From Fox News to E-Commerce to Digital Marketing

Danny's journey started around 2007 or 2008. He was working at Fox News Channel in the IT department as an IT analyst. He had the access to go into the green rooms, so anytime a celebrity came through, he got to meet them. Pretty cool job.

Fox News had just launched the Fox Business Network, and there was this one guy talking about e-commerce. He looked like a simple guy, not dressed up, just talking about business. Danny had no idea digital marketing or internet marketing existed at the level it did at that point in time.

He got a chance to have a quick conversation with that guy. He asked how to get started. The guy told him if you don't have your own product, you've got to find a wholesaler that would be willing to drop ship.

Back in the day, it wasn't like today with Shopify. Danny's son has a Shopify store now selling about $500 a month in products. But back then, just to get approved for a payment processor, Danny had to get a license in Delaware. That was his first LLC.

He launched his first store: an adult toy store. His thinking was that a lot of adults probably want the pleasure and want to be discreet about it. He didn't need to touch the product anyway.

What he didn't know was all the complexity of getting into that world and industry with marketing and advertising. But back in the day, Google ads were dirt cheap. He was spending what felt like a lot of money at the time, a couple thousand dollars a month on Google ads. He started getting sales.

He was celebrating, but he didn't know what he was doing. He was making money but also losing it on the back end. Before he knew it, he had to learn how to do SEO. His thinking was if I'm getting these sales for all these products and these are the top-selling products, what if I just get the website to rank higher?

That was the beginning. He hired a lot of different people to help him out. Some got to mentor and coach him throughout the process. That was the starting point, a painful starting point.

After that, he opened up a fragrance store and partnered with someone else. He didn't end up making millions of dollars like he thought he would with those first two ventures, but it definitely gave him the reps he needed.

He learned e-commerce, learned how to sell to strangers online. He didn't build an email list, which he should have, but he had the customer records and they were valuable. Then people who knew he was doing e-commerce started asking if he could do a website for them.

That was back in the Long Island, New York days.

The Move to Florida and Losing Everything

At some point, Danny was going through a rough patch in his relationship with his ex-wife. He decided it was time to try something new. Florida seemed like the right move. Tax-friendlier state, which was a smart decision.

At this point, he was making a little bit of money serving local clients. He had gotten rid of the e-commerce stores. He had some savings and decided to move to Florida.

As soon as they landed in Florida, it looked like every client he had started leaving. He didn't know how to sell. Now he was faced with the reality of not knowing how to retain clients. He knew how to do SEO but nothing about reporting, scaling, account management, none of that stuff.

He had a couple of VAs helping him out via Skype. There was no Slack or anything like that back in the day.

That was really the beginning of what ended up being the journey into the agency space. But things got worse. He ended up going through a divorce, losing it all, and sleeping in his car.

That was an interesting point of finding God. Danny made it clear this wasn't just saying Jesus, I surrender to you, I'm saved. He had always subscribed to that, but he was living internally as a slave.

It wasn't until he hit rock bottom that everything changed. He'd look at his debit card and have under $5. His debate would be: I need to get my kids a kids meal or a dollar item from the dollar menu, and I still got to put gas in the car to go drop them off.

Not having enough money, and then when he dropped them off, going to sleep in his car on the side of the road. That was the moment where he got to know Jesus Christ and God in his life.

"It's a humbling experience to now be able to share it but on the other side man that gave me the grit and just the the the ability to be able to see and be grateful for what I have," Danny said.

One thing after another, he immersed himself in the world of digital marketing. Got mentors, got clients, lost a lot of clients, got a lot of clients, served a lot of people. And here he is now.

I told him I didn't know about any of that. When you look at it from the outside, it all just seems like must be nice. Danny Barrera runs this big agency, he's on all these podcasts, he has all these friends. You never hear those tough stories.

What's almost the most interesting to me is after you make it and you think everything's okay, then you lose it all. That is tough. First off, I have so much respect for Danny and the fact that he persevered and is still where he's at now.

The Rebuilding Process in Florida

I asked Danny what happened in those first couple years in Florida. Everything started downspiraling. He loved Florida from the first time he came there. He was one of the IT analysts they would send out to set up remote setups for presidential debates and network communications back to headquarters in New York City.

The first time he came to Florida, he was like, I want to move here at some point in time. At that point, he was already making some money. He was checking out how much rent costs, looking at Coral Springs and other areas in South Florida.

He made the leap. He quit a job that was paying him very well, very comfortable. He got to travel a lot. There were great experiences, but it was high risk. His father called him and asked, are you sure you want to leave a job like this? What are you going to do next? His brother tried to talk him out of it. His mother tried to talk him out of it.

But it was a bold move, and he's glad he took that leap even though it was scary. He drove to Florida bringing things they had shipped. He remembers getting to the apartment the first night and just staring at the ceiling thinking, what did I do? Did I do the right thing? What's going to happen next?

They didn't have internet in that apartment yet, so he had to go to Starbucks and log in to check on stuff.

For the first year, it was just getting settled in. He still had a few clients. One was a company called Salt Armor that sells fishing gear like shirts and scarves. He used to go to Craigslist and see who was asking for SEO help or website work. He'd reply to everyone, left and right. He'd be sending messages up to 2 in the morning every day, just grinding and hustling.

He didn't know what he was doing. He was listening to a lot of Warrior Forum info product vendors that sold you the dream like you just need this one email and you're going to get 20,000 clients. He subscribed to so many of them. But looking back, that was the foundational step.

The second year is when the financial stress started piling up in his relationship. At that point, everything just started falling apart in terms of having mutual respect with his ex-wife. Little by little, the relationship disintegrated.

Danny looks back and he's grateful for the struggle because if it wasn't for that, he would not be where he is today.

The Process of Turning Things Around

I asked when things turned around and what that was like. Danny said it's a process. There wasn't just one thing.

He ended up working at call centers during that transition period at nighttime. He was calling for solar companies out on the West Coast pitching solar systems. He'd call 200 times a night and get paid 20 bucks for every booked call.

During the daytime, he'd be calling local businesses trying everything. But all of that was just trying a lot without focus or direction.

He tried to restart his agency with a couple guys who wanted to start a marketing agency. That was a bad move. He ended up getting paid less than minimum wage doing all the work. He doesn't recommend that at all. If you have the skill, learn how to sell. If you don't have the skill, go work with someone where you can learn the skill and then learn the process.

At that point, he was staying at his friend's house. Josh Nelson was in Dade, and his friend's house was in Dale as well. Danny saw one of Josh's Facebook ads giving away a free book about how you can build a seven-figure agency. He put his information in and somehow got the book at his friend's house.

He started following Josh, and there was a point where Josh opened up and sold a course. Danny got into the course somehow. He ended up attending one of Josh's live events.

Here's the crazy part: Josh's live events now have 300 people. Back in the day, it was a round table with maybe six chairs in his conference room. Danny was there. He was part of the initial group of like 10 people.

That might have been around 2016 or 2017. It's been a minute.

I completely relate to this because I went to one of the Seven Figure Agency seminars last year. There were at least 50 to 100 people at the event, people like Danny running seven-figure agencies focused on one niche. Most of them are local businesses. It just blew my mind.

At that point, I was trying so many different ways to make money online, same as Danny's story. I got sick of it. I was at the seminar and was like, this seems like it makes sense. It's also ethical, which is a big part for me and Danny as well. It's not just about making as much money as possible. If we are actually helping good businesses, that's what it's all about.

The Decision to Niche Down on Concrete

Danny was working with attorneys, medical practices, all these different clients. He already had a small client base, maybe $6,000 or $7,000 a month. By the time he paid child support and his VA, he didn't think he kept maybe $200 at the end of the day, maybe when he paid Josh for the membership.

He was on a coaching call, and someone asked him what do you want to do? Who do you want to serve?

Danny said he knew who he didn't want to serve. He didn't want to have to put a suit and tie on and deal with attorneys. He never been able to do well with attorneys. Same with medical. He didn't want to be a clown.

I completely agree. I'm always wearing a t-shirt. I don't want to dress up.

The one thing Danny got right out of that entire experience was just choosing one thing and then going all in. At that time, there might have been one or two agencies, but one true agency that had over 50 clients in the concrete space.

So he started Concrete Marketing Crew. His father was in the trades, which made it easier. His father went to be with the Lord a few years ago. Since 1998, Danny never got to see his father because he went back to El Salvador. Danny was here with his mother and brothers. His father could never get back here because of the legal situation and legal status. Danny never got to see him.

But some of the few memories he had with his father were pickup trucks on the weekends bringing food to the guys building houses, putting together commercial spaces. His father was also a polisher. Towards 1996 and 1997, he was one of the only polishers in Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador. That was a big deal back then.

Danny remembers his father going to shopping centers that wanted polishing, the airport wanted polishing. It was a big deal. He didn't understand it until now.

Serving all these different clients taught him one thing. The guy on the coaching call asked what do you want to do? Danny said he knew concrete because of his father. That became the foundation.

They still have Concrete Marketing Crew generating clients, but the rebrand to Contractor Click was a strategic rebrand that happened in February of this year. That's to open it up to more niches. They have the formula they've been able to replicate in multiple niches, and now there's high demand.

The foundation with Concrete Marketing Crew was learning how to build systems, processes, understand KPIs, scaling, hiring, recruiting, training people. That in itself is a business. Learning how to serve clients at the same time. Everything is recipes upon recipes.

The Responsibility of Serving Local Businesses

I told Danny I love that he has the background in local business as well because you can feel it. My dad has a flooring company, my mom has a therapy business. Growing up, I was helping them do all these things, watching how it's done. There's almost a nostalgic feel to it, and you feel for these guys as well.

I've seen my parents get burned by tons of different agencies. These are real people, real businesses, and they're almost always good people. The local business space, I don't know what it is, but it's always good people.

Danny said they're trying. This is the responsibility he likes to carry with his team. Someone's making a bet on themselves, hiring people to service their clientele and be able to bring in income for themselves and their livelihoods.

It does hurt him to see how many people just go in knowing there is a need for marketing and they don't care. They truly don't care. They just want to stack the MRR.

Danny made it his personal mission: every single time a client has come through their desk and the marketing hasn't worked out for them, he's like, I'll do it for free because I want to figure out what didn't work. Where did we drop the ball? Where have the ad campaigns been stubborn? Where have Facebook or Google ads not worked out? The SEO?

Those became their guiding principles, which they call the STAR values. Stewardship is number one. If they can't be stewards of the opportunity, that's a big deal for them.

He always carries that with a lot of responsibility, and it's helped them improve their sales process too. They discover who's not the right fit because not everyone is the right fit for them. It's not just about the MRR. They want to be entrusted with the responsibility and be able to deliver.

Danny gave me an example. They had this guy in the middle of nowhere in Philadelphia. Quite literally in the middle of nowhere. They ranked him number one for every city, every term they could think of. Concrete, stamped concrete, concrete patios, concrete pool decks. Hundreds and hundreds of keywords.

They're crushing it. The team is high-fiving each other thinking they're going to take this guy to the next level. Six months later, this guy is barely getting any leads from SEO.

It's because he's in the middle of nowhere. They should have done the due diligence of looking at the audience and the service areas and the targeting. That one client, painful as it was, was a big lesson in the discovery process of the sales process.

Maybe the territory is stubborn. If the client wants to go get work, they've got to go out where people are actually demanding their work. It got them to rethink and do a much better job in sales. They try to minimize those mistakes as much as possible.

I made a post about this a few days ago. I got on a call with a pest control owner, more so wildlife. He runs an $800,000 a year business doing great. But his main problem was hiring. He's getting so much work he can't even take it on.

Also, he's in such a small area, maybe only 5,000 to 10,000 people. He was only doing wildlife. I was being straight up. I told him if we're only doing wildlife and we're only targeting this area with 5,000 people, I can't help you with SEO.

Even if I got you all of the volume and ranked you number one on every single keyword, you might get 10 to 20 calls a month. I want to make sure my goal is to provide 10X ROI on whatever you're paying me. If I can't do that, I'm going to be straight up about it.

But I told him when you expand into pest control and you expand into this nearby city that has 150,000 people, then come back to me and I can help you. I just can't take you on if I know I can't help you.

Danny said that's good. That's the best policy hands down. There's no reason it's not worth the MRR you're going to add for two, three, six months, and then have that client go wild in the Facebook groups once you don't get them returns.

It's hard to build a reputation. To get those repeated reviews as an agency has been one of the toughest jobs. To be able to build a reputation then have one or two guys go out there and constantly bash you because you dropped the ball. They're constantly getting feedback from clients.

Those key data points help you sleep good at night knowing you're doing the best you can. The other thing is setting realistic expectations.

Setting Realistic Expectations with Clients

I told Danny I was just talking to one guy recently who's been burned so many times in the pest control industry. It seems like there are a few agencies preying on these guys. This guy was just like, look, I'm cool with waiting 3 to 6 months, whatever it is, but I just need clear expectations because everyone is promising the world and then doesn't fulfill.

I asked Danny how they go about setting expectations at their agency.

He said setting expectations starts with the fact that they don't just do SEO. They do paid advertising: customer acquisition through paid ads, Facebook ads, and Google ads. Now they have YouTube advertising through YouTube Shorts.

Leading with paid ads has made that conversation a lot easier than getting someone to invest for a long time upfront. There was a point where his agency was 80% to 90% founded on SEO. That's all he would sell.

But as you scale and get more clients, some clients need results now. That's the need to have an in-house, ideally in-house, media buyer and Google ad specialist that's lead generation focused.

You should have LSAs if you're in that industry. In concrete, there's no LSA unless you're doing foundation repair or whatnot. Those are the small things.

So you set the expectation with: what's the average cost per lead? What's it doing right now? The other thing is not hyping it up.

Danny knows that if someone else has served that client pretty well, their averages aren't going to lower the cost per lead by 5% or more usually if it's the same ad account. They have good landing pages. They know the landing pages convert. They have good targeting.

He always tries to let the client know the first month is discovery month. It's the month where they gather as much detail as they can and refine the process so that second and third month, you should be expecting better results from the paid ads and also from the organic.

The other thing they let clients know: if they're doing Google ads, they'll have the best converting keywords plus the Google Search Console and the Google Business Profile. Those are the best money keywords they should be optimizing for.

Back in the day, they would base their keyword research on just Semrush and Ahrefs and all that. But you come to find out the best converting keywords you're going to find on Google ads and your Google Business listing. That's gold right there.

They look at that and let clients know they need to invest some money on Google ads so they can get some data. If you have Google Ads, great, let's pull that data. Let's look at the conversions and the best territories. This way you know what city pages to build. You know what's trending where.

They start there and let clients know by month six, it depends on the website. If the website is in a very competitive territory, if they need to do link acquisition, guest posts, if they need a link building budget, they let clients know this is not going to be cheap.

Pest control is different from concrete. Pest control has competition. You have guys with exact match domains. It's different niches.

For them, if they need a link building budget, they set the realistic expectation based on acquisition. Danny always tells his team: if we can accomplish something in four months, let's let our clients know it's going to take six months. This way, if something doesn't go right with a link or whatever, we still got another month or so for breathing room.

The other thing is giving clients something to look at. Danny has an SEO workbook he'd be glad to share. You should have an SEO workbook where you can track the execution items.

In SEO, you've got to track the leading metrics, whatever it is you're implementing. The lagging is the analytics. That's what happened after the fact. But what are you doing? Those are the variables you're executing, whether it's on-page, technical, speed, whatever you want to troubleshoot.

What are you doing that's affecting this result here? A lot of times we're focusing on the rank trackers and not looking at what exactly did we implement here? What was the silo structure like? All these little things that make a big difference.

Those are the impact factors they look at. Then they let the clients know and teach them. This is going to affect this set of keywords or this theme or this specific service category we're looking for.

Then they deliver. Next month or two months later, they let them know for the next 60 days, we're going to focus on this other category.

In concrete, you have driveways, patios, pool decks. They ask clients what's the main service you want to push out there? If you could only do one thing that's profitable, for some guys it's pool decks, others it's driveways.

If a guy says driveways, great. They tell the client they're going to dominate for driveways. That's the number one goal. They want to get them wins. Then they figure out what do we need as backlinks, content, etc., to get the client wins. They show the client what they're going to execute on, they execute, and they report back in 60 days.

Once they start to achieve momentum, they let the client know we're planning for the next phase. Now let's focus on pool decks. That's secondary. Right alongside, you start building some city pages.

On the Google Business Profile side, the maps ranking, it's proximity-based. Some clients are in the middle of nowhere where the warehouse is, and they want to target somewhere else. They just let them know you've got to get an address there. Let's figure out a way to get a DBA set up in that specific location, get an address, get a utility bill sent there, get it verified, put a truck outside, take a picture and a video, upload it.

They walk them through the basics, and that happens a lot.

As far as expectations, you've got to see how many people are ranking in the top three. Usually it's three. Then the average review count. If the average review count is over 100 reviews and this is a brand new business profile, they're not going to let the client know you're going to dominate in three months.

Could they send traffic and CTR campaigns to that client? Sure thing. But once they stop the CTR, they're going to be in the middle of nowhere and Google's going to catch up.

The question is how do we want to do this right? Nowadays, they're more for the client posting their work pictures, just being more involved in their Google listings, training their crew members to upload project pictures and getting reviews. That's a big involvement from the account management.

The Power of White Hat SEO

That was awesome. There were so many golden nuggets in there. I'll piggyback off what Danny was saying at the end: I totally believe in just going white hat SEO now.

I think Google is getting and has been incredibly smart. With the Helpful Content update, with the March core update, they're cracking down on everything. Google is incredibly smart and incredibly sensitive.

I heard tons of stories of people getting their Google Business profiles removed or the website gets de-indexed. As an agency, the last thing I can have is the website go down or the Google Business profile. Both of those are huge customer acquisition channels, especially for pest control.

I'm a total believer in white hat. No fake reviews, no fake clicks, no fake backlinks. We have to do everything right.

Danny totally agreed. It's your business, and there are some clients that want them to try stuff out. Someone told them they could do this in 30 days. But here's the reality: nothing is going to beat the real thing, which is the real human traction.

If you haven't gotten any reviews in the last three or four years and you have a new competitor that's all of a sudden getting a couple reviews, and now you're wondering how come they're ranking and you're not, you've just got to look at how much movement has been happening.

The other thing is you can encourage your customers. Quite literally tell your customers as they're calling you: by the way, we're going to send a tech out there to check your property. I'm going to send you a link to your phone. Check out our Google reviews.

Just the mere fact that someone's clicking on that with their phone and now they open it up and maybe they click on the reviews and look through your posts, just those specific moves right there are going to help you get engagement.

It's not like you need to come up with some fake CTR campaign. What Danny just explained is perfectly fine. Your admin assistant, whoever's entering the phone, should be working with you in developing this strategy of distribution of your Google business link.

You can share different links. You can share a review link, the profile link, the actual Google URL, a post link within the Google listing. Whatever you want to maximize. They do help clients with those creative strategies.

Do they significantly make you number one? No. But they actually do move the needle in a safe way.

At the end of the day, SEO is an amplifier of who you already are. If you have a terrible business, if everyone's saying bad things about you, if you have terrible reviews, if you don't have a website, everything is wrong, I don't want to take you as a client. Danny doesn't either.

There's no SEO we can do to recover you being a horrible business because Google sees those signals of people clicking off the website or leaving a horrible review or potentially messaging their friends on Facebook. Now there's a whole Facebook thread saying how bad this pest control company is.

It really just comes down to being a good business. Luckily for me, if you already have a great business, then SEO is pretty easy. We just have to demonstrate you being a great business.

When Things Really Started to Pick Up

I asked Danny when things really started to pick up. After going through the reinvention process, he just committed to find wins and success. He reinvested pretty much anything he was earning back into himself.

Back in the day, Grant Cardone was coming out. Danny would consume his YouTube videos as much as he could. Brian Tracy is another one. The Psychology of Selling. If anyone wants to learn how to sell, Danny thinks that's probably his number one pick.

There was another gentleman coming out: Jeremy Miner. Back in the day, he had Seventh Level and would run calls on Skype. This was between 2016 to 2018. Danny was one of the early individuals on those Skype calls. They'd get on a call and go over the scripts.

It's still the same, by the way, and it works. Danny just leveraged that. He would have his top 100 or top 500 list. He would message people on Facebook on their profile pages. Whoever responded, he would follow up with them. It's just following the process: appointment set, discovery calls per, and close.

That became the journey. At some point, he hired a VA. The VA would do the setting upfront, just sending emails back and forth, following up with people. Then a sales assistant. That became the foundation.

He joined the American Society of Concrete Contractors and got involved there. Different Facebook groups. He got in touch with the administrators and asked how can I add value? I have presentations I can share with your people. What can I do for you?

That was a big thing. Danny doesn't like to just go out and pillage and get from a niche without giving. What I'm doing right now is what you're supposed to do. Bring value to people. Help them create wins so that when they look at the opportunity to invest in you, it's a no-brainer.

Danny's been showing up. He's giving the opportunity to be here on the podcast. He's got a plan. Of course people are going to invest.

"I think we got it backwards with this internet marketing Community which is I'm I'm sick and tired of by the way seriously," Danny said. "It gives us a bad name it's like we're going to screw people over right."

He respects everyone, but this is not a Tai Lopez SMMA on the weekend. You launch your ads and you get people. A lot of good people get started there, but this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. That's not how Danny treated it.

Giving back is another thing because the more he gives back, the more he gets back. There is something that happens there at a higher level. He's always going above and beyond for people in the industry. Wherever he can serve, he serves. If he can't, he can't, but he supports people.

He got involved in trade shows. His wife started joining him. She ended up quitting her teaching job. Danny got remarried, and his current wife ended up quitting her job. Now she's the owner of Contractor Click.

It's been a journey. If Danny was to pinpoint when things really took off, he thinks it's when he figured out the sales process and how to build value the right way. How to package a program that delivered what was promised and was repeatable and duplicatable.

That's the key thing in the agency space: knowing you can replicate and duplicate the recipe and knowing who not to bring on as a client. All those little things clicking together create this opportunity to go vertical because it's more scalable.

Until you get to that point of figuring that out, you might sell a lot of clients but then you're losing on the recurring, on the churn. But if you figure out retention, which is delivering service and customer happiness, all that, you can deliver your services for the right client.

Now with Contractor Click, they've mastered the recipes and now they're able to implement it for multiple niches. Danny doesn't recommend you start out with multiple niches because you're just multiplying the amount of learning you've got to do. One person or a small team, it's going to take a long time to be able to do that at scale.

If he was starting all over again, he would still niche down. Find the one, get incredibly good, and look for niches that are related or that have the same customer base.

For example, he would not go into pest control because it's not home improvement at the core. Home service, the service process is different. The way you treat the customer. For now, their client sales journey is similar. They've got foundation repair out there, which is probably in the urgent niches. Aside from that, everyone else is pretty much interrelatable in one way, shape, or form.

Where Agency Leads Come From

I asked Danny where he finds most of his leads coming from for his agency. Cold calls? The YouTube channel?

YouTube is certainly one of his favorite ones. YouTube leads convert at the highest levels for them. He doesn't know, maybe 80%. He asked if I get that, and I told him I don't know yet because I just started the YouTube channel.

They have YouTube campaigns running right now for the economic times. If a business is struggling and they don't have a plan, they have the right system that can help them out. It's a direct response ad.

What they're noticing is people are going to their channel afterwards. They're finding them and then they're booking time. Those are the hot leads.

That also creates Google searches. They've correlated anytime they're running YouTube ads aside from Facebook ads, they get more organic clicks. It all comes together.

Then they have Facebook and Instagram where Instagram is their second after YouTube. So YouTube, Instagram, then Facebook ads.

They have their growing email list. If someone gets into their email list, it's just follow-up. The email newsletter is a good one for them that brings one or two clients a month consistently without doing anything else aside from everything else.

How to Keep Clients Long-Term

Another question I asked was not just how do we sell clients, but how do we keep clients? What is Danny's strategy for retaining clients?

His answer was simple: deliver results. Deliver clear communication and be there for them. Be a trusted advisor.

Being the trusted advisor means you want to constantly be touching base and checking in. What's the pulse this month? Talk to me about your sales numbers. I understand you got this many leads this month but you're struggling with closing. Now what's happening? Do you have a sales process that's optimized or not optimized? Let's listen to some of the leads together. Let's see how we can do that better.

Communication is a big one. If you did a good job upfront in understanding how they buy, if they're a shiny object, here's a good one: if they've been jumping from one agency to the next in the last six months and you're the fourth agency, guess what's going to happen in your world? They're going to churn no matter what.

Now if they've been with the last agency for the past three years or two years or even one year, that's their lifetime. You've got to have that discernment in knowing do I really want to take this guy that's just going to be here for 60 days and try something else?

That's a big one for retention: knowing who you're dealing with. Their style of communication is another big one. Some people like to read and other people like to listen. Did you know that? There are those two modalities.

What you can do is Loom videos do an okay job, but some people like reports that are lengthy and that's how they understand value. Other people understand value when you get on a Zoom call with them or here. If you're not available here, the value goes down and they're like I'm paying this guy to do SEO for me but I don't know what he's doing.

Meanwhile, you're delivering top-notch results and they don't see it. Value is always to that individual, so you just got to know what value is to them. That increases lifetime.

Then understanding their niche so you can help them and facilitate information, optimizing sales process, appointment setting, whatever it is. Just being a good source of assistance in their business growth is the biggest driver of retention.

I love that perspective and frame that you're more so like a partner. The way Danny's saying it, if they've churned with their past agencies, they're going to churn with you. It's literally like a relationship, not to the extent of business partners, but you should have an actual relationship and partnership with your agency.

It's a big deal to pay an agency $2,000, $5,000, even $10,000 a month. It's like you're hiring almost several employees with that amount of money. You're expecting some ROI.

As an agency owner, I want to have all my clients for the rest of their lives and the rest of however long they have their business. Maybe they exit, or maybe the best step for them is to hire in-house, and I can help them transition into that. Regardless, treating it like a partnership instead of just a get-rich-quick or a productized service where I'll deliver this result and now we're done.

No, it's a lifelong relationship.

Danny agreed. It can evolve too. You can have multiple programs. This is a program you can start with us, and this would be the next level. You should have a couple products in your pipeline that you can assist them with.

When you solve one problem, you will create another problem for them. It's the natural life cycle of life and business. You solve a problem, now you create a different problem. You've got to always think ahead into what that looks like.

Maybe recruiting is that problem. Guess what? If you have High Level and you offer your clients High Level, it doesn't hurt to create a pipeline for them and train them and build training. Now that becomes a resource allocation.

For them, that's what they do. They notice you're actually struggling with keeping up with jobs. Do you have anything running? You don't? Okay, let's turn on some recruiting ads and now you can start having conversations. You can let AI do some vetting for you.

Understanding that life cycle of your client, and once you master it very well for your niche, then it's easier to take that recipe and bring it to another niche. That's what Danny meant by recipes. There's so much that can be done here.

That's why he doesn't jump into home service. They've made the decision to be strategic about that for now because there's no need. There's enough to help their clients with. Plenty.

The Biggest Lesson: Stop Lying to Yourself

I asked Danny one last question: throughout his whole journey in entrepreneurship, all this hardship, finally coming out on the other side of the tunnel, what is one of the biggest lessons he's learned in the past few years?

His answer hit me hard.

"The biggest lesson is to stop lying to yourself as an individual look at take a deep look in the mirror and and stop lying," Danny said.

What he means by that is a lot of times we say we want something, but the question is: do you? Because the moment you start executing, either you create excuses for yourself of why you're not doing that which you said you would do and commit to doing.

You want to build a business? Guess what, it's going to bring pain. It's chaos. But that's what you said you wanted to do. You want multi-figures? This whole thing with social media and popularity and trends? You're not going to be Hormozi overnight.

If that's what you want to do, you better be willing to pay the price and not just be another monkey dancing around trying to get views and hack the system. You've got to pay the price.

Ultimately, if you continue to lie to yourself, and this was Danny's biggest lesson because his rebuilding time was all about becoming truthful for himself and getting to know that man that he wanted to be. If whatever he said he was committed to doing and executing, he was willing to pay the price.

That's the one thing: his word and his commitment has got to match. This is why he has no problem when someone is dealing with him and he's either coaching and consulting with them or maybe he's selling them something. He has no problem leaning in. Why? Because they're going to get to the truth of the core.

Most times when it comes to the closing table, if you are the man that you said you are and you make the decisions and you're leading the business, but all of a sudden when someone's asking you to sign the dotted line and you're like, well, I got to ask my wife, do you or do you not trust yourself to make that decision?

You've got to do your due diligence, but be real with yourself. Have that level of integrity. Truthfulness brings a lot of weight. In this economy, in this world we live in, you just don't know what's real and what's not. It's so easy to make something up with AI.

Within a couple years, you're truly not going to know whether this podcast was an AI version or not.

"I know for myself finding that truth and certainty and being able to map that out for myself um it's it's it's the biggest thing and now I do get to serve other men who are going through a divorce transition who are living in chaos," Danny explained.

He gets to realign them and say, you know what, I was there. Let's have a conversation. Let's get aligned. Let's get focused. Let's get real with what you really want and the reasons why you want that. Let's put in the work to make forward progress.

At the core, that liberates a lot of the stories that are floating around. Some things you might have lived through in life. Ultimately, when you find the ultimate truth in your life, you're going to find God. When you find God within, you live in freedom. When you live in freedom, you can have it all.

That's the journey Danny's on right now.

Freedom. Danny Barrera, ladies and gentlemen.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Danny is that your story doesn't define your future. Danny went from sleeping in his car with less than $5 in his account to serving 500+ clients and generating $250 million in revenue. That transformation didn't happen because of luck. It happened because he stopped lying to himself, found God, and committed to doing whatever it took. Your lowest moment can be the launching point for your greatest success.

The second takeaway is the power of serving before selling. Danny doesn't just go into a niche and pillage. He brings value first. He joins associations, speaks at trade shows, creates presentations, helps people create wins. By the time someone looks at the opportunity to invest in him, it's a no-brainer because he's been showing up. That's the model we should all follow, not the internet marketing BS of screwing people over and stacking MRR.

The third insight is about knowing who not to work with. If a client has churned through four agencies in six months, they're going to churn from you too. If they're in the middle of nowhere with no search volume, you can't help them no matter how good your SEO is. Danny made it his personal mission to figure out what didn't work when a client wasn't getting results, even if he had to do it for free. That level of commitment to understanding failures is what makes you great long-term.

The fourth thing that struck me is the importance of realistic expectations. Danny's agency doesn't just sell SEO. They lead with paid ads because some clients need results now. They tell clients the first month is discovery. They set expectations that if something can be accomplished in four months, they say six months to give breathing room. They teach clients to understand the leading metrics, not just the lagging analytics. That's how you build trust and retain clients for years.

The fifth lesson is about retention being more important than acquisition. Danny emphasized that value is different for every client. Some want lengthy reports, others want Zoom calls. Some care about rank trackers, others care about phone calls and closed jobs. You've got to understand their style of communication and what value means to them. You're not just an SEO provider, you're a trusted advisor helping them with recruiting, sales process optimization, and business growth. That's what creates lifetime clients.

If you want to learn more from Danny, you can find him at Contractor Click on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and everywhere else. He's also working with men who are going through transitions in their lives at Irreplaceable Father on Instagram and IrreplaceableFather.com. On a personal level, you can follow him on Instagram at @ItsDannyBarrera where he posts daily Bible readings and stories. Danny's journey from rock bottom to serving hundreds of clients is proof that with God, truth, and commitment, you can overcome anything and build something incredible.