#1 Affiliate on GHL | Pavel Ketsuk | EH Member Interview

We sit down with Pavel for an insightful member interview, tracing his journey in entrepreneurship. He shares how he started his marketing agency in 2017, initially working with local business owners. The discussion covers his strategic pivot to specializing in contractor marketing, a move that significantly contributed to his business growth. How he scaled his YouTube channel to over 100,000 subscribers and now has become the #1 affiliate for go high leveel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, we're back with another member interview. Today we're with Pavel. Pavel, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Of course, man. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Yeah, it's my pleasure. So feel free to introduce yourself for those who are listening to this, watching this, just a little bit about your background and what you do today.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, sounds good. So I started my company in 2017, started a marketing agency working with local business owners, kind of all over the place in the beginning. But then we niched down into working with contractors. And then I was building that, I was growing that. I was living in Vegas for a while. And then I decided I wanted to start traveling. That's the whole reason why I even got into this space. So I initially came to Mexico, was traveling all around, and then I landed in Medellin. Planned to, I only booked a flight to really be here for a month, but I loved it so much, I say, for five months. Met a bunch of amazing people, and it was a great trip. This was in 2022.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

2022. So from 2007, you started in 2017. Yep. And through that period, you scaled, and then what year did you start traveling?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

2022. That same year, yeah. Because I left, it was I think March perhaps. And then I was traveling for a bit, and then in Q3, I ended up here. Okay. And then I just absolutely loved it, man. And then I met a bunch of people. And then 2023, I started a YouTube channel and I started the high-level affiliate program as well. And then that really took off. And now I focus a lot of my time on YouTube and my coaching company. And YouTube is the main driver of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

So it's been a lot of fun, man. And I've been living in Medellin basically since. I mean, I've been here for the six months out of the year because of the visa, but now I'm here full time.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah. Amazing. And uh I just have to say congratulations because you just hit your 100K mark on on the channel, on the YouTube channel. Yes. So congratulations. I saw your post. You have like the the silver.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, the YouTube pack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

They shipped it here to Columbia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. That's amazing. Congratulations on that. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. So you came in 2022, and so you've been here for it's been, I guess, three years, right? Yeah. That you've been based here. Yep. Okay. So what originally brought you to Medellin? Like you knew you wanted to travel, but how did you even hear about Medellin? And like why did you end up like coming down here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So I was in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. And I just heard about Medellin from other nomads. I was working at a co-working and I just had friends there and they told me Medellin's a great city. And there's only so much I like living on the beach. It's fun, I think, in theory, when you work a cubicle job like I did, and you're just stuck in a box office. You always kind of dream of living by the beach and doing all this. And it was great, but I don't know, just something about sand always, you know, there's always wearing flip-flops and always being in sand, and just uh you're basically wearing like swim trunks all day. And that was cool for a couple months, but then I just wanted a bigger city and I wanted more amenities and all that. And Cancun is only what three and a half hours from here. Yeah, so it was just the closest city into South America. And my plan was to keep traveling, but I just loved it so much. So I stayed.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So one you had a one-month trip, and this is very common, by the way. Like so many people come here. Everyone, yeah. Pretty much everyone's like, Oh, I'll come here for a month or a week, and then they extend it, and then three years later they're getting married and have kids and a family. Yeah, exactly. Not even exaggerating for some people, but so you you came here for a month. What was it that like actually hooked you and you're like, okay, I'm gonna stay? You said you met people, like, was it meeting the certain people here? Was it a combination of things, or what was it that like was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna not continue to travel, I'm just gonna stay here.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah. So in the beginning, man, I didn't meet people for the first few months because I came here and I was with my girlfriend, and we didn't know anyone. I knew one person that actually I met on a sales call. So they were trying to sell me a program and then he added me on Facebook. And then I was in Cancun, and I just kept seeing on the stories that he's in Medellin, he, you know, all these nice restaurants, all this stuff. And so I hit him up after about a month after I got here. But as soon as I landed, I just liked it. It was a big city, it was just a good vibe. It was very green, and it was perfect weather. And I just liked everything about it, man. I liked uh going to the gym, I liked having a routine again. The gyms are super nice. Uh, I enjoyed the food, and then I started getting this meal delivery service. I started uh getting groceries delivered to my house, and just the food quality just seemed higher quality. It just seemed better. And I started going on adventures, man. I started you know just hiking, riding horses, and I just I really liked that I could be in a city and get the amenities of a city, but then also do nature things, and it's only you know 30 minutes out, 45 minutes out. Yeah, so that's initially what kept me here. And then as I met with this one guy, like I showed you that, or like I told you about, that was trying to sell me this program. That's when I met my entire friend group. It was all through him, this one guy who's who's who's now my roommate. But but uh yeah, and then and then I just made amazing friends, all entrepreneurs. And I just the caliber of people here was much higher quality, I think, than than Plydo Carmen. It was they just had bigger businesses and they were more serious about their business and they were more business driven. And in that phase, that's exactly what I wanted. That's exactly what I needed.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, no, that's amazing. And so you came here in 2022, you started your channel in 2023. Yep. So and obviously today people can see where you're at, but I always like to hear the story of like when you started and what was that like? What was when you first started? Obviously, you didn't go from zero to a hundred like overnight. It was a it was probably like a grind. What was that experience like? Like, why did you start the channel? And then how did that evolve to from where you started to to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

So the beginning of how I started the YouTube channel channel or my business and okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Well, but both because it it I mean, why did you start the YouTube channel? You started go high-level stuff, right? At the same time, was that in correlation or so?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

I first started my agency in 2017 because I was just tired of working for other people.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And I did not want to sit in a cubicle. I didn't want to have a boss, I didn't want to report to someone else. I didn't want to sit in traffic every day. And I just thought I could do things better. I was working at another agency, a marketing agency, and I just thought I could do things better. And I was freelancing on the side, and I still had my job when I started the company, by the way. It was just like a freelance LLC that I had. And that was my initial motivation. I wanted to start traveling, I wanted to be remote. And then also back then, dude, in like 2015, 2016, this like the digital nomad kind of movement wasn't as big, and I didn't know that many people that were doing it, so it was it was kind of a dream, but I knew I could I could do it. And initially, man, I just wanted to get to like five or 10k a month. That was like my dream and just travel, yeah, and just live on the beach. But when I transitioned into YouTube, so I signed up for Go High Level, I believe it was 2021 or late 2020, and I was using it for my agency. And then after about a year to two years of running the agency, and then I started traveling, so I sold all my stuff. People kept asking me how I'm doing it or how I'm growing, and and and they started asking me for different strategies like friends or yeah, friends, man, or just other people that I met in in different co-working places. Okay. Because they had their own businesses, but a lot of them were freelancers or they had jobs. And then I realized that Go High Level has an affiliate program, and a lot of them didn't have high level. So at first I was just telling them, yeah, man, so here's how I run the ads. I use this software called Go High Level. We follow up with the leads, we deliver them for local businesses. And I was just I was referring so many people without ever getting a referral link or anything. And then I realized they have a really good program, and then I started sending my affiliate link, and then I started seeing recurring commissions come in. And that's when I realized, okay, this could this could maybe be a thing. And I started, so everyone in the beginning that signed up with my link, I would just I would just coach them one-on-one. That was it. I I got a little bit burnt out from just talking to contractors all day, every day for you know five years. So it was nice to just talk to other agency owners and to talk to people that are like my friends and it didn't feel like work. So I put them all inside of a Facebook group. And in that Facebook group, I just started sharing my strategies. I was I was filming like Loom videos and I was just sharing everything I was doing, how I was running the ads, how I was linking up high-level, I was sharing all my snapshots and just all my funnels, everything. And then I realized these Loom videos that I was filming that were full tutorials could be YouTube videos. So I started publishing them on YouTube, and that was it. It was very unstructured, just like make my own thumbnail on Canva, just put some text on it and just throw it up on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

So that's how it started. And then I got my first person that signed up to the affiliate program through YouTube. And I never spoke to them. They just signed up. And then I realized, wait a minute, this could be scalable. And that's what initially started it. And then I realized, wait, I have a product, I can monetize this. And a lot of people were hitting me up that already had high levels. So then we started integrating a payment plan. If they already have an account, this is what they could pay us to join the community. And it was all on Facebook. And so that's slowly how it started. And then I started researching YouTube, and then I started taking YouTube much more seriously. Yeah. I realized, wait, if this is a marketing channel, let me learn everything I can about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, no, it's amazing. You kind of like stumbled, it wasn't even like intentional, it just stumbled into like, hey, it was very organic, basically. It was very organic. It was always the best.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah, it was very organic. And because I did have because in the beginning I did so many just free calls with people, with other agency owners that are struggling. And because I was a digital nomad and I met so many in different co-working places, I knew all their pain points and I knew exactly what they struggled with. Plus, I had myself because I struggled for years. Like my first year, I got only three clients, which is nothing. And I charged like $150 for a website that took me two weeks to build, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I struggled myself and I had to push past all those struggles. I've tried every outreach strategy, I've tried everything. Yeah. And so with all that experience combined, I was able to just talk in my YouTube videos and make make good topics to that that people care about. And I just had good market feedback on everything.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah. And you just you built that foundation and then you scaled it up. And I guess how how long has Go High Level been around for? Like how long have they their had their affiliate program for?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I don't know. Do you know? I actually don't know. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Okay. But you you started back, you know, in in I guess a few years after you first initially started because you started referring it when you started traveling more so. Yep. But since then, you've really like, I mean, you went to the top of the leaderboard essentially, right? And just through your your YouTube, well, your YouTube channel primarily, I guess. Primarily, yeah, which is amazing. So that's a that's an awesome underdog story of three clients at 150 bucks first year to you know, now scaling and traveling the world like your original goal. So congratulations, man. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. That's incredible. So uh I want to talk quickly about your experience here in Medagine, but more specifically when we first met, because obviously you said you came here, you met some people, and you got your like core friend group, which you're still they're almost all. I I mean, I know a lot of them, and most of them are are still here, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

And you're living with them, you're spending quality time, and like you know, they're all very successful entrepreneurs. A few of them are also in the group, but how has your experience changed from when uh we met and you joined the the entrepreneur house? Because it's about a year ago, I believe, uh, more or less. So your experience before and then um after and like during, and what has that been like, the type of people you've met, and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Before I came to Medagene, or before you joined the entrepreneur house group. I see. So when did I join? I think it was last year.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

It's about one year ago. Right? About more or less.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

One year ago. Yeah, it's been it's been it's been great, man. The the most amount of people that I met was during the more casual events, actually, during like the ice bath saunas.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Because that was fun because I just showed up and it's something I love doing as well. So since then I installed my own ice bath in in my house, and so now I can do it whenever. But going there and meeting other entrepreneurs and seeing what they're doing outside of just my friend group. And and again, a lot of people in my friend group are also have been to some of your events. And it's been it's been great, man. It's been great to see the perspective that they have on business and also how they're able to travel. I think your network is everything in general because that's how you learn about all the new strategies, right? There's, of course, you can research this stuff on YouTube, but just learning about different industries and learning what this guy's doing in advertising and e-com and then learning what this guy's doing with taxes, that's been great. And it's been it's been a great experience, man. I've I've I've met people actually two weeks ago, I think I just got dinner with someone that's in a very similar industry to me, and he's absolutely crushing it. And so that's been cool. Just comparing notes with people and also learning about different industries that I never really would have been exposed to otherwise, whether it's taxes or e-com or ad strategies, all that. So it's been great, man. I've I've I've enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Amazing. And for anyone listening to this or watching this, and let's say they're an entrepreneur like you, they're coming to Medellin or they're already here in Medellin and they're looking for a community. What would you say? Say they're interested in potentially joining, but they haven't yet, right? They're kind of looking on the outside. What would you say to someone watching this who's thinking about uh potentially joining the entrepreneur house?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Are they already in Medellin or not yet?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Let's say that they're on their way or here already. Okay. Like they know they're gonna be here or they already are. I see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Well, Medagine is one of the best places. So if you're anywhere in Latin America, I think coming here is one of the best decisions you'll make. Because I've traveled to a lot of different countries here, and I ended up using this as my home base, and a lot of others have as well. So I think this is this is a place they they they must visit. I think that your community is everything. It's it's one of the main things that have made this place so special for me, is because now I have a massive friend group. And if you first land here, you know, you could try to build that organically and try to network your way in. But by joining a group like this, you'll get exposed to everyone in a couple dinners. In a couple weeks, you can meet a whole bunch of people. And then that becomes your your your core friend group. And then that stems off into different events and experiences and hiking and you know, riding horses and charity events and all that stuff. And I think I think that's great. So if they want a community and they don't know anyone here, then a hundred percent this is this is an amazing decision.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Thank you. Amazing. I appreciate you saying that. And so for anyone uh listening to this and wants to connect with you social media online, where can they find you? Um, handles and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, my Instagram's the probably the best place. You can find me on YouTube, of course, but there's no there's no messages there. My Instagram is at Pavel's Life, Pavels underscore life. Okay, and that's the best place.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

All right. Well, thank you so much, Pavel.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Cool. All right, I appreciate it.