TOP MARKETING RULES THAT HELPED SCALE 40+ BUSINESSES TO $1M/MONTH (AND BEYOND)

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Watch the full video breakdown on this topic here.

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Key Takeaways

1. Detach Your Ego from “Being Right”
   A marketer who clings to one particular technique or channel without question is setting themselves up for failure at scale. The data must speak louder than your personal preferences. If a different funnel software or ad format converts better, jump on it—period.
2. Always Prioritize Actual Results Over Effort
   Logging twelve-hour days doesn’t matter if the funnel isn’t profitable. High-level marketing is about outcomes, not time spent tweaking ads or polishing copy. If you’re not pushing a business to higher revenue and profit, you’re not meeting the standard required to truly scale.
3. Master Bottleneck Thinking & The Doubles Game
   Each stage of your marketing and sales funnel has key data points. Identify the easiest metric to double—maybe it’s CTR, maybe it’s show rate, maybe it’s close rate—and fix that bottleneck. Then move to the next. This approach systematically compounds your growth rather than wasting resources in areas that won’t move the needle.
4. Solve Show Rate Issues by Addressing Skepticism
   A couple of random Reddit threads or negative chatter might feel small, but if left unchecked, they can destroy your show rate for webinars or calls. Don’t ignore outside doubt—neutralize it. Acknowledge it in your confirmation pages, or encourage real buyers to share their authentic experiences in those spaces.
5. Adapt Your Content Strategy as Your Market Evolves
   Short-form retargeting alone might not always cut it. Add in long-form content—podcasts, extended YouTube clips, or speaking engagements—to give depth to your brand. This combination increases prospect awareness and readiness to invest in your higher-priced offers.
6. Know When to Press the Gas on Ad Spend
   It’s a rookie mistake to chase a “perfect” 25x ROAS by holding your budget down at $1,000 a day. If you’re getting even 17x ROAS at $3,000 a day, that’s still massive profitability. Learn to scale up effectively, accept the possibility of a modest reduction in ROAS, and reap the bigger total profit.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Why Going Big Requires a New Mindset
2. Rule #1: Never Aim to Be Right—Aim to Make Money
3. Rule #2: Focus on Results—Not Hours Logged
4. Rule #3: Bottleneck Thinking & The Doubles Game
5. Rule #4: Tackling Show Rate Problems and External Skepticism
6. Rule #5: Evolving Your Content Strategy at Scale
7. Rule #6: Knowing Exactly When to Press the Gas on Spend
8. Conclusion & Next Steps

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1. Introduction: Why Going Big Requires a New Mindset

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably realized there’s a gigantic chasm between “small spend marketing” and “big spend marketing.” Spending, say, $100 a day on ads comes with a certain comfort level. Perhaps you get some leads, a few sales, and you optimize your ads at a leisurely pace. There’s little panic because the stakes are low.

But the moment you scale that to $3,000, $5,000, or even $10,000+ per day, everything speeds up—just like jumping from casual city driving to pushing 100+ miles per hour in a performance car. The environment changes. The data changes. Your entire approach must rise to the occasion, or you’ll crash. You must develop a high-speed mindset.

I’ve personally guided more than 40 different businesses to million-dollar months—often well beyond that—by helping them either directly manage their marketing teams or providing strategic consultation. From small agencies that once juggled a few thousand dollars per month to top-tier entrepreneurs spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, I’ve seen what works and what fails.

Let’s dive into the real lessons—the proven strategies, the stories from my experience, and the mental frameworks that separate the capable, high-level marketer from the pack of wannabe “media buyers.” I call them rules to live by when you’re spending a fuckload of money on ads.

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2. Rule #1: Never Aim to Be Right—Aim to Make Money

One of the most critical mental shifts you need to make is detaching your ego from always being “right.” This concept might seem trivial at first, but wait until you see how many marketers sabotage campaigns because they cling to what they want to work, instead of what actually works.

“I Don’t Want to Be Right—I Want to Make Money”

That’s a quote I’ve repeated more times than I can count. Let’s say you have a tool stack—maybe you’ve always used Typeform integrated with Cly to schedule calls, and historically, you got great results. Then someone on your team or another marketer in a mastermind shares data showing that Typeform plus ScheduleOnce is actually delivering leads at 30% cheaper cost. The rookie mistake is to refuse switching, because you’re used to your beloved old system.

At the higher tiers of marketing, you look at your data, see that the new approach is cheaper and equally (or more) qualified, and you pivot on the spot. This is how you keep your CPAs as low as possible when you’re spending massive sums. I can’t stress enough: your job is not to stand by your personal favorites—your job is to put money in the bank.

Egos and The “Hammer Them” Strategy

I’ll give you another real example. I often share a content retargeting approach called “hammer them,” which involves saturating new leads with a barrage of short, engaging videos. I once deployed it with a partner’s account, and initially, it was a huge win. Show rates went up, lead quality went up, cost per acquisition even dropped.

Six months in, we noticed the old problems resurfacing: leads were coming into calls unprepared, asking “basic” questions that the short-form content was supposed to have addressed. Did we stand by the short-form content strategy as if it was infallible? Absolutely not. We started adding long-form videos to the mix. Full podcasts, deeper interviews, event replays—anything that would give prospects enough context before that call. Instantly, we saw the leads’ sophistication jump again.

The key is never assuming you’ve found a permanent solution. The market changes, platforms evolve, or your audience’s attention span shifts. The moment you see data suggesting something else is outperforming your old way, you pivot for maximum profitability.

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3. Rule #2: Focus on Results—Not Hours Logged

The Peril of the “Employee Mindset”

Here’s a problem I see constantly when teams go from spending, say, $10,000 per month in ads to $50,000, $100,000, or even $500,000+ per month. There’s a subgroup of marketers who do a lot of “busy” work. They run around telling you how many hours they’ve poured in, or how they “worked all weekend” on a new campaign. Yet if you probe into the results, the leads or the revenue, you might find they’ve barely moved the needle.

Let’s be crystal clear: at scale, nobody cares if you’ve labored 60 hours per week. If your new landing page split test flops, or if your retargeting funnel fails to improve your show rate, or if your ad campaign yields a subpar ROAS, it simply doesn’t matter how many nights you stayed awake polishing an ad set. When you’re playing with major money, results are the only currency that matters.

Media Buyer vs. Marketer

A related concept is the difference between someone who calls themselves a “media buyer” and a marketer. A “media buyer” typically focuses on one narrow part of the process: plugging images, copy, and targeting into an ad manager. They disclaim responsibility for everything else. For instance, if show rates tank or if the back end of the funnel collapses, they shrug and say, “That’s not my department.”

By contrast, a professional marketer takes a broader view. They:

• Collaborate with (or even direct) the content team
• Coordinate with the sales team to gather feedback on lead quality
• Analyze every stage of the funnel—page loading speed, landing page copy, video watch times, application flow, scheduling friction, show rates, close rates, client lifetime value, etc.

In other words, the true marketer’s domain doesn’t end the moment the ad is live. They see the entire marketing and sales process as their playground, looking for inefficiencies or friction points that need to be fixed. And guess what: that is what you must be doing if you want million-dollar months. Because the moment you scale, friction in any stage of your funnel gets amplified, and if you don’t catch it quickly, the budget you’re pouring in is wasted.

Case Study: From $200k to $1M Months—Same Marketing Team

I once advised a client going from $200k months to over $1 million per month. The marketing team had the same guy in charge of everything from the beginning. At $200k a month, it was manageable: a handful of campaigns, a comfortable testing pace, no intense daily cost ramifications if something failed. But with $1 million a month in revenue—and a big chunk of that going back into ads—every misstep cost thousands. The “employee mindset” approach of trying to do a million little tasks, measuring success by hours, was a recipe for stalling out. They needed results-driven analysis. They needed someone to track every single micro-conversion from impression to sale. Once that shift happened, and the team started focusing on raw outcomes—cost per lead, cost per acquisition, show rate, close rate—growth got back on track.

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4. Rule #3: Bottleneck Thinking & The Doubles Game

Why Bottlenecks Matter at High Spend

People often ask, “How do I identify what part of my funnel to fix first when I have so many variables—my ad creative, my webinar, my page load times, etc.?” The short answer is: you break everything down into data points, then see which metric is hurting you the most relative to your benchmarks or your desired targets.

Let’s use a “call funnel” example. Typical metrics might include:

1. CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions):
   Are you paying $20 or $40 to reach 1,000 people? That difference alone can slash or double your traffic flow.
2. Clickthrough Rate (Unique CTR):
   If your unique CTR is 0.5%, doubling that to 1% means double the traffic to the next step—massive shift in potential revenue.
3. Opt-In Rate or Application Rate:
   Are 30% of visitors completing your form, or is it 50%? That difference can be huge in total volume at scale.
4. Show Rate:
   People might be registering for a webinar or booking a call, but if only 40% show up, you’re losing 60% of potential deals before you can even pitch.
5. Close Rate:
   If you close at 30%, could you push it to 40%? That single jump might skyrocket total revenue without raising ad spend.
6. Average Order Value:
   Whether it’s $2,000 or $10,000 drastically changes your potential return on ad spend (ROAS). Bumping your price or bundling extra services can significantly enhance your bottom line.

When you map these, you can clearly see which metric is furthest from an acceptable range, or which one is the easiest to improve. Fixing it might double your total profit because it cascades through the entire funnel.

How the Doubles Game Works

I always coach my clients to look at each metric and ask, “Which is the easiest to double?” Suppose your unique CTR is only 0.5%. Jumping to 1% is rarely some Herculean feat if you optimize your ad copy, call-to-action, or creative. That one fix effectively pumps double the traffic downstream, potentially yielding double the customers—all while spending the same daily budget.

If your funnel’s bigger hole is the show rate—say it’s 30%—you might try a combination of confirmation page optimization, email reminders, text reminders, or what I call “hammer them” content retargeting. That could bring you to a 50% or 60% show rate. Look at what that alone might do for your revenue.

In a high-spend environment, the Doubling Game is like going from 10 mph to 70 mph in marketing velocity. Each step you improve has an exponential effect on your results because the scale magnifies every percentage gain.

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5. Rule #4: Tackling Show Rate Problems and External Skepticism

The Underestimated Impact of Reddit Threads

Picture a high-ticket service business offering $10,000, $15,000, or even $50,000 packages. For a long time, the show rates for their webinars and calls are in the healthy 70–80% range. Then, one month, everything craters to the 40s for no apparent reason. The marketing team rolls out the usual suspects: more retargeting, reworked confirmation videos, aggressive email reminders—yet the show rate barely improves.

That’s when you need to investigate outside factors. It might be random, negative online chatter that your prospective clients see when they Google your brand name. It doesn’t even have to be a wave of complaints from actual buyers—it could be skeptical non-buyers speculating, “Oh, that’s too expensive. You can get that info for free on YouTube.” Maybe somebody says, “I bought that and it’s a ripoff,” and you discover (three clicks in) that the user’s only real gripe is that they personally found the price steep, even though the product delivered excellent results.

A Confirmation-Page Fix

For one client, the culprit was two Reddit threads. One contained non-buyer comments like “You can get it cheaper somewhere else” or “I think the industry is a scam.” Another had a single buyer complaining about price, which led to an entire micro-thread of speculation. Once you realize your leads are reading this chatter, the solution is to address it head-on:

• Add a short, personal video on your confirmation page that says something like: “We know you might be researching us right now, checking Reddit or other reviews. Let us help you find real feedback—here’s some third-party proof, real testimonials, or ways to contact our actual past clients.”
• Encourage your real customers who’ve succeeded to weigh in on those very Reddit threads. Let them share authentic experiences. When prospective buyers see legitimate praise from multiple people who’ve been through your program or bought your product, it drowns out one or two naysayers.

Sure enough, my client’s show rate rebounded from the low 40s to just above 70%—not perfectly where it was before, but a dramatic leap that kept them profitable and growing. Addressing skepticism directly is something that many marketers ignore until it’s too late.

CIA Strategy for Organizational Sabotage

A relevant historical tidbit: a once-classified CIA document outlined various ways to sabotage an organization. One tactic? Introduce doubt. Seems trivial, but in marketing, a sliver of doubt can stop someone from clicking a “Book Now” button or from showing up on the call to hear your pitch. Doubling down on a no-brainer marketing strategy won’t fix that. You have to uproot the doubt itself. If you miss that step, your entire funnel is hamstrung.

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6. Rule #5: Evolving Your Content Strategy at Scale

The Origins of the “Hammer Them” Strategy

In a high-spend world, simply getting a lead to opt in or book a call isn’t enough. There’s typically a delay—maybe 24 hours, maybe a few days—before they attend your webinar or speak with your sales team. During that time, the cold reality is that other influencers, gurus, or even well-intentioned friends can talk them out of showing up. Or they might just lose interest.

My go-to solution is what I label the “hammer them” strategy: you barrage them with valuable content from every angle. Historically, I started with short, punchy videos—bits of Q&A, highlight reels, success story snippets—that retarget only the people who just opted in. The concept is to replicate that organic “brand journey” via paid ads, so that by the time they actually show up for the call or webinar, they feel like they know you.

When to Layer in Long-Form Content

Sometimes, after a certain period, short-form content loses a bit of potency. People get used to the same short videos, or your audience transitions into a more sophisticated buyer profile that craves details. Suddenly, you start hearing from the sales team that leads are showing up unprepared again.

That’s your signal to expand. Include:

• Extended podcast episodes
• Conference recordings
• 30-minute plus Q&A sessions
• Deeper testimonial interviews

One client who was initially crushing it with short clips started hearing from their closers: “Hey, prospects are asking us the kind of questions we thought were already covered.” The moment we added a 30-minute behind-the-scenes interview discussing the ins and outs of the service (plus extensive results from actual clients), the sales team reported that the calls became higher level again. Prospects came in saying, “I watched your interview. I loved how in-depth you went on pricing and the long-term ROI. I’m already sold on that concept—just need a few details.”

So, if hammering them with short clips yields diminishing returns, adapt. That’s marketing rule number one in general: avoid letting your content strategy get stale. If the leads aren’t as qualified or if you see show rates drop, ask, “Is the content we’re serving still relevant?” This simple question can be the difference between plateauing and hitting your next million-dollar month.

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7. Rule #6: Knowing Exactly When to Press the Gas on Spend

Breaking the 25x vs. 17x ROAS Myth

Time for one of my favorite conversations: People see a funnel running at 25x ROAS on a small daily budget—let’s say $1,000 a day. They scale up to $3,000 a day. Now the funnel drops to 17x ROAS. Logically, you’re still printing money. You put in a dollar, get $17 back. But marketers panic. They drop back to $1,000 a day, hoping to restore that 25x “magic.” Don’t do this.

At scale, volume is king. Your net profits often end up higher with a 17x ROAS at $3,000 a day than a 25x ROAS at $1,000 a day. Think about the math:

• $1,000/day at 25x = $25,000 revenue per day.
• $3,000/day at 17x = $51,000 revenue per day.

You see the difference? That’s more than double the daily revenue, which can compound into an additional $780,000 in the span of a month (assuming those returns remain consistent). Even if your ROAS gradually falls to 15x or 10x as you scale, the net revenue can be exponentially higher as long as your margin remains healthy.

Avoiding “Tinker Yourself into Poverty”

A more insidious pattern is when people continuously cut spending to “tinker” with micro improvements, thinking they’ll get back to a “perfect” ROI before they allow scale. You can test yourself into oblivion. Sure, you need to be strategic about scaling and watch your metrics, but you also have to realize that big profits often come from slightly lower ROAS on a higher volume of spend. Don’t sabotage your best moneymaking period out of an irrational fear that your ratio dipped.

Operational Bandwidth and Scaling

There’s a legitimate caveat: if your sales or fulfillment team can’t handle the higher volume of leads and customers, you risk chaos. But that’s not a reason to avoid scaling altogether. It just means you coordinate a ramp-up plan. You might start with $3,000/day, confirm your closers can handle the calls, confirm your fulfillment can onboard new clients smoothly, then push to $5,000/day. The entire mentality is: grow, adapt, grow, adapt. Don’t contract at the first sign your ROAS changes by a few percentage points. That contraction is how big potential gets left on the table.

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8. Conclusion & Next Steps

When you’re responsible for “spending a fuckload of money”—thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on ads—everything about your marketing game must level up. Your mind, your processes, your team’s responsiveness, your creative adaptability, and your knowledge of how each funnel stage impacts the bottom line.

Let’s recap each rule to ensure it sticks:

1. Don’t Be Right—Be Profitable.
   If the data contradicts your personal preference or prior experience, get over it and pivot. Clinging to “how it’s always been done” is a losing strategy at scale.
2. Effort Means Nothing Without Results.
   Hours worked or tasks completed are irrelevant if they don’t produce profitable outcomes. At large budgets, a small miscalculation can set you back tens of thousands of dollars, and nobody cares whether you “worked hard.”
3. Identify and Fix Bottlenecks with the Doubles Game.
   At each stage of your funnel, find the metric that’s easiest to double. It might be CTR, show rate, or application rate. Fix it, then move on to the next. A series of small but strategic improvements can create explosive revenue gains.
4. Address Skepticism Proactively to Preserve Show Rates.
   Don’t assume your audience will ignore random forum chatter or negative Reddit comments. If there’s a widely visible complaint about your brand, solve it. Encourage real customers to share genuine stories in those same spaces. Add clarifying videos to your confirmation pages. It’s not complicated, but it’s game-changing.
5. Keep Your Content Strategy Fresh.
   What worked six months ago might lose steam if your audience or industry shifts. Mix short-form with long-form content. Hammer them with enough proof, depth, and nuance so that by the time they show up to your call or webinar, their only question left is, “How do I pay?”
6. Know When to Hit the Gas on Spend.
   Don’t chase a mythical 25x ROAS at the expense of volume. Sure, your ratio may dip a bit, but if it stays within healthy profit territory, the net revenue can skyrocket. Always calculate the bigger picture to see if you’re truly leaving money behind by staying small.

Final Thoughts

All of these principles come down to one overarching truth: how you think matters as much as what you do. At the higher echelons of ad spend, you can’t just rely on hustle or superficial “grind” to ensure success. You need to break free from the illusions that hamper your growth:

• Stop equating being “right” to being profitable.
• Stop priding yourself on how many tasks you completed or hours you worked.
• Don’t remain stagnant in a single tactic just because it used to work.
• Avoid letting external chatter sabotage your success.
• Learn to systematically attack the biggest bottleneck.
• Recognize that scaling up profitably might bring down your ROAS a bit—and that’s still a huge net gain if you know what you’re doing.

Next Steps

If you’re serious about this journey—maybe you’re already at multi-six figures per month and ready to push toward seven figures, or you’re at seven figures eyeing eight—these rules are non-negotiable. Review your current marketing process and check where you might be violating any one of these foundational pillars:

• Are you clinging to any outdated practices because you liked them once upon a time?
• Is your team more obsessed with busywork than actual results?
• Have you mapped your entire funnel to spot your biggest bottleneck?
• Is there any negativity about your brand circulating that you’ve never addressed?
• Do you need to refresh your content strategy for leads lingering longer in the pipeline?
• Are you hesitating to scale because you’re fixated on a “perfect” ROAS that only exists at low spend?

Tackle each of these points methodically. From my perspective, these are the cornerstones that separate the marketing amateurs from the marketers who consistently produce million-dollar months. In my direct work with entrepreneurs and in guiding marketing teams inside the most competitive industries, these have proven to be universal truths—time and time again.

Remember: it’s not about looking good inside an ad manager; it’s about pulling real levers that drive top-line growth while preserving healthy margins. If you embody these rules, you’ll start to see how scaling becomes a strategic, exhilarating process instead of a stressful, chaotic gamble.