In this edition of our Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we dive into the entrepreneurial journey of Austin McCulloh, the mind behind ReplyAssist, a transformative LinkedIn Lead Generation and CRM tool tailored for financial advisors. In our conversation, Austin shares his insights about the strategic shifts, crucial hires, and disciplined focus that have defined his business success. Join us as we explore how Austin's entrepreneurial vision and relentless dedication are reshaping the way professionals in the finance industry engage with their future clients.
Hi, Austin! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
Most financial advisors want more clients. But they aren't able to get more clients because they aren't able to get enough discovery calls scheduled with ideal prospects. This is why we created ReplyAssist. It's an All-In-One LinkedIn Lead Generation + CRM Tool for Financial Advisors. No longer do advisors need to manually send LinkedIn Invites & Messages to start conversations or create messages from scratch to respond to all of their prospects, or spend a ton of time manually following up with prospects to keep the conversation fresh. ReplyAssist does all of these tedious tasks for them. So, ReplyAssist reduces most of an advisors' weekly prospecting work, which frees up time for them to do literally anything else - spend more time with clients, spend more time with family, spend more time on hobbies - spend more time on anything BUT prospecting.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
I think it was when I finally hired my first virtual assistant, SK. He actually reached out to me on LinkedIn to ask if I needed help with our day-to-day marketing, and I did have a need, so I hired him. At the time, that last business, which is the one I hired him for, Austin McCulloh Advising, was still only a coaching business, and I was the one doing doing EVERY task for the business - prospecting, creating & posting content, client fulfillment, client support, managing client payments, etc. I was a one-man show. But the moment I hired SK, it was no longer just about me and our clients - it was also about supporting SK and his family, as well as making sure that SK and I do a better job of serving our existing clients. I knew that I wanted to make the business bigger, but I wasn't able to that by doing everything myself, so I finally shifted into an entrepreneur mindset - someone who runs an actual business through delegation & automation, not just some little business hobby where I do everything myself. I started thinking in terms of "we" as a TEAM, rather than "me" as an individual.
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
It was when I first got into the financial services industry back in 2017. I was doing a full-time tax accounting internship, and that was extremely boring to me. Then, one day, I was invited by an old high school friend to attend a group meeting hosted by a local financial services office. The meeting opened my eyes to show me that I could work for myself, rather than working for someone else - that I could pave my own path. I will say, I am not a huge fan of entrepreneurs doing entrepreneurship part-time, BUT I got into entrepreneurship part-time as a financial professional, and I doubt I would've started if I had to start full-time. So, even if you aren't able to work on your business 24/7 like I now can, do something each day, even if it's just for a couple of hours. A couple of hours right now is better than nothing, and there will never be "a better time" to work on your business. Start now.
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
I know this is going to be obvious to readers, but LinkedIn has been the biggest game-changer for my last business, as well as my current business(ReplyAssist). LinkedIn has 1 billion worldwide users, and, of those, approximately 200 million live in the United States. That means, almost every adult in the United States has a LinkedIn account. Other than social media platforms or running Super Bowl ads, how else are you able to get in front of almost EVERY single adult in the United States? You can't. And not only can you reach most of these people by sending a Connection Request, but you ALSO are able to dictate HOW people perceive you by crafting a quality LinkedIn profile. That way, whenever a person visits your LinkedIn profile, they are able to learn about you based on the information that YOU chose to provide. LinkedIn is one of the best sales tools I know of in the world. Because of the work I've done on LinkedIn over the past 4 years, we will be able to grow to a very large customer base with ReplyAssist solely from LinkedIn outreach. And you can do the exact same thing, too.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
Well, I've had a lot of failures and needs to pivot, but the main one was pivoting my last business (Austin McCulloh Advising), which I sold, from a coaching business to a marketing agency. After about a year and a half of trying to sell 1-on-1 coaching to different sales professionals (mainly financial professionals), I could tell that something wasn't working. And, quite frankly, I had a call with a business broker (someone to help you sell your business) because I was interested to see if I could potentially sell the business one day, and he made it pretty clear that the current business wasn't worth anything, and no one would want to buy it. So, since I was already humbled & vulnerable (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise), I was receptive enough to try something new. I had been using a LinkedIn lead generation software to automate my own prospecting outreach, and that was working well to get meetings scheduled, plus my coaching clients thought the software was awesome, too. So I started licensing that LinkedIn lead generation software to all of my clients, as well as to future clients. This pivot finally made it relatively "easily" for us to start bringing on more clients, and that allowed us to find traction to scale up the business. We started finally operating like a true business, and this stability gave me to confidence to list the business on a marketplace to sell it, and the rest is history (I sold the business in 2023).
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
I think this is going to be a different answer than most people would expect, but I cut out ALL distractions from my life from January 1st, 2024 until May 2nd, 2024 - 4 straight months of no personal social media, no dating apps, no drinking, no stepping foot in a bar/club, and only leaving Chicago one time for family reasons. I was only focused on business and fitness outside of sleep & personal care. On the surface, this doesn't seem very profound. But it was. Many entrepreneurs don't realize how much time they waste on their phone, on social media, on dating apps, watching TV, partying, commuting, and so on. And look, I get it. What I did is intense and some people will say, "You don't need to cut out ALL distractions to be successful.", but to that, I say, "It all depends on how successful you want to be." In order to get to the level I am striving for, I did NEED to cut out all distractions to be LASER focused. Was it boring? Yeah. Was it monotonous? Yeah, extremely monotonous. But was it worth it? It absolutely was worth it. We recently launched a basic version of ReplyAssist, and I can already see how much these past 4 months of consistent, disciplined work have compounded. They have not only given me a lot of progress in all areas of the business (our software, marketing, sales, etc), but immense clarity of thought, which is crucial for a leader of a large organization to have. So, if you as an entrepreneur are reading this right now, and are trying to figure out what to do to get to the next level, perhaps do an audit of where you are spending your time daily/weekly/monthly. You gotta let go of some things to level up in life - if you try to hold on to your past while also grabbing for your future, you'll stay exactly where you're at.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
Don't take advice from 90% of people - there's a reason why there are FAR more unsuccessful people professionally than successful people. And also, do not take criticism from those same 90% of people. Most people reject you and try to knock your confidence down because life is a mirror. Which means, all of their hate & negativity towards you is what they are projecting onto you because that is what they feel deep down (internally). So, who cares if most people say you can't do it. Most people don't win, so they are talking from their own personal experience(s) - their own reality. They aren't speaking from the reality of someone who DID do it. Someone who DID achieve success. So why listen to them? Don't. Listen to winners. Listen to people who FOUND A WAY to make it happen. Every single thing in this world was created by someone. So if you can think it, you can create it. And I mean this with complete certainty. You are your only true obstacle in life. Every other obstacle is just a mirage. If you want it bad enough, and are willing to do WHATEVER it takes, you CAN get it.
Want to go deeper into Austin's work? Check out these links:
- Visit ReplyAssist's Website replyassist.com
- Connect with Austin on LinkedIn: Austin McCulloh
- Follow ReplyAssist on Instagram: @replyassist
