From Basement to 10K – Ionut’s Success Story

Max: Best month so far, how much did you make last month?

Ionut: I made 10K and this month until now 9k and a half Euros.

Max: Not bad man, congrats man, congrats. I remember I used to work from the basement of my parents home because I returned after the Ecom business which didn’t go so well. I reached the sales module, I closed four clients in two days, it was 100 close rate. Are you using ads, are you using big social media brands, how exactly are clients coming to you?

Ionut: Just organic. I found a few, a few groups with entrepreneurs, offered them a lot of value. I didn’t even have to do a lot of cold outreach because the relationship is so natural like they know me from the group and they just start a conversation with me.

Max: All right welcome back and I got really really cool client interview here with you today. This is Ionut and he just made ten thousand dollars in a single month in B2B marketing consulting niche and the coolest thing is he does that in a country that is called Romania. So it’s not a rich country, it’s not a big country, yet he’s able to make 10K a month absolutely crushing it. So if you get inspired by that, if you want to know more how that works, let’s go check out this interview. So you’re probably already over 10K Euros already this month?

Ionut: Yeah, yeah and the main idea is that this month I’m focused more on the team so I can start the year next year even better than this one.

Max: Nice, love it man, love it. So you know what exactly is it that you’re doing?

Ionut: Marketing, marketing consultancy. I work with businesses and I help them scale their business. I find the bottlenecks that they have and I help them scale.

Max: And you’re doing that regionally, nationally in Romania or international?

Ionut: Just, just in Romania.

Max: Yeah, you know people always think that you know hey Romania like you must be like you can’t sell high ticket, you can’t make a lot of money to cut you, yeah but your proof, what about proof we got many clients in Romania actually crushing it that it does work. So happy for you man.

Ionut: Yeah, there’s the reason why I joined the program because I saw another client that you had and I was like yeah I always find excuses for myself but look at this guy he’s making so much money and I started to think that it’s just one of my problems because the main thing that I learned from you was the mindset part. Even if sometimes you don’t think you can do it, in the end you can, it’s just the fact that you block yourself for growing even more.

Max: Yeah exactly, yeah it’s a super good point. It’s like you put your own limitations on you. A lot of people out there saying oh I can’t do it, okay well you definitely can’t do it with that mindset of you not being able to do it, you know like that’s where it starts already. If you say already it doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t work in my country, doesn’t work for blah blah, yeah it won’t work. Yeah, he who says he can and he who says he can’t are both usually right.

The Journey from Psychology to Marketing Mastery

Max: How did you get the skill of marketing, did you learn that in school somewhere?

Ionut: I was really passionate about psychology since I was in high school. I learned, I wanted to build a sport community after that. I tried to build an Ecom brand, it didn’t go the way I thought it will even if I had a really nice network and connection. I knew a lot of people from that, from that area but I wasn’t able to do it. And then I started to have my own client because, because of my project, my Ecom brand, even if I lost a lot of money and I didn’t manage to have good results, businessman from Romania heard about me and she wanted to work with me, a businesswoman. The problem was that I told her that I don’t have so much experience but because she saw that I had the courage to start a project by myself she wanted to work with me and this is how I had the first client. But the main problem was that because I didn’t know how to position myself I tried to offer her everything like she wanted this, that and the other thing. I offered her everything and I ended up being like an employee, yeah if I was another company and I used to work really really late like even until 4, 5 a.m in the morning. I was really tired. I remember I was in the basement, I used to work from the basement of my, of my parents home because I returned after the Ecom business which didn’t go so well. I went to my hometown and I used to work from the basement and I remember my mother she used to send me messages at 3am in the morning, your notes you have to sleep, does not help you know.

Ionut: And after that I joined, after a few months I joined FBM and it was in the beginning I felt it was a big change for me and it was a hard decision at that point. I remember I was, I think it was Simon from your, for from your team at that point, he closed me and I felt like oh what the [expletive] did I do. I promised myself that I will do everything that you tell me at that point because in the end if it doesn’t work I know that it wasn’t my fault. And after 10 weeks I reached the sales module and I managed to sell like I closed four clients in two days, yeah it was 100 close rate even if I, even if I increase my prices and then I realized how much I blocked myself from growing.

Max: Yeah man that’s profound, yeah from the mom’s basement up to sales module closing these people and now you’re making 10K a month back to back for you man. And you know from your side you also, you’re someone who asks questions, gets the questions answered and then you go and do the things that you need to do. It’s very awesome, you see it, success can be very simple if you make it simple. Yes, you said like you, you everything that you’ve been that you’re being told by the people who have done it before you so it’s clearly, yeah and you go execute and, and you know, yeah it might hurt your ego a little bit, yeah sometimes you get harsh feedback but ultimately the feedback brings you somewhere and that’s beautiful you know.

Daily Operations and Client Acquisition Strategies

Max: Yeah, so yeah what do you, what do you do on a, on a daily basis, how does work with your client look like, the clients look like?

Ionut: Usually I have the meetings with them, I speak with them, I have a structure for, for all of them basically but besides that they all of them have like let’s say custom problems that we have to solve together, yeah. And during the week if they have any, any other challenges I have them I just message them or sometimes if it’s needed like it’s really urgent I even have a call with them and there’s no problem. Besides that during this, the last period since I joined the one-on-one mentorship with you I was pretty busy but before that because I want, I really want to scale to the next level but before that it was pretty nice because I, I managed, I learned this from you and I managed to enjoy life while, while working. I since I joined the FBM I managed to learn to play the piano, [Music] world a lot and things like that.

Max: Yeah that’s epic dude, I’m happy for you man. How are you getting your clients, you’re using, I mean I know how are you getting your clients because we’re working closely together but let’s, let’s talk about that. Are you using ads, are you using big social media brands, how exactly are clients coming to you?

Ionut: Just organic. What worked for me really really well was posting valuable posts in groups here in Romania. I found a few, a few groups with entrepreneurs and they usually connect with them, offer them a lot of value. I didn’t even have to do a lot of cold outreach because the, the relationship is so natural like they know me from the group and they just start a conversation with me and decent recommendation. And in the last period of time I also started to post a lot on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook reels just because I want to create a brand but the most volume of class that I had was from Facebook posts, Facebook groups, this kind of thing.

Max: That’s exactly how it goes, client magnet post, boom, getting a conversation, making it easy. Yeah you’re crushing it.

Key Lessons and Mindset Transformations

Max: In regards to, to FBM you know we kind of talked about where you were before, failed with Ecom, you’re living in Bob’s basement literally, now making 10K a month and then making 10K months again and just crushing it with your clients. What was your biggest lesson in, of the FBM program if there is any?

Ionut: The fact that we have the tendency to complicate things way more than we should do them because even before I joined the program I tried running ads, I had the funnel with a lot of complicated stuff and I spent so much time setting those things up, I spend a lot of money on ads and what really worked for me was just connecting with people and that was one thing. And the second thing that helped me to sell a lot better was just the mindset shift that we, we don’t take people money just because we want to make money, we want to help them and that really really helped me to, to sell because before that I always felt guilty about charging my clients. I didn’t know what the right price is and I realized that everything that I’m doing is, it’s worth way more than I thought before. And another, I have so many lessons, another lesson is that you don’t have to sell quantity, you have to sell a transformation because these are powerful lessons man.

Max: And I love that you live in it and, and I love that you’re crushing it. Any, any plans on what to do with that money? I mean 10K is, is a lot anyways but especially in a place like Romania, do you have any plans what do you, eating steak or what’s, what are you doing with the money?

Ionut: What I plan to do especially in the, in the next year is to reinvest everything and grow even more. I started to build a team, it’s a little bit hard in the beginning because you have to shift from what you are doing to management, leadership and things like that. But I want to build a team because maybe in the beginning, maybe it’s easier for me to stay at 10K and just enjoy the money and enjoy life and things like that but I realized how many lives can I impact if, if I build this, this business to the highest potential because I see even right now there are a lot of people that are contacting me, they want to work with me but I don’t have the capacity to accept even more clients and I realize how much impact could I have if I, I would have a team and this is the, the main thing that I’m doing right now.

Max: Love it, it’s, it’s cool that you say that you know because you can absolutely make 10K a month completely by yourself, 20, I mean we even have clients that are making over 30k a month completely by themselves, yeah and that’s fine, it’s totally fine, it depends on what your, what your priority is but your priority is to keep building this to, you know that’s why you’re starting to get a team, that’s also why you joined the one-on-one program if you personally where we help you with the scaling, the team management and so on so forth. You’re like okay no I want this to be bigger you know and you know with the team while you can make your 20, 30k alone which is fine, with a team you can make 100K, 200k, 300K and that’s also cool, it depends on what people want you know, both of them there’s no right and wrong but it’s cool that you want to do that because that’s obviously what I wanted to do you know. If I had just been in myself making my 10, 20K by myself, yeah you wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t shoot this video now, yeah. So it both has advantage, disadvantages so that’s pretty cool but yeah.

Gratitude, Growth, and Future Vision

Max: Anything else you want to mention, anything else you want to talk about?

Ionut: I, I want to say that I remember that it was so hard for me to take decision before joining the program. I mean every single issue I, I was always trying to find the cheapest way to do everything and the fact that I joined the program really programmed my, my brain in a total different way because it’s not just about how much money you pay for something, it’s also about how fast you have that transformation and I realized that if I wouldn’t have joined the program maybe I wouldn’t have been at this, this level right now because we, we are always lying ourselves that I’m gonna do this myself, I know everything. Even, even the information like from a technical point of view, marketing point of view maybe I had the information but why, what you owe for me it was the transformation, the fact that you, you’ve been there, I had that accountability and you are like a role model and this changed a lot of things because it’s not just the information, is the transformation. And even in the last call that we had before the Christmas I don’t know who, who started to tell you about the fact that he’s grateful but I felt like I had tears in my eyes because I felt the same like I was so grateful. I realized how many things can change when you are going full mode, yeah, yeah. And I remember the, the manifesto that we had, the exercise from FBM, I used to read it every single day and I really felt it like in, in my entire body and it was, it was a really interesting period.

Max: Yeah and that’s, that’s beautiful dude and you know it’s wonderful to see that you because building a business is hard you know like it takes a lot from you, you need to rewire your brain, you need to rewire your mindset like you said and yet you’re there and you grateful about that, yeah sure you’re grateful about the end results but what I hear is that you’re also grateful for a struggle that made you the person that you are right now, yeah and that person I’m making 10K a month which is really [expletive] good. I mean that’s 120,000 a year, that’s a really really good salary you know and you’re doing this on your own terms, you’re always working from wherever you want, whenever you want and dude I’ll tell you one more thing here on it, it’s like well look back to this video once you’re cracking 30k, once you’re cracking 50k, there is no limit if you keep pushing and if you keep taking the feedback from us as you are right now like we’ll be looking back at this video right now like look how, look how hyped you were about 10K, now you make a triple that, five times that answer and so forth. So that’s really amazing, I’m really, I’m really humbled by being allowed to be part of your journey and that’s really really freaking cool. So yeah man let’s keep pushing, let’s keep grinding and let’s make good things happen.

Ionut: Thank you Max, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Max: GG, GG and we’re back and if you say hey this sounds great, how can Max’s team help me with this, maybe I want to make 10K a month or even more, then go ahead and book a free consultation call with us. There’s a link down description right below and you click that link, you fill out the application, takes you 30 seconds and then you can book the exact date and time where you want us to call you. We’re going to hop in the car, we’re going to tell you the steps that you need to be doing in an exact customized way and then of course we can also talk about if you want to join one of our programs, you want our help in that but even if not you’ll definitely know what you need to be doing. So like I said link is on the description below and talk to you soon.