Episode #179 – Bruno Domingues On Using Facebook Groups To Build Your Network. Generate Leads And Sales Now Through Listening.

David Allan: Hey, everybody We’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David your host as usual. We have a very interesting guy on the show today that I’ve been following for a while.

His name is Bruno Domingues I believe and if I’m pronouncing that right. And one of the things I wanted to have Bruno on the show today to talk about this is a very interesting sort of lead generation techniques by hanging out in people’s Facebook groups that have his ideal clients. And on commenting and so forth and generating leads that way he’ll have much more to say about this. Bruno Welcome to the show.

Bruno Domingues: Thank you David. Good to be here.

David Allan: Yeah it’s fantastic you’re in Lithuania. You just told me off the air. Going out living in the Nomad lifestyle. It’s good to be able to travel and work remotely as I do myself it’s fantastic. Now let’s take it back. Where were you born. How did you get into all this. You know online marketing and so forth.

Bruno Domingues: Online marketing? I’d say I went from all my early years I was working in I.T.

So I started by working when I was about 18 I went freelancing pretty quick by the age of 19 I was making about three in the house thousand a month already. By then I signed this I realized that web was the future rights of Web sites and all that. So I changed from IP to web. I went for four years in the big agency in Holland. So I was living in Holland for four years there. I learned all that in it. And after that I opened my company so that was in 2004 when I started the business I opened in the UK and then went which was where I thought it was the best place to open.

At the time. So when you were doing I.T. were you doing like I was just freelancing kind of stuff too.

Yeah mostly freelancing.

I actually had agency that just called me and say I have a new assignment for you and they will be usually like a three month assignment six hours a day or four hours a day and was really well. Some of them those like quite good and I had my own clients as well. I built computers I stole software it gave technical support. All of those things at the time and that which required me to be physically present there. Right. So I couldn’t actually travel and do it because I couldn’t do it remotely.

So once I realized that was like I loved what I did. Clowns were awesome. And I I found very quickly that people are usually very valuable because everyone gets their computer fixed and they want it fast so they want to keep on good terms to the right people. You know what I mean.

Oh yeah I I can relate to that certainly.

But once I realized I needed to be free I wanted to be free to travel the world around the world from anywhere and that’s where it can be ideal going into web development. So I went into that in 2000 and 2004 and that started the company. Meanwhile at the same time a remarkable online marketing comes along with development Web sites as well as basically are building cells for those rights that you need to send traffic to it. So it all went from there. And that started my digital marketing agency in 2004. I had already clients because I’m like one of those guys who are always busy and I never rely on just one thing or like thinking when I leave my job I’ll start

looking for a. I never think like that. I think like I get plans while I’m on the job and I only leave when I already have so many so much work to do outside. I just can’t handle it and I need to just go on full on. So by the time I started my company within two months or so I had already had enough clients just go on full time getting on the business. And then with that I started doing the line marketing side which was mostly Google on the words at the time. I started traveling as well so I don’t you know I was in lots. I’ve been traveling all over the place and my friends Silex and Berwick’s Switzerland. I’ve been everywhere in Central Europe. The center opened

in Eastern Europe I started to Lithuania Estonia Latvia. So we know this over the years I grow the business slowly but I was mostly traveling and enjoying and working maybe two or three hours a week sometimes and just relaxing enjoying life and learning. So that was that and only recently like in the last few years that’s when I started up as enough of partying and traveling you know. Let me get serious on this and start very seriously. So that it was about maybe two years ago I tried on my own. Initially I thought well I’ll That’s what I can do. But I found that I needed training really on sales sales training right positioning help as well to know how to

position the office because I just thought it was working very well because when I tried to increase my prices and I just couldn’t find a good way to justify I knew other agencies larger agencies were doing like insane prices like 50000 other thousand. But I had no idea how to do that. So this was part of the training I went through to understand how to do it. And once I got through that that’s when I found Facebook groups last year in August that Soval again one of the issues I had in digital marketing is when I go if I want to go out of my area it’s extremely expensive because most of these big brand agencies spend tons of money on

branding which means they take the top positions they pay like 15 15 or 20 dollars a click which is way too expensive for a small agency to afford. So that made really hard and I wasn’t sure how can I market my own area because it’s all fake.

I mean if I go and do as you know all the big agencies spend maybe 100000 someone in marketing will easily beat me because it’s the way I can beat them. And it’s like you know it was really hard and that’s when the first book groups came along and it really solved that problem for me. I mean since then I haven’t had any more problems finding clients because they even come to me now. So it’s like completely changed the whole face of marketing online.

So when you said you went through training you know. Was that. Did you go out and get courses or die.

I invested $9000 in the course and that was the best course I could find. So I did some research found made sure that was really the real deal. No it just took me a year to join before I joined. That’s what I like most of. We are a bit reluctant in investing on training because we’re not sure it’s the right thing. We are afraid we get scammed sits right on. And then we’ll be 100 percent sure it’s really going to solve the problem we have. And I mean it took me. And then again we went to try and do it on our own as well because we think we can get there on my own. So I tried that and it didn’t go that well. So I managed to increase sales by maybe 10

percent in the course of a year and that was like a huge screw up. So I.

I like it is a joke folks. I have to like to think to myself and keep an open mind take a look at this talk to myself like this.

Listen I’m not getting anywhere with this. I mean trying to get it on my own all this time. So it’s time to take a different approach. Right. Right. You keep trying the same thing you always been trying you’ll end up getting the same thing you know but always been getting. If I wasn’t able to grow this for her on my own means I need help finding help I have to really think it’s terrorism the best. So that’s when I decided to do that.

That was a mentorship or was that just a straight course was a coaching program with their ship was altogether Do I give a shout out to anybody.

Well you know who is a wrestler.

Of course he’s a good guy right. Yeah.

So our early on was actually far better than I expected. The training when I initially went for it I thought it would solve my positioning and my self-training had far more than that and they had the introduction of the Facebook groups which I didn’t even know they existed almost. So that was the first place he heard about it. Yeah it was the first place I heard about it. And once I realized I went within the groups initially I like let me see what the hell this thing is. You know like what happens in here. Most people go into groups and they already think let me sell something you know obviously for me it was like a strange creature and I wanted to explore and see what it is what it was how it works and for me

to understand how it works before I actually take action and do some venture because I don’t want to make sure when I do something I do it right. I don’t screw things up. So that’s what I did when I started talking with people participating and answering posts. And because I wasn’t trying to sell anything it’s worked really well. People started think gaging start coming to me I think my best friend send me a PM asking some questions. Some of them came and tried to sell me something and I was so open minded or like really relax like let’s see what’s got what happens. For me it was like a study. I was almost doing to study to understand how it works. And once I started getting fat once I got like a first two clients I started realizing

what how like this is like all these people here a lot of them are like potential clients. And that’s when I realized the potential of it I was like holy crap this is like awesome. And I went on Google sheets I spilled a little Google ship as a template just for me to put in engagements and that all came to me. What did I speak with or were like potentially a client so all that so I don’t forget to follow up because that’s one of the hardest parts is to follow people up. And if you don’t do that then you lose out on opportunities. So I started feeling that I started putting in. Where did I post on what results I got from the post. How many people came to me with that post etc. and with it I started getting

a good feel of work would I find the customers I needed. And then I started following on that. So on the first month I made the ball maybe ten twelve thousand extra. I used to make just from that. And I was still a bit unsure about what to sell Exactly. So I was just offering like the Google ads campaign set up on running Google advertisements for businesses. So I was doing that in the beginning did a few sites as well but mostly people were looking for marketing. Most of them because I wasn’t trying to sell them it may also make it different so they actually approached me and they did a book about their business and I was just interested in listening about what they have to say rather than try to

talk about my own business and actually avoid talking about my own business because I realized that most people just want to talk about their own stuff. Yeah. And the fire is very smart very smart. I’m just another guy who wants a lot of his own stuff. Nobody is going to give a crap because it’s so common. But what I notice is everyone wants to talk about their own stuff. And if I want to get the customer first of all I need to listen I shouldn’t be talking I should be listening. So that’s what my perspective on it. And I just did that. Just listen the people love to talk about their stuff that for me is nice. I met so many interesting people.

I made the joint ventures I did all kinds of business with its my good friends as well. I mean it’s really amazing. It’s a very interesting community. So when you have that open mind and they’re just not trying to sell you understand the full scope of it because zero. Like they say your network is your network. Right. This is a very common phrase and this is very true of the contacts I made are extremely valuable right now because I have contacts now with celebrities with influencers. I have many of them are my Facebook friends and some people I didn’t even imagine that would ever really really mean able to connect to like or be close to their in their circle. And that’s like really at that level people like Robin Sharma I

never thought I would be able to actually up with each other.

I mean that’s like also where you were all that on that level of Gary Vaynerchuk or Ryan Sharma with are the top guys in the world on what they do it’s like your perspective changes it starts to see how that world works. So that’s when it shifted from finding just below inside where are you looking for your ideal clients but where are your ideal kinds are like the small Reiger or normal business you know the small business school nor your ideal clients become like Mastermind on there is influence or celebrities. That is a completely different game. So when you get to that point the common objections you have when you’re selling

which is usually it’s too expensive I don’t have the money. I’m not sure if it’s right but when you’re talking with an influencer or someone on a level they don’t have the kind of objections they’re really smart they know what they’re doing they know what they want and they have the money. So it’s like it’s no problem really assailed that level takes maybe 25 minutes into a phone call and there’s like it’s 4000. OK let’s go.

I said OK let’s go. I had one of 42000. Let’s go to those lights. And I was like whoa is it possible. My head was like this is the fun filled.

How is it possible that before I couldn’t even I would I had to be like three or six months chasing a potential client to get the 4000 sale or 6000 sale. Right now I’m like I’m making sales of that level. So it’s like Fort Bliss number two. So I say so what were you selling. You charge $42000 for him. I don’t have anything at $2000 so my minimum I have is four thousand. So I have different offers which are the first group training is one of the first. So it depends on what the person. So I do recall where it talked about. They tell me about their business what their goals are and then I can see if I can help them on what’s the best option for them in

terms of course to go. How should we address it. And a Facebook group is the right way to go or how exactly will it work with them. So that’s one of the parts. And then you have the ads setting up and managing the campaigns Google Ads managing and setting up and building those funnels.

This might lead to four main things I’m doing right now so that people people are probably listeners to this are probably going to sit there in rapt attention if I don’t ask this next question they’re going to be like why didn’t they ask this question which is what actually what did you charge somebody $42000 for.

Oh that was the whole package was the Web site the Vollmann the other Web site a whole thing a little old man was the ads included. But that person asked me something nobody asked me before which was 12 months support as well. So it was all together in one package. They actually didn’t do the price it just told me to listen I have my budget for a thousand. I want you to know this is how it’s going to be played.

I’m going to play first month this second month this third month this is the payment plan. This is how it’s going to go. This is what I want. I knew exactly what they wanted it was all planned out. So like I said I just had to say yes or no.

It’s a good position to be in.

How is it surprising. I mean that’s the thing. When you get out there and you speak to a lot of people you get things like that happening because it doesn’t happen all the time but it happens like once in a while you get surprised you get sick. I mean I got surprised when I was I just do the posts on my timeline about my program when I launched it and had someone they wanted to promote it to their audience and they did mailing to his audience look up Neal maybe 100 leads although I didn’t know it was going to happen. But if I hadn’t put it out there it wouldn’t have happened right now. So that’s the main point. If you don’t actually go and participate and enjoy with people nothing happens.

It’s true.

Now did that require I mean maybe it’s hard to step out of yourself for a second you know because everything I know for me when things happen that’s kind of like retrospectively you’re kind of like oh yeah this is sort of how it went. But at the time did you realize like when someone’s offered you like you know a deal for a $42000 sort of dictating the terms. Jane you’re kind of like sitting back thinking oh my god this is amazing. Does that require a shift in your in your mindset.

Like where are you ready for that or were you like I can’t believe this is happening or I wasn’t ready because my mind set shifted shifted around in August about August or so I made my mind my preparation was I need to keep an open mind and not make a big deal out of anything right. I mean so it’s like whatever happens chill cooled down then it’s normal. I just think it’s just normal.

You know like I said I don’t make a big deal because I really put a lot of work into making sure my emotions don’t get in the way of business. And it is really critical for me. Like I don’t want to get emotional about anything and I want to be sure that they execute and make sure things happen. So if I’m helping a client sometimes the client makes it complicated and it’s going emotional and I have to put him back in his place like I forget their emotions focus on this is what needs to happen to all the problem and sometimes that helps because people get emotional all the time.

That’s true. That is very true. Now OK let’s go back to where like when you first invested in Russell’s course and he said it took a year you know. And he said you know when you were trying stuff out on your own and then you sort of came to that breaking point where you’re like I need help you know.

So it was an event something that they all just took the call and I spoke with them. And when I took the call I didn’t actually really I decided that that was going to join. I wanted to talk with them and see if what they had was actually going to solve my specific problems or get me what I thought I needed at the time. That was it. During the call that’s when the the the rest of the breakthrough came in I realized like I mean it was time to get the action and do it.

So it was basically before that. Do you think you’re sort of just where you just kind of. You just don’t know quite what direction to go in place.

Yeah I think it was more like you’re always waiting for the right moment to realize is the right moment never really comes over. Right. Right. So that’s kind of what they say about having a baby or something like that there’s not very readily plan it’s very rare that someone plans to have a baby cry like let me plan I’ll have a baby in two years from now on my birthday.

But yeah I mean it just happens and you deal with it then you actually end up realizing it was one of the best things that happen in your life.

And I’ve seen it happen a lot with all kinds of stuff like single moms I’ve seen single moms the same right at the beginning of the leg is the end of the world if they’re going to be a single mom or dad. Turns out it isn’t and they actually love their kid and they’re happy. GM insists things change show when you think of the decision to actually act and change your life after you get used. It’s scary at the beginning so you get a bit scared at the beginning when you do it but once you get used to it it becomes natural and then it ends up if it was a good decision ends up being like the best thing you ever did in your life. And that’s really what happens because we’re surprised.

So was it shocking to you how fast things moved once you sort of got that mentorship.

Yeah it was it’s kind of less explained like scary in a way but I didn’t let my emotions get in the way because just an execution like what needs to happen then. Wow. How and where and just focus on getting things done. And that didn’t leave much space for me to get on the fears even though I still have like the friends everyone has like when something goes wrong or didn’t get in there like second guessing yourself like maybe I’m not that good you know like and they’re pissed off at themselves. But then if you manage to fix something everything’s good again. You know those rollercoaster going happens and every obstacle you get is started the second guessing and then the solve it and everything is fine. So I went through all of that but I tried to

maintain just execution then still offering emotional things or any like making any judgments.

So you just did you seek out any other resources for that in particular.

Or were you just evolving as a person was evolving in all senses so I was improving the level of service level of solutions I offered not to be just something that I sell and that’s about it. It’s more like I have to make sure that my clients get that outcome. This is a question that comes a lot when people want to join my program and ask me how I like. How long is it the program is. Well it’s thing is there is no how long because some people might take longer or there’s less time. Depends how good they are depends on how much time they have depends on all the factors and there’s no way to guess it. So the only thing I can do is like the wind switch it’s my job to make sure you get to your goals. So you define your

goals and then it is until you get to your goals and that’s about it. So I’m there for them until they get to their goals and that’s ends of the story. And that’s basically how I do it because that’s really the only way that makes sense to me. So I’m offering an outcome not a service. Before I used to offer services before I did the training I was more than just selling a service. So now you’re saying the outcome now is more outcome based. Yes.

And had you gone through Gigantes I know Russ offers like sales training and stuff as part of his Thanks. You know have you gone through sales strings and stuff like that before.

No it was my first time ever. Three of us and of course ever was my first paid course. But you went on and you pushed all in. Yeah I mean it just gets better and I just went through it looked like it was the right thing to do. And I thought like if I go for a cheap thing it’s probably not going to work.

So I wanted to go with the proper thing and make sure that I get the support I’m in many of our God like you that it was really good. You know before I joined initially I thought it was just us alone doing everything right.

Right.

And then once I joined I was like all the crap does all these coaches and stuff like this just so I was pretty impressed by that and I thought awesome awesome.

So now you learn about Facebook groups. Are you going in there like he said you are. Because it seems to be your kind of process.

I’d like to research you like to dig in the stuff and know a lot about before you start up. You know go all in you know. So now you’re in these groups just seeing these conversations and I’m starting to realize that there are you know of course you’re going through the course of the same time on what you know are you starting to realize I know that you know these are my clients there all these people and some of these groups and then you know what sort of led to your coming up with a. Was it just sort of organic you decided I know about this. I make a comment and then people started to be you know you exchange ideas.

I tracked everything so I know exactly where I was getting leads from. So it wasn’t like I was guessing or something.

So everything that happened I put it on the Google sheet and I know what was coming from where what their income level was. I know everything about them pretty much. And with that I can see where which groups were the ones who had the best best results. Where did I get the customers from and from there. Then I just you know you take a conclusion so you look at OK most sales coming from this group once this comes from this group. I’m getting it a lot easier to get everything out of this group. So this is where I’m going to put my efforts. Pretty much that’s as. No guessing at all it was just like numbers and the numbers tell me where to go.

So at that point when you were like did you start to think back to the beginning or did you strike it right from maybe the second week it was like this the first week. I remember it very well I had just on the first week I just went on with some comments that I wasn’t expecting anything I just let some comments just to explore a bit.

And I went back to my normal life. And so I started getting like all I think was over the weekend I the comments on Friday or something like that. And then over the weekend there was about Sunday or Monday and then I went to like got all these people come in from that what I did on Friday. I mean this is pretty cool. So I felt like let me just see what happened that night when I read the numbers I looked my on my PMS the My sister had a friend request about like there’s like 20 people already. So I thought this is really very good. So I started to track I thought this is where tracking was the first thing I thought there was this is we’re tracking. I said up Google should put everything in there and every single person of the BME I put it in there their

name they’re linked to Facebook profile and what kind of business they have. So I usually check their insurance or check for that or any links they have when they put the States. Like I talk with them yet. I spoke about it to get back with them or what happened. So did all that tracking. And then I started testing different polls different engagements to see what happened. I was more like one no. See what happens. RAZ I know now that I’m a different level I understand this is actually what happens on the high level as well influenzas do this all the time. They try different things all the time. Things get old really quick. So if you’re doing the same thing that everyone’s doing is not so interesting. So you’ll see a lot of that people trying different things different approaches

different crazy things and they do that a lot that’s come on in social media.

You know if you have advice for people that are out there they’ve never you know gotten any leads on Facebook groups so probably they may hang out in a lot of Facebook groups. But they’ve never really generated any leads. What sort of advice do you have for people who are maybe rethinking this. Listen to this. Nothing black on Facebook groups no one’s ever PM me ask me what the hell I do or whatever. You know what. What sort of advice would you have for them.

The best one is on many of the groups there are promo days where people go and promote their stuff. So what is. So when most people see the promo they do know what they’re thinking they’re thinking I’m going to post the link to my business and talk about my business and what they are. Thing is everybody is doing it so nobody cares so much or so. So it’s that instead of doing that you actually reverse you’re like thinking OK there’s all these people boasting about their business. No look at that. That’s awesome. They’re actually doing your work for yourself right because now you see. Yeah they’re telling

you if they’re a good customer for you or not I’m in fact damn that’s not how we think Bruno.

I love what you do then. What do you do next. You see their promotional post to reply to their post and ask more about their business of course because they get that they’ll be like oh these guys you know maybe a line maybe is interested about something that could be you and then you get to talk about their business. No I mean anything can happen they might have a lead for them you might know someone who knows them that is useful for them whatever. Just keep an open mind and talk with people like people so people buy from people as they say.

Man you’ve given a lot of value today. I have to say apparently you’ve been dropping all sorts of great content from people a lot of actual little tips. If people want to get a hold of you what’s the best place they should go and get a hold the call that can come on my Facebook group for example.

Right. You might want to name that. Missing here. I just get the right name and I’m in the group as well so yeah. So it’s it’s like if all evolution generate leads on Facebook groups without advertising and your Facebook profile Bruno Domingo’s actually have more more of these actionable content on my group as well. I posted a few. I had one several ways I leverage Facebook groups to increase my reach. We’re talking about all these different ways to get it. Awesome awesome.

You’ve really delivered here today and I knew I knew you would I could just tell by the kind of person you were in the way you were making comments and stuff and after following you for a while I’m really glad you made the time to come on the show.

My pleasure. All right man. And everybody else hopefully will have somebody you know as insightful and live delivering as many actionable tips as Bruno did next week on the show. Until then.