork today. It is word of mouth.

We've got a hell of a name in our industry. I speak I attend events in a big mastermind in the industry. So it's the same principles. Taking care of people and word of mouth. And that's the biggest thing. Obviously you've got LinkedIn, Facebook, and a very specific podcast as well that help.

Ewell: When you were doing the Upwork, how many to get to the part where you were the elite level how many five stars did you have to get put together to make that work.

Jason: Yeah, when I got to a hundred plus is when started to murder it pretty good. So, we easily could build or we easily did build a six figure business just from Upwork that first year.

Ewell: Wow. Were you working solo and are you working solo today?

Jason: No, I was working solo. Then now today there's there's eight of us. So, I pretty much handle sales. I really don't do any fulfillment. I do maybe 2% of our customer service. I train the team, I get to treat what the team, what they need, and I do our marketing. So, building the fulfillment team, which is US-based, the customer service team, which is US-based, has been difficult, but we are humming and P at a really high level with it now.

Ewell: Word of mouth. Of course. That's the best form of marketing is. Obviously you have someone on your team reaching out and you found us. And I love the fact that the real estate guru found close the deal.com. I appreciate that.

 That's intentional. What other intentional activities do you take do you use digital marketing yourself .

Jason: We use, everything is organic, we've got a Facebook group that, again is filled with our dream clients. So, we'll use paid ads on Facebook to drive more members into that group. The podcast has a great marketing strategy and that will help with the client side of the business and the investment side of the business as well. The outreach that we do to shows like yours is very focused as well.

 So, we've got a team member that helps with that. Everything we do is focused on getting us in front of dream clients, whether it's for client side, the business, the investment business, or even the part of the business.

Ewell: Let me ask you this question. You've done all these things that work, what hasn't worked?

What marketing would Jason avoid? In other words, what didn't work?

What things would you never do again? What and I'm borrowing a little bit from your playbook here, is what mistakes have you made that you advise people not to do?

Jason: Yeah, I've made a bunch. One is giving up too early. So, I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs come and go and they'll say stuff like, oh, this isn't working. And I'm like how long have you tried it? Or five weeks or three weeks. So, most people give up too soon. Another thing I would say is you have to remember there's a really thin line between success and failure.

You can do something over and over, not have success. And then if you keep making adjustments, you might have success and realize, oh man, all I did is change one word. All I did is change one piece of this offer. Now all of a sudden people notice it. So that's another thing. 

In regards to marketing, I wouldn't do paid ads until you've got a really good offer that's selling well, that our revenue. Now, we could definitely do paid ads, but we're still not. And I think most people try to do 'em way too soon and they end up throwing a bunch of money away. So, finding an offer that stands out, listening to the people that do hire you and saying, how can I make this better? Simple stuff like that goes a long way.

Ewell: You've established yourself as an expert. How many hundreds of clients?

Jason: I probably worked in 500 accounts just with Active Campaigns, so I've worked with a bunch. Real estate specifically, we're right around a hundred right now.

Ewell: You're crafting that niche for sure. 

Jason: Oh, yeah.

Ewell: The biggest challenge you've had, what has that been?

Jason: It's interesting. It changes. So once upon a time, it's how do we stand out? How do we find an industry if there's no competition? The other piece is how do I get myself out of the day-to-day? We used to do custom work only 'cause custom work was where the money is. The problem is I can't teach that.

It's not scalable. So, I actually had to go the other way and go. What do most people need as far as that's foundational that I can train a team to fulfill and answer questions to? So, when it comes to scaling the challenges changed. Fulfillment was the biggest problem for a long time. Then as recently as this year, customer service was a monster 'cause everybody tried to come to me.

So, I've had to create layers so that you can't get to me from the outside. You gotta go through a few people to get to me, unless you're in my inner circle. People that I know really well. So, the challenge has changed, but right now it's just getting more leads. Our offer's great.

 Our product's great. We already know it's gonna sell, so we just need to get in front of more people so it changes.

Jason's vision

Ewell: What is the vision for the business going forward?

Jason: Yeah. For this business it's to keep impacting as many clients as we can. With a name like Intentionally Inspirational, it allows us to go a couple different ways, but just become an absolute industry thought leader with what we do. Be that marketing thought leader in the real estate investment space, and then use that to grow our other company, Wind River Equity Partners, and grow the coaching side of this business as well.

So, I'll just keep doing what we're doing on a larger level.

Ewell: All right. That's a great place to button it up. I want to ask you, where can people find you talk about a couple of your services. Obviously we're gonna focus on the Active Campaign because that's specialty, but you also, you mentioned a couple other things that might be of interest to folks.

Jason: Yep. So IntentionallyInspirational.com com, that’s my front porch. It's the best place to go to see everything that we're doing. You can get to our other business from that site, which is Wind River Equity Partners. We work with active capital, or sorry, passive investors on a short-term rental fund that we're setting up.

 We also have a coaching program, so if you're a high ticket digital marketing agency owner like me, and you're stuck at a certain income level and wanna scale. We've got a coaching program to show you how to do that very effectively as well.

Ewell: Jason, I appreciate your time. This is very helpful information. I think it's gonna be helpful to people trying to figure out how to even get started in the what you do and that's what this audiences appreciates. Thank you. And great meeting you,

Jason.I look forward to working with you more.

Jason: Yeah, great meeting as well.

Ewell: That's a wrap with Jason Wright. I wanna thank you for taking the time to be part of our community, listening to our show and stories like Jason's he pulled back the covers because it's not an easy journey starting your business. But he found his very specific niche and that's what made the difference for him, and he continues to pursue his other passions as well, helping people, coaching others.

So very grateful for Jason and also very grateful for you to be part of this show and part of our journey as we grow Close The Deal.Com and the podcast that we're serving you with now, you know the drill. Be intentional. I love the name of his company, Intentionally Inspirational. Well, I wanna close with you being intentional and making this a great day.

By the way, the next episodes we're going to video, so we're making some changes as well. We're evolving and we'll continue to grow, and we're glad you're part of it. Thank you.