Seven minutes from a call with a husband and wife who run a home bakery and want a storefront someday. Yousif Alias tells how he got from Iraq to San Diego to a dental office, why renting a restaurant was the worst decision he ever made, and what he sees go wrong when small businesses try ads.
The short version
- 1. Marketing found him at a dental office. He filled an empty schedule and never went back to dental work.
- 2. Rent can eat a business that's selling. His restaurant had sales until four in the morning and he still sold it for a loss.
- 3. The creative picks the customer. Show carrot cake and you get people who want carrot cake.
- 4. Your list makes money, your website doesn't. The people with the biggest contact lists make the most money in every industry he works in.
- 5. You get what you ask the ad platform for. Ask for clicks and you get clicks. Ask for leads and you get leads who never answer the phone.
Iraq, San Diego, a dental office
The bakery owner asked where he was from. Yousif was born in Iraq. Being Christian there during the war wasn't an option, so his family came to San Diego when he was 13. He lived there until 27, then moved himself and Media Traffics to Texas.
At 18 he was a dental assistant and thought he wanted to be a dentist. Once he worked in the field he didn't like it. He was also doing the office's marketing, and the office went from nobody on the books to booked every week. That hooked him. He started reading and studying marketing at 19 and 20, and once outside companies were paying him more than the dental office ever could, he quit and went full time.
The biggest mistake he ever made
The couple wants a storefront, so Yousif told them about his restaurant. Renting the spot was the biggest mistake of his life. The overhead killed his margins, and then came taxes and sales tax on top.
The marketing worked. Orders came in until four in the morning. He still couldn't turn a profit because of the rent, the fees and the inventory. The light bill alone was around a thousand a month, and new bills kept showing up. He sold the restaurant for a loss and calls it the worst time of his life.
The targeting is in the creative
The bakery kept getting requests for things they don't make. Yousif's answer was to look at what the ads show. If the ad only shows carrot cake, nobody comes in asking for fondue, because nothing in the ad gave them that idea. A shoe commercial doesn't make anyone think about ties. The ad brings you the people you show it to.
Pretty websites making zero dollars
Yousif has seen plenty of beautiful websites that make nothing. What pays is how many contacts you can reach on Thanksgiving with "here's what we're baking" and again at Christmas with what's new. Every industry he works in looks the same to him. The people with the biggest lists of numbers make the most money.
Why most ads don't work
With a limited budget, he says social media gives you more for your money than Google, because better creative lets a small business take a share of the market. When ads fail, he usually sees one of two things. There's no offer, just "here's what we do." Or the objective is wrong. Ask Meta or Google for traffic and you get traffic. Ask for leads and you get leads who never pick up. Set the campaign up around purchases and it's a different game, one most people who haven't run ads for years don't know how to play.
Know where your customers live before you add a channel
The couple was about to start Google ads. Yousif told them to get organized first. He meant the place where customers are tracked every day, not their zip codes. All of his clients, leads and affiliates live inside Kenji, so he knows who booked, who showed up and who is active. A client shouldn't get the same message as someone who hasn't bought yet. Once your list is split up by who did what, including who added to cart and didn't buy, you can see which channel or partnership is bringing contacts in, where to double down and where to ease off.
For him the answer keeps coming back to Meta. He reviews his own ad account every day and hundreds of other companies' accounts too. He runs Google, YouTube and even TV ads because clients want them tested, and the lowest cost per customer still comes from Meta.
That's the why behind how he runs ads. The setup itself, from the offer to the campaign to the list, is what he walks members through inside Freedom Club.
Full episode transcript
00:00Yeah, so I'm from Iraq originally. But I moved to San Diego, California when I was like 13 years old. Because of the whole war and stuff, being Christian in Iraq just wasn't an option. So America kind of sets up a deal for you to come here, you know? Yep, of course. So basically, yeah, I've been living in San Diego until I was like 27. And then I moved to Texas and I moved the company, which is media traffics to Texas three years ago. What made you start? I've always, you know, I used to be a dental assistant back when I was like 18 years old.
00:44I thought I wanted to be a dentist. But it just wasn't something that I liked once I worked in the field. And I was doing marketing for that dental office. And that dental office went literally from having nobody on the books to being booked like every week. And then I really got into it. So I started reading and was studying like at 19, 20 years old. So I stopped, basically I stopped. I quit dental assisting and they knew like they knew like I had to quit because what they paid me, it wasn't even coming close to exactly what I was getting paid from other companies.
01:21So I just quit and I started doing this full time. Well, from from a previous veteran restaurant slash business owner, the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life is rent a spot. And when I talk, we're not talking about renting, we're talking about buying a spot. Yeah, I mean, buying is it's I think it's a different story. But like renting a spot and like the overheads like kills your margins. Really? It kills your margins. And then you get to pay taxes, you got to pay sales tax and all that stuff. So I sold that restaurant for a loss, even though I had top notch marketing strategies.
02:05I mean, everything was working. Don't get me wrong. The sales coming in till four in the morning. But still, I couldn't turn a profit because of the rent and all the fees and the inventory. It was so hard, you know. Light bill was like a thousand a month. Like what? You know, and then they just kept coming up with new bills like, you know. And so that's why I was like, no, I was this. That was the worst time of my life. And that's and that's what you get with meta advertisements is you can target the audience you want through your creative. And for example, if you only show a carrot cake, people are not going to come in saying, hey, I want fondue or I want like some crazy things, right? Yeah, because you're only showing carrot case.
02:56Be like, I'm not showing you anything that's fondue. What are you going to get these ideas from? Yeah, exactly. So the the the targeting in this case is mostly in the creative. Right. Like if you see a commercial for, I don't know, shoes, you're not going to think this is a tie commercial. You know, no, the commercial brings you the people that you want. So that's the power in anybody's business is not, oh, my website is looking amazing. Trust me, I've seen beautiful looking websites making zero dollars. Mm hmm. It's really how many contacts you have that you can go out to on Thanksgiving and say, hey, happy Thanksgiving.
03:39This is the cookies we have. Yeah. Right. Hey, Merry Christmas. This is the new stuff we have. And so with every text message, you'll see that you'll be getting orders every time you do a text blast. Mm hmm. I mean, I have people doing this in every industry, like any industry you can think of, the people with the bigger list of numbers is the people making the most money. The thing is, like I've heard all the stories like you just mentioned. And I've heard all the Google ad stories as well. OK. Like. If you have a limited budget. Yes. You get more bang for your buck on social media only because if you come out with better creatives, better ads, then you can take a share of the market. OK. The reason I see people don't make ads work is they don't have an offer.
04:35They just post an ad. Hey, here's the thing. Here's what we do. That's it. You got to make an offer sound good for the ad to work. OK. Number two, the objective. You're asking people you're asking Metta or Google for traffic or clicks. That's what you're going to get. Like that's that's what it comes down to, right? Like you ask you ask Facebook for leads. That's all you're going to get leads that never answered the phone. But if when you're creating the ads, you set it up in a way that you're like, hey, look, I only want to pay if I get a purchase. OK, now that's a completely different ball game that we're playing that people who have not been setting up ads for a long time don't know how to do it. You know, I think the first thing before even trying another marketing channel, I think you have to be organized in terms of where the clients live every day. not in in terms of where they reside, but like, oh, where do they stay?
05:39Like as in where where are they being managed on a daily basis? Like for us, all of our clients and leads and affiliates are all inside Kinji. OK, like that's where we have access to them. And that's where we know where everything is. So much so that we know who was unbooked, who showed up, who's the active clients right now. So that way, when we go back to each list, we can send them a particular thing, you know, because you don't want to send a client the same message you would send someone who hasn't become a client yet. Right. So so once you organize and segment your leads, your list, who did what, who added to the to the card, but didn't purchase, then you'll have an idea of, OK, what's working? OK, our Google ads are working.
06:33Let's focus on that. OK, this is this partnership is working. It seems like we're getting a bunch of contacts. Let's focus on that. So once you have something in place like this, you're able to know where to double down on and where to take your foot off the gas from. because and this is why I'm telling you, like meta ads is top number one, because I'm reviewing not just our ad account every day, but I'm reviewing hundreds of other companies like accounts and where they're getting their customers from. The top of the list for me for the least amount of spent is still meta. And I have Google ads running as we speak, YouTube ads.
07:10I have TV ads running just because my clients want me to test it, but nothing is working like meta.
