Today, we are sharing with you an interview with David Stodolak, an experienced entrepreneur who has successfully built multiple marketing companies, including Solar Direct Marketing, Connection Holdings, and many others. He is also the face behind the fast-rising LFG Show podcast which is one of the most interesting podcasts in the industry at the moment.
David shares his journey, the challenges he’s faced, and the important lessons he’s learned in lead generation and pay-per-call marketing. He emphasizes the need for transparency, good communication, and building strong relationships with clients.
Whether you’re new to the industry or a pro looking to grow your business, this interview is full of valuable insights to help you get to the next level of lead generation and pay-per-call affiliate marketing.
Q: Please go ahead and introduce yourself. Who are you, how'd you get started in the lead generation and pay-per-call space?
My name is David Stodolak. I have multiple marketing companies. The one that's probably the most popular is Solar Direct Marketing. We provide leads to several direct solar buyers, dozens of them, and seven of the top ten in the USA. Been doing it since 2016. A couple of years ago we made Inc 5000 at #252, last year we made #187, and this year we'll make it again a third year in a row.
Have another company called Connection Holdings, I'm an owner of that. Made Inc 5000 at #214. It's all about big data monetization. We sell a lot of data to call centers to keep the reps busy.
We have another company called Senior Direct Marketing which has been growing very very fast. We're involved in Medicare, we're doing debt as well and also ACA a little bit, ERC, so that's a little bit more diversified, is what it is. So we're involved in a lot of aspects of lead gen.
To answer your question about how I got into the affiliate marketing space. Prior to this, I was working in the call center business and I think what makes us unique with what we offer is that we take a very consultative approach with our clients. We look to, because we come from the call center world, and I think that's the key. We're not just a lead vendor pushing leads, and if a customer says the leads don't work, you know most of the time these guys don't know how to work a lead, 90% of the time they don't know how to work it. That's a problem I think we face as lead generators.
So what we do sometimes, when we know it's a good opportunity, we'll fly out to their call center like "Listen, what script are you using, how are you dialing it, do you need a partner to run your dialer, maybe you need a call center manager." So because we have this expertise in it, we really help our clients grow, because at the end of the day, if they don't grow, you're not going to grow.
So one of the big philosophies and tenets that we live by is creating win-wins. The better your client does, the better you're going to do, right? So that's really what it comes down to.
And then prior to starting our companies, I was in call centers for about 12 years. And I still have a call center, and I think that the call center that we have is great because if a client says the leads aren't working, guess what, let me have my call center call them. 90% of the time my call center calls them, the leads are fine. 10% of time when they're not, okay we have a quality issue, let's fix it.
So that's how I got into the game, really my call center experience, seeing that leads and call centers are married. You can't have a successful call center if you don't have good leads. And you can have, if you're sending bad leads to a good call center, you're not going to scale, right? So that's really how we got into the game. And I love this business. To me, I think it's one of these businesses that doesn't matter where the hell you came from in terms of your education, or your background. You can make a lot of money and you can do well. And I just love it. Whatever way we can create value through partnerships, that's what we want to do.
Q: So since you’ve seen the industry on both the lead generator side with affiliates & publishers, and then also the buyer side with the end buyer, what do you think today are the biggest challenges on both sides of the spectrum?
I think the biggest challenge is transparency and communication. I can tell you for a fact the clients that consistently give us disposition reports, there's an 80% greater chance that that campaign is going to work. See with lead gen, it comes down to each campaign has a shelf life. No campaign is going to last forever, I mean you're hoping you can get a good several year run out of it, right? And that's happened. We have clients of solar that have been buying leads from us since 2016. That's very rare, that's the exception not the rule.
But the reason why we've been able to scale that client and probably have done $10 million in revenue with them over those years, is that they give us constant feedback. We get dispositions regularly. Some of our clients give us dispositions daily, some once a week. So when you can get that feedback loop in place, you can make adjustments, you can make optimizations.
Solar for example, we could never make YouTube work a couple years ago, and all of a sudden it started popping like crazy. So when we see something like that that's working, we're going to press the gas, you know. Facebook's been a little bit more difficult, it's very more saturated with it's rising costs. So we always want to try different things. But if you don't get that feedback loop, you're not gonna know, you're shooting blind, right?
So when you get the feedback loop, it also comes down to account management. I think a lot of affiliates and media buyers, you're good at one thing, they're maybe good at multiple things, but their gift from God or their gift that they create is how they can get people to click on ads, but they're not necessarily a business development person.
They can have the greatest leads in the world but you know, Tony Robbins always says it's not the best product in the world, usually the mediocre products that are driven by good sales teams are the ones that make the most money. There's tons of examples - how many times have you gone somewhere, you go to a restaurant, phenomenal food right, but they have no good marketing presence, they go out of business. Whereas the mediocre, the chains, they say they make a lot of money because they got the process nailed down.
So I think it comes down to communication, it comes down to affiliates either partnering up with companies like mine that can do that for them, right, or developing it internally, which is harder to do, you can do that, don't get me wrong, or you do a combination of both, right? Absolutely. Trying to do two different types, two different parts of the business, which is very challenging, right? Because it's hard enough to do one of them, right? You know, yeah, it's a challenge. It's an art, you know, it really is an art.
So the affiliates that got that nailed down, they're the ones that are going to scale, they'll scale to the moon. And the other ones, it can be, it could really be the difference between life and death in this business. Or it could be the difference between having a 6-figure year, having a 7-figure year, or a 7-figure having an 8-figure year, 9-figure year. That's really the sauce.
Q: What have you seen change the most in the last 6 years since you've been heavy into this business? In 2017 where you really got deep into it as a traffic broker?
Yeah, I mean, I was brokering then. I've gotten way more down the funnel since then. But I think what you see is a lot more restrictions and a lot more regulation. TCPA – if no one's paying attention to TCPA, you have to pay attention to TCPA. That's the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. There's a lot, especially in America, so many ambulance chasers, a lot of litigators, right?
So you got to make sure that you have a trusted form, that you're using to capture your leads. Because trust me, you know, we had a contract with Duke Energy, an $80 billion company, the biggest utility company in America. And they knew there were going to be compliant/ whitehat. They're like "Listen, if there's no compliance, that means we're doing something wrong. Because that means you're not able to get high volumes." Right? But if you really want to push the needle here, you have to drive volume. And then the more volume you drive, it's only, it's a numbers game, it's only a matter of time before you get a litigator looking to sue your client. If they sue your client, guess what, you're on the hook for this thing too.
So I would say that it's become more competitive for sure, their ad costs have gotten way higher. And second of all, people have to be mindful of doing lead gen the right way. Don't be misleading, make sure you're collecting leads using the trusted forms, because it seems like every few months somebody's going after a big company for a class action, 7-figure lawsuit, 6-figures, whatever, I mean it has a hell up.
So you want to make sure that you're compliant. But the regulatory issues have been tougher, it seems like there's a lot more onus on Congress and on the regulators to do more of what you call consumer protection. They don't like data being floated out.
So I say just do things right, run the campaigns cleanly. Get the trusted form. And if you do that, don't mislead, because at the end of the day a lot of people like to mislead. We have a big issue with solar, everyone's trying to run these Tesla ads, and you know, Tesla will click, they'll click on those ads, but guess what, if your client's bitching at you, you're gonna be shut the fuck off, right? And then you get a bad reputation, and trust me, it's a small world.
That's why to me reputation is so important. You could Google my name, you're not going to find one negative thing online about us. And that's, if you want to be the same way, you want to be squeaky clean. And trust me, we haven't been perfect, we made a lot of mistakes, we've had some issues where in the past, compliance issue, we fixed them, we paid what the fuck we owed, but we learned from that shit.
So I think that, think long term in this environment. You got to think long term, not short term. And when you have that long-term mentality, yeah you leave some table money on the table, but long term you'll get that back and then some. And then guess what, people know you're that clean person, they can scale with you, and you can go to sleep at night knowing they're not going to get their asses sued, right?
So again, you got to do what's best for your client. If your client grows, you're going to grow with them.
Q: What gets you excited today?
What gets me excited, being at industry events, is exciting. Because you know, being around people next level people. They're always hungry. Even though they're wherever they're at, they want to get to that next place. They're not complacent, right? And most people would be at that point.
And I think that, like I said, the industry's evolving. So you have to evolve with it. I mean listen, for us personally, solar went the other way the last few months. It's starting to come back. So we have to pivot, right? So that's exciting to me, because you, I like motion, I talk fast, I move fast, I live right across, I've got a lot of energy, I got a shitload of energy, right? So this is an industry I think that rewards that, right?
But you got to be careful too. Sometimes I used to move too fast. So I got to slow down. I got a team that helps me do that, they watch my back so I don't go too fast. Because I've made mistakes in the past. But what gets me excited is that people are online man, they love shopping online. Look what happened during COVID. People, we had a two, three week dip, but then they came back stronger than ever, right?
So this is an industry that's always going to be around. It's going to evolve, it's going to pivot, but you got to pivot along with it. And as long as you're around groups like this and people, you create value for them, they're going to remember, you're going to grow with them, they grow with you, you grow together.
So I think just the the constant innovation, the constant kind of trying to figure out what's next. And then when you find a new campaign, we're running some campaigns together right, boom, got off to a hot start, we're super excited. Now it's like this and it's coming back. So the bottom line is that that's exciting, because you can never sit still. You got to always evolve and you can't, you can't be complacent in this industry, which is kind of like annoying sometimes, but at the end of the day it pushes you to hit your full potential and it pushes you to just keep looking for what's next and how do you evolve and how do you optimize and that kind of thing.
So I think that the constant evolution, the constant growth, that's the thing that gets me excited.
Q: What personally drives you and keeps you going regardless of your success?
Personally, it really comes down to, for me, I value freedom. I think everyone gets into this business for many reasons. I think probably for everyone, obviously you can make a lot of money here. But I don't think it's money for like being flashy and buying a Lambo or whatever, sure, you know, I know guys that do it, I love them, they're all good guys.
But the thing is that for me, it's about freedom. Going where I want, when I want to go, you know. So like I said, I opened up a call center in Colombia. In two weeks from now, a lot of people don't have that ability to do that, right? I can just fly down there and get it done. I travel like a madman. I went over to San Diego, Dubai, Bangkok, that was last December, Singapore. I went to Arkansas, I mean I go everywhere bro. I went and saw the first ever Walmart, that was cool.
But anyway, like, and that's the thing. So what drives me is having that freedom. And I love traveling. When I travel we meet different people, everyone speaks differently. You know, I live in, I live in New Jersey on the Hudson River and I see New York City skyline every day. Right in front of me is the tallest residential building in the world. Some guy bought the top floor for $200 million. I like looking at that building because that means like, I gotta level up.
And I think what, that's what these guys have, they know that this is an industry where it's unlimited potential if you do the right thing, right? You could scale hard and you could scale fast. And that's what enables those dreams to happen. Where I live right now, I wanted to live there for 10 years. I thought about it almost at least every week, maybe every day. And boom, I moved there 2 years ago. Right now I have aspirations to live somewhere else, right? And that's, that's what pushes me.
So to me, it's the freedom. And then your family benefits from that as well. We travel all over the world. Got a third kid on the way. And then at the end of the day, I want my kids to see that work ethic, you know. I learned my work ethic from my mom. My mom was a Venezuelan immigrant, busted her ass, you know, making minimum wage for many many years, working 16 hours a day. That work ethic, I don't care how much money I make, I could have all the money in the world, it's like look at Elon Musk, this guy's always, he's still working 16 hour days, that's incredible, you know. I mean, some people might say incredible sometimes.
But to me, I think that that's what's going to separate people in society, with AI coming and all this stuff. And that's kind of the edge I want to give my kids. My my mom, even though she came from very no means, she taught me work ethic. And you know, the harder you work, the luckier you get. I really believe in that. The harder you work, the luckier you get.
So the bottom line is that that's the thing that drives me. Because I know that's going to create opportunity for everyone around me, it's going to create opportunity for my family. And I think that we all have a legacy, you have a legacy, and that legacy is going to live on, you know. So that's why I like to have a business or businesses that that live on after I die. I think a lot of people in this space, they come from similar like humble beginnings, right? And I think that's really why people in this in this business, get paid, and eat what you earn, because it’s performance marketing right? There's no like fixed income salary, not really, like not enough to live off of, or even like account managers and stuff, right? I love that about, I come from very humble, my dad was like, you know, one parent was working, one was at home, my dad was military, your income's capped, it's not like it wasn't like sales or something crazy, you know.
So I can relate in some ways, you know. I think that's, that's where like, I appreciate the the drive of this business. You really do get rewarded, you know. It's cool. And the ceiling is very high, it's what you, it's what you build for yourself, and it takes you to the next level. You have to level up, right? You always, and it's always because campaigns won't last forever, you know, like you gotta, you know, figure out how to get more, how to go down for multiple things.
So you learn how to multitask and you learn how to adapt. And at the end of the day, it's it's survival of the fittest, right? So if you figure this thing out, you'll be at the top of the food chain and you'll be able to benefit tremendously.
Q: How has building relationships in this industry helped you in your business?
Relationships are everything in this business. Because this is a business, it's almost like, I hate to say this, almost like used car salespeople, right? Back then people had a bad, and I feel bad for them, there's lots of good used car salespeople. But the thing is that they had a bad connotation, oh they're going to rip you off, whatever.
So lead gen in particular, and I think our space has a kind of like a bad reputation, black oil snails people, you you know what I said, because because the history kind of comes from like, sound like nutra products, like really like kind of like scam shady shit, like like almost tricking people into doing, taking actions online, right? So I think that's, but really like, this is the affiliate space, but it's really lead generation and pay per call, we're not tricking someone into buying a keto product that's going to cure their cancer, that's not the type of stuff we're ever, we're advertising solar and debt and ERC and all these different verticals that are like legitimate, they're helping people out, there's a benefit to it.
I almost don't like saying the word affiliate, because it's got that weird connotation to it.
And then going back to your question, relationships, because this is an industry that has every kind of people. Everyone that I know who has been successful, has once been burned, in terms of not getting paid. There's people give you fraudulent leads, I'm dealing with an issue right now, not a big issue, but you know, fraudulent leads come by. People, there's a lot of money in this industry and there's a lot of, I think it's really lack of transparency is what the issue is. So and there's a lot of trust involved.
So when you meet somebody that actually does what they say they're going to do, that honors their word, that goes a long way. And I could say probably only a handful of people fall into that category. Everyone here I think falls in the category. And this is a very carefully cultivated crowd. And someone said the other day, they like doing business here because they know that they're not going to get fucked. Because if they do, they're going to get put on blast, they're going to be taken out of this club. So that to me is beautiful.
So I think that you know, to answer your question, you gotta always put your relationship first, even if it makes means that you take some short-term losses to get the long-term gains. And relationships are everything. And I'm talking about also when I'm trying to train my sales team too right now, is we don't always want to sell leads, we want to also have a conversation with them, you know, get to know how many kids they have, send them a gift, the kids going to a camp or whatever, "Hey, how'd the camp go? When's their birthday?" Send them something.
I'm looking at this thing, one of my clients, two of my clients, they love cigars. I'm thinking about buying this for them and shipping to their houses. They remember things like that. It's thoughtful. We can take it with us.
But anyway, the point is that you gotta, it's like when you first, you know, meet your spouse, your girlfriend, whatever that relationship, you're always, every single day, right? And I'm not saying you have to do that to that kind of extreme, but you got to show you care, you want to be thoughtful, you got to separate yourself from the fray, that is what separated, it's just data, right, then it's just data or traffic.
And that goes a long way, because guess what, you know, leads are streaky. We'll have months where we're crushing it, other months not so much. But they won't turn you off because they know you're gonna fix that shit. And they, you've built some goodwill with them, that they know you're not doing something intentionally. So they believe in what you're doing. And then you have a longer runway. The name of this game is how do you extend that runway for as long as possible with multiple clients? And the relationships are how you do that. That's to me the secret sauce to this business.
That's what I was kind of saying earlier about biz dev, having a good business team, is that a lot of media buyers, affiliates, they're just not that good, they're sometimes they're not great. They hide behind the computer, they want to hide behind the computer and they feel comfortable that way, right? And that's cool, that's their gift. They don't really want to be talking to people so much, they'd rather generate the lead and have someone else do it.
So with that being said, that person who does that, that business development person, they're the key to your growth. Because they're the ones building those relationships. So I guess if you're going to hire someone, you know, ask them questions, you know, "How do you foster relationships? Do you do anything that would wow you?" Right?
I mean, I've had clients who are big baseball fans, and their dream is to go to Yankee Stadium. Got them front-row tickets at the Yankee Stadium, they remember that for life, you know. And then at the end of the day, think about, we're here to create, I mean one big thing for me too, going back to what I like about and what my mission is, I'm all about memories man. I want to have good memories with people that I love, my family, because at the end of the day, money comes, money goes, right? You can't take it with you.
What you remember are the last breaths. Like did I have a good life? Do I regret anything? So if you can help create memories for your clients and help them make money, you're golden. They have 50 vendors, you're going to be at the top 10 of their list, and they're not going to shut your ass off, and they'll be with you through thick and thin, just like a marriage. You get married, better or worse, same concept.
It sounds simple, it's a lot harder to execute this shit, but especially in this space. But I think that if you really focus on relationships first, you know, write down your poem, look at every day, it'll happen, little by little.
Q: If you didn't do affiliate marketing, what would you do with your life?
Oh man, I mean, I wish I got into this game a lot earlier. Because fuck man, I mean, I feel like I was built for this business, I really do. So it'd probably be something with business relationships, you know, I was always in sales, running call centers, so it'd probably be some sort of call center, run an offer or, I don't know, some big ticket item, something like that, you know.
I always thought I'd be a good lobbyist, right, or a great attorney. So much incriminating evidence out there, I know, right? But the bottom line is that something along those lines. And it really boils down to relationships. Something where you're fostering relationships. Because I talk about lobbying and like, I don't know if I do that, but or lawyers, but you're still, you're talking to people that move the needle, right? As a lobbyist, you're trying to influence policy is what you're trying to do.
So I think it'll be something that would influence something, as as a lead generator and dealing with clients, you're looking to influence their purchasing behavior, that you want them to buy from you. You're looking to influence people online, which ad are they're gonna click on, right? So it will probably have something to do with the influence of some capacity, with something that I deeply believe in, right?
So I think that'll be the next chapter of what I do, whenever that is, you know, hopefully, sooner than later, where I'll be doing more kind of stuff like that, you know, more influential on a higher level.
Q: Two last questions. First, a fun fact that you want to share by yourself. And second, what's a piece of advice you would have for someone who's trying to grow in this business?
Okay, fun fact. The people that know me, know that know me, but a lot of people watching this I don't know, but you'd have no idea that I speak Spanish. My mom's Venezuelan, I mentioned that earlier. But anyway, that means that I speak Spanish. Though I have a little bit of an accent. I got a Jersey accent, but it's all good.
But so a lot of people are shocked when they know that I speak Spanish. And that's one big thing, because the Spanish lead gen is on fire. It's, they're harder to scale because a lot of clients can't take those leads. And yes, you line it up and we're gonna crack it dude, man, it is, and we're already doing it, we're making it work, we're chipping away.
But I think that it's like, it's like I was talking about when I ran call centers, I understand the costs in our environment, I understand why our clients are going through, we take a consultative approach. My mother is Venezuelan, I grew up in a Hispanic environment, my wife is Colombian. So I know that demographic, languages, culture, it's culture, right? It's a different, behavioral, different approach, right? Slightly. And you got to know, if you're targeting South Florida, you're not going to do Mexican Spanish, you'll do that in Texas, but not in South Florida. South Florida, your ads got to be more like Cuban Spanish, Venezuelan, and Colombian Spanish. There are nuances there that make a big difference, that'll really make the success or death of a campaign.
So that's, that's the fun fact. A lot of people, look at me, and they figure out Eastern European, my dad's Polish, so that's why my last name is Stodelak. But my mom's Venezuelan. So people have no idea. And then when I start speaking Spanish, for whatever reason, they're shocked, you know. So I like it, it's kind of like, especially when I'm like in the Hispanic area, they're just shocked, like "Wow!" I like that's why I like it when I go to Miami, because everyone's talking to me in Spanish, I kind of feel kind of at home, like "Oh good, I'm not like an outsider." But it's cool. But yeah, that's a fun fact about me.
And last, to sign off, what piece of advice do you have for someone trying to grow in this industry? Yeah, I say that someone who's trying to grow, you know, read this book called The Magic of Thinking Big. As I said earlier, where I live, I'm living right in front of this massive building, you know, the richest, probably the most expensive building in the world. And that inspires me to greater heights, right?
So I think that the magic of thinking big makes you open your tower, The 10X rule is another goal, by Grant Cardone. And I think that what I'm trying to say is that whatever vertical you're in, whatever you're generating leads for, there's a whale in that space that if you close that whale, maybe there's a client that's spending or a prospect spending seven, eight figures a month. We had a client in solar that was spending $7 million a month. They weren't doing all that with us, they're doing 10% of that a month. That's still a lot of money.
But the point is that there are whales in your industry that you can get. Just find out who the hell they are. And either you go after them or you have someone in your team go after them. And have a hit list, identify 10 of those. And if you think about them every day, subconsciously you'll be driven to go after those people. And that ties into the magic of thinking big. Because right now maybe you're dealing with, I don't know, look at the average ticket size you're getting from your clients. Maybe your average client is spending 20 grand a month. For me, I want clients that spend six figures a month with us. That's to me how we grow. And that's how we get from six to seven.
So you gotta level up is what I'm trying to say. And if you already have those clients buying a lot from you, okay, what else is stopping you? Do you need more business development people? Do you need another media buyer? Do a really good honest commentary or analysis of what you need to get to the next level.
For us, we grew so much that we lost processes. So we joined, we joined EOS. EOS is a very good process-oriented system. It costs a lot of money, but to me, it's worth the ROI. So now we're tightening up our processes. Sometimes I'm shocked how far we've gotten without these processes. And we made it happen through like pissing vinegar and relationship management. Now I think with this shit, we're going to go to the next level.
So really do an honest assessment of where you're going. Kind of gives three facts of having three ideas there. But I think the biggest thing is this is everything in life, psychological. Level up your thinking, surround yourself with big-level thinkers. Listen to books like The Magic of Thinking Big and The 10X Rule. And I think just doing that alone will subconsciously drive you to bigger, bigger playing fields.
Q: How can people find you?
You can find me on Instagram. I do a lot on Instagram @DavidStodolak, It's really the best way to hit me up. And always open to new ideas, and talking to people. And again, when people around me grow, I grow naturally with them. So it's really mutually beneficial, man.
