EP 438: Dancing His Way to $100k+ Business with Instagram Genius, Dancing Wizard Zach Benson

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Zach Benson, an award-winning dancer who travels around the world running instructional clinics. He's been featured as a Round 4 finalists on FOX TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance,” and he’s also the founder and CEO of Assistagram.co.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Slide Edge
• What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Olson
• Favorite online tool? — Slack

• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “Usually 7 and a half”
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew everything then that I know now”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Zach to the show
• 02:13 – How the dance clinic works
• • 02:20 – Place, schedule, and class pricing
• 03:06 – Total revenue of the dance clinic in 2015
• 03:35 – Zach talks about how he partners with dance studios
• • 04:25 – CTA
• 05:14 – Number of students per class
• 05:53 – Assistagram.co
• • 06:07 – Team in the Philippines
  • 06:27 – Hashtag optimization
  • 06:58 – How to find hashtags to use
  • • 07:14 – There’s no database
    • 07:40 – Follow/unfollow process
• 08:38 – ROI
• • 09:04 – Sample of Zach connecting and making a deal
• 10:17 – Cold marketing and prospecting
• • 10:40 – Finding people on your niche
• 11:03 – Working with Four Seasons
• • 11:14 – Regular hotel room rate
  • 11:40 – How Zach got a free stay at the hotel
  • • 12:35 – Writing a free blog post
• 13:00 – Benefits of a good Instagram profile
• 13:26 – Current number of Assistagram clients
• • 13:40 – Average pay a month
  • 13:53 – Assistagram’s services
• 14:28 – How to get people go to your Instagram account
• 15:38 – Reach Zack thru his email, website and Instagram.
• 17:58 - The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• It’s all about timing.
• Find the mentor who can help you grow.
• Be consistent and persistent.

Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistagram.co - Zach’s business website
• @thetravellerslist – Zach’s Instagram handle
• [e-mail] - Zach’s email address
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives