SFR 69: Professional Services Funnel! Special Interview with Yanni Fikaris...

In this 2nd episode of our 6-part series, Yanni shows the funnel behind his painting business...

Steve Larsen:

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Now, this is part two of our six-part series. This episode, I'm going to dive deep into the professional services category. This is one of the six categories that we know people are using ClickFunnels for especially, and so, number two here is professional services.

Now, if you are a dentist, a lawyer, a doctor, a chiropractor, a painter, anything where there's a trade involved. Whether or not you had to go to school, there's high skill involved with the actual service of the product. You're going to love this episode.

What I did is I've interviewed ... His name is Yanni Fikaris. You'll hear the numbers as he talks about it, but he's pulled 160 grand with $900 in ads--it's ridiculous!--in only three months. He's only had a ClickFunnels account since March, which is ridiculous.

Anyway, without further ado, let's dive into the episode...

Announcer:

Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business, using today's best Internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host, Steve Larsen.

Steve Larsen:

Dentists, lawyers, doctors, chiropractors, painters, anyone with a trade is going to love the episode that we've got for you today. This is honestly a category that's the holy grail of anyone I know who's a funnel builder. They're trying to go after people who've learned a trade, somebody who is trying to sell a specific service, someone who's trying to sell a specific skill, and it's not an easy area.

Two days ago, I see a post by our speaker today, our guest today, basically saying, "Hey, look! I'm spending just a few dollars in leads, and I'm making a ton of money every month," and it's inside of what I call, what Russell calls, and what ClickFunnels calls the professional services category.

I thought, hey, I've got to get him on the show, and I'm excited to have him. Hey, everyone, if you could welcome with me, Mr. Yanni Fikaris. How you doing, man?

Yanni Fikaris:

I'm doing great, man, how are you?

Steve Larsen:

Dude, I'm just doing awesome. I was super excited for today. I had a hard time sleeping last night, because most people don't figure out what you have figured out, and I don't know that you've realized that yet, as I've talked to you, either.

Yanni Fikaris:

It's a short time coming, but it's a lot of bumps.

Steve Larsen:

Sure, sure, absolutely. Do you mind? Just tell us a little bit about yourself, and then I'd love to hear about what you've pulled off, because it's pretty unique, man.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, I have a painting and refinishing company. It's been in the family. It's changed a little bit from when my dad and my uncle ran it, but we're a house painter, and we do specialty finishing, a lot of cabinet refinishing.

My specialty is spraying, so I really can bring down the crew size and give a really good product because of our spray application. It's harder to do, but it's a niche, and that niche is what promotes me on Facebook, in the advertising. It's that specific niche. I coupled that with what I've been reading from Russell.

What he's putting out there is these blue, the blue waters, and I was like, "You know what? This is pretty interesting." I mean, I'm not the sharpest guy, but I was like, "I've got to give this a shot."

Steve Larsen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It's funny. I've visited your site. Obviously, I've looked at your stuff, and you don't look like ... I mean, you don't necessarily look so much like a house painter. I mean, it looked like I was entering some kind of cult world. I mean, it was awesome. You have such awesome branding, such awesome sites, everything else.

What eventually led you to get into the Internet space as a painter?

Yanni Fikaris:

Well, we were spending a fortune in print, and one day I'm going to the mailbox, and I'm taking all this print, all this advertising from all these people, and I'm just throwing it in the trash every day. Then, I eventually put my recycling bin next to the mailbox, because I would just take out print, take out the bills, and throw everything into the recycling bin.

Steve Larsen:

I think we all do that, yeah.

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah, I think, ultimately you either bring it in the house and put it in the recycling or take it outside. One day I'm thinking, man, we're spending 10 to 20 thousand dollars a month in advertising, and my newspaper and my print people are telling me, "Oh, if you get 1/1000 of a reader, it's good. It will pay for the ad." That's what they always say, "It's going to pay for the ad."

I'm thinking, man, if I spend 20 grand and I make 20 grand, I didn't even have to do any ... It wasn't even worth it, so an old friend of mine that I knew through real estate was friends with Russell. I was watching The Profit, and I watched Russell help one of these guys in a funnel. You see, I empathize with the small business, as opposed to people who are just selling other guru, how to advertise on Facebook. You need to know the business. You need to know what it's like to sit at home and worry.

Our family's owned small businesses before. We've had restaurants. We've had takeout places. This isn't my first one. It's not going to be my last. I can sit in your shoes and work on your problem. You put me in any ... That's why I like The Profit. I can do that. I'm a systems guy. I can figure out where you're weak and where you're strong and make anything efficient.

I put two and two together. I found ClickFunnels. I did the demo, and I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. I really wasn't a big Facebook guy at all. I really just started doing Facebook in November of last year. It hasn't even been a year. It was pretty user friendly. My first funnel was horrible, but, like you guys say, it's really just about how it works.

It doesn't have to look pretty...

Pretty can come later, if it really needs to be. I went from spending a fortune to really bringing my ad cost down.

Right away, it didn't work, but my ad cost was still a lot less, so I was spending a minuscule amount and getting deals, and people were starting to see it. Then, you see when the user rate starts, or the views start to actually increase. People start to share it, and people start to know your brand. It started to click, and I got that aha moment. I was like, dude, this is good.

Steve Larsen:

I went nuts when I saw your post. I was like, holy crap! Who is this guy? This is awesome. Holy crap. I started just scrolling, everyone just going nuts about it, everyone else tagging everyone else in it. I was like, this is amazing. This is absolutely ... It's so unique what you've done. I have really two areas I just wanted to dive into.

Number one question: First of all, you're selling your main service outright, right? I mean, that's the main thing of the funnel selling, right? You're not doing like a lead in. You know what I mean?

Yanni Fikaris:

Yeah. I g...