3 years in the forum.... just made over $10,000 in 2 weeks at 17 years old.

[Telamon25346]

So, now an update. What Have I done since then?

First of all, I started planning. I plan on keeping 10% of my income for spending, saving 50% and then I will bet investing the %40 into some investments (index funds, dividend stocks, investment trusts, and REITs and ETFs (VGSIX if anyone is interested)) so I can start learning. I plan on investing in these through a Roth IRA. I have a good chance of retiring very very early now, and I don't want to mess it up.

I've also been investing in myself. I saw the results it gave me when I really put my foot down. The first thing I did was buy a $6,000 course that I had seen a few days ago on agency growth designed for marketing agency owners. I'm going to go through the course tomorrow.

I've also started networking. I joined a few private facebook groups with agency owners, and I've already met a few people in the industry. Been asking a lot of questions and speaking with them. I've received a TON of value by just speaking with these guys.

So now the goals:

1. Grow my agency to 10k, then 100k a month in income. I've been cold calling again now, and as you can see with the green cells above, looks like I've got a few more meetings and appointments to make
2. continue investing and building up my investment portfolio, at the same time continue building up savings with the %50 remainder of my income.
3. learn as much as possible. learning got me here, learning will get me where I want to go
4. enjoy life, I've never (and I don't think I will) worked a genuine job.
5. make smart choices.
6. Retire as early as possible, live off my investments and savings, maybe even start another business, that's far in the future

I also want to give back to the community. I remember just how frustrating it was for me a few weeks ago, and all I needed was some guidance which I found in myself. I really want to help others who were in my place succeed because I know what it felt like having a ton of doubt with me all the time. (If you have any specific questions about my business, dm me or just ask me in here).
I also want to somehow help the community in a larger way. not sure how I'll go about that, but I want to provide some value and help for future me's wanting to make a change in themselves and the world around them.

If you're reading this and you're young like I was, that is not a holdback. I used to think that my age limited me and I couldn't do anything because of it other than wait, but I was wrong. You have so much free time in your teenage years, you can't just waste it away on parties and videogames. You can do truly anything at any age, and you have more time and resources available than the competition. not to mention you got a pretty good head start .

lastly, but definitely not least.
THANK. YOU. MJ DeMarco AND THE FASTLANE COMMUNITY.
Looking back now, you've changed me from the lost kid I used to be who just wanted to make a few bucks. I seriously do not know where I would be had I not picked up the millionaire fastlane when I did. I've recommended the book to tons and tons of my friends now. But words cannot emphasize how amazing this community and the books have been. can't wait for the 3rd one Mj!

I LOVE YOU GUYS.

 

[Telamon25346]

I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll begin with the book that set this all in effect.


I had always known people made money online, but I didn't know how. I was 15 years old, It feels like forever ago, but I remember at the time I had been really interested in wanting to make money from my room. Originally I tried bitcoin, as I thought that was the only way possible for me to hold money in my name, without having to approach my parents. Bitcoin started to blow up and I only had like $20 worth of bitcoin in my account. It rose to around $40 after a few days, and I spent it on some headphones on a bitcoin to Amazon service. Then bitcoin REALLY started to blow up. I decided to quit bitcoin. I still had this burning passion to keep up with the kids at school, I wanted to have all the cool tech they did, and be able to buy my own toys and stuff. I then started looking up forex trading. I spent my summer of 2017 taking notes in google drive (which I still have today) on how to grow from $100 to $100,000 or whatever guru's told me as a kid.

My dad advised me to start reading books If I wanted to learn how to make real money when I grow up. I slowly started reading books, but I never stuck to one. I was browsing the r/entrepreneur subreddit when someone another user to read the millionaire fastlane . The title sounded cool, and at the time I didn't have enough money so I pirated the book. I cannot emphasize this enough, The millionaire fastlane changed my life. I remember the book caught my attention so well I read through it in like one week. I didn't know it at the time, but It started an amazing domino chain which led up to now, 3 years later. At the recommendation of the end of the book, I joined the forum winter of 2017. I was greeted with Gold posts which inspired me, My favorite among which was "6 Figures at 18! 1 year on The Fastlane Forum" by PTP. I remember thinking, I'd love to have 6 figures at 18, If PTP can do it, so can I. I basically tried to copy what he did, I read through @biophase e-commerce thread, I looked up e-commerce videos on youtube (I only watched the ones with flashy cars and gurus promoting courses though). And thus started my first genuine attempt at a business. I didn't get very far, I spent months of inaction, I had a Shopify account, but I kept telling myself I was too young to be able to talk between suppliers and sell products. I knew what I had to do but it all scared me. And I kept thinking about what the end would be like instead of what I needed to do. After a while, I ""quit"" my e-commerce business (which I named ephebeum Importing, name took me a few weeks to come up with). After this, I felt doomed, but I still knew that there were people in my age group making money online, thanks to this forum, and I still remembered everything I read in TMF . I was determined that I would keep trying to become successful for the rest of my life, even if it took the same time @MJ DeMarco did.

Shortly after e-commerce, I tried Amazon FBA and affiliate marketing. Both of those ended with similar fates to my e-commerce venture. I think I was almost 16 now, and that's when I came across digital marketing and Sean Marshalls thread. I "officially" started the business when I turned 16 in January 2018, I was a bit more determined than I was in the past with my previous ventures, But I still had lingering thoughts of being too young, or not knowing how to do the work, or simply just failing. But I kept pushing, I kept reading books and trying to learn as much as possible in the space.

I had a few months of Inaction, but I was making slow and steady progress. I kept working on my website, and I even got my parents to make me a PayPal business account for "paying the taxes when I get paid". Fast forward 1 year, and I turn 17. This is when I had a miniature FTE. I got really fed up with myself, I kept seeing success on the internet, and by then I had read through hundreds of stories and videos of young teenagers that had "made it big" in the online business area. and I still felt like I wasn't moving. Around this time I also started my execution thread, and my main focus was getting my first client. By now I had only done a couple of sites for my father and his friends, but that was it. at the time of creating the thread, I was set on holding myself accountable and getting my first client. The only problem is that I tried to fuel my work with motivation instead of discipline and consistency, much like I had for all my previous business ventures. I was also doing work that wasn't getting results. I convinced myself I was doing hard work by sending out large email campaigns and trying to get a client that way.

after a few months, almost halfway into the year now, I had barely any results. My thread was starting to look less promising. and so was my "business". It started to piss me off. a lot. I really wanted to be successful early, because like I had learned years ago from reading the millionaire fastlane , there was no way in hell I wanted to go to college and go through the life my parents wanted me to live. This anger started to build up, day by day. But I still kept doing the same thing. then one day... POP. I had a genuine FTE. I knew that it was either I make this entrepreneurship thing work, or my life would be living hell knowing what I could be but never became.

I tried again, but this time I had something to prove to myself. I had been reading books and generally just building my knowledge over the years, but I never learned about what discipline does, or at least I never cared. This time I applied discipline to my attempt, and I laid out some simple goals. I wanted to: 1. Get my first client, and 2. grow my business to 10k after that.

The next couple of days felt like a blur, I locked myself in my room. I deleted all social media, I barely even spoke to my own family. I woke up every day at 6, and RELENTLESSLY worked on those 2 goals. until late at night. I learned every. single. thing. I could on cold calling, prospecting, and selling. All my focus was on learning to sell my marketing company to these potential clients and then closing them at high ticket. Looking back, I've probably consumed a few days worth of content on sales. At the same time, I started cold calling businesses. If I wasn't learning to sell, I was applying what I knew. After a few DAYS of this hard discipline and ACTION. I started seeing something..... Results. I was starting to get comfortable speaking on the phone, I had more confidence in my business, of course, I was still scared about what could go wrong, whether I would fail or not. But I KEPT going. Then some magical things happened. I started booking meetings. The first meeting I had was kind of a fail, the man was interested in what I had to offer, but I was so focused on selling him a service and making money than I was in actually helping him. He never responded after the meeting ended. I felt a ton of doubt and fear start to kick in, I thought all my work was worth nothing. But I KEPT going.

I researched a TON for the next few days, preparing for my next 2 appointments. I even stopped cold calling. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this.. then the days of my 2 meetings came.

 

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[Telamon25346]

I had a 15-page google doc that I made with notes on how to close clients in meetings, and how to genuinely provide them with enough value to justify a high service price. I memorized the google document down to a T.


My first meeting started off a little rough, but the script kept me great. I first asked them questions about their business, I listened to their problems, and I genuinely showed them the way they could fix it themselves, Then I started leading them into the close, they were agreeing with everything I was saying, and then I did it. I pushed them for the close by explaining how I and my team could take care of the work, and I ended with "so would you like to get started?" ...... after a few seconds of silence, I heard my first YES.

I had just closed a contracting company, to run a google advertisement for them, with a marketing budget of $600, and a management fee of $5,000 a month. over my cell phone. I almost started crying. But I had to prepare for my next meeting in a few more days, I wanted to make sure that I could consistently do what I had just done.

fast forward to me going through the recorded phone call of the first meeting (I highly recommend you record your calls and sales, you learn so much from it). I came into the second meeting strong as ever. with a point to prove.

I closed the second client at a very identical deal, they had a $1,000 marketing budget, and I charged them a $5,000 a month management fee.

(if anyone is wondering, I outsource the work to an established white label marketing agency here in the US)

I now had time to breathe, I hadn't really left my room for anything other than food and family in the past few days, I basically had tunnel vision, and my back was starting to ache. But I came out of that room a changed person. I had made more money than I'd ever seen in my life.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Congratulations.

However I'm a bit on the fence with the methods here. In a nutshell, you've convinced some business owners to pay you $5,500 month to manage their web presense, and included in that management is a $500 ad spend. From there you've outsourced the entire job to a third-party, profiting the difference (which is probably about $4K).

It sounds like you're simply arbitraging a service based on a market inefficiency.

The efficiency you're providing is being a better sales person for an offer (service) where adequate solutions aren't readily apparent. The value skew is from the third-party, you're a liason and a general contractor.

It's some legendary hustle (congrats) but it just doesn't feel right to me. I keep telling myself that it's no different than selling X at $100 hour and contracting it out for $25 hour, netting you $75 per hour, a general contracting model.

Maybe I'm getting too old.

Not sure if I should high five you or raise my eyebrow. I'll have to mull it over. Either way, don't let my undecided opinion marginalized what you've done. It's pretty impressive.

 

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[Telamon25346]

Are you actually charging 5K management fees for $600 ad spend? How did you justify this to the client?

I build up justification during the meeting. I start by asking them questions that get them thinking about their problem, I ask them about their marketing, how it works, their conversion rate, etc. This is the first step.

Then I go into showing my expertise and that I can help solve their big problem, but by giving them value at the same time. I basically reverse engineer their current marketing system in front of them, I explain how if they're spending $600 per click on an ad, and out of those 600 clicks only 2% to 5%, for them they think it's great, 12 new kitchen remodeling customers for a contracting company is like $150,000 worth of revenue. that's a $12,000 value per customer.

but for every 5% of people that convert on their current ad, or website or what have you. the other 95% clicked and clicked away. There's a WHOLE lot more revenue that they can capitalize on if they simply improved their website or google ad. again, These companies are already making money, but they could be making MORE. And 99% the people I've spoken with don't even have a google ad.

so now they see that I at least know what I'm talking about, they learn that they could be making a LOT more money and that I'm being 100% genuine. most people in the marketing company hop on a meeting and they start with their "package" and pricing and try to sell them SEO. what I do is I first hear their problem, then provide them with some expertise and a solution.

THEN, I start to explain how I would have my team run the ad, the team I outsource my work to hires a professional Google adwords (guy or something idk what they call him) and they create a google ad that not only converts, but they try their BEST to optimize their conversion rate.

So now the client knows their problem, they know the solution, they see the money it can make. and now they're thinking about how I can help solve it. By this part of the sale all, I have to do is get objections out of the way, and then state my price. which I do. everything leading up to the price justifies it and I don't have to explain any further. If they ask me "wow that's expensive". too many people start explaining why the price is the way that it is and they scramble to justify it. I already justified it. "yeah, I agree with you the price is expensive." is all I say, but they already KNOW the value they get. When you increase the conversion rate for a contractor from 5% to even 7% in the first month, off of a $600 ad spend. You just made them jump from:
in revenue. And I know the team that I outsource to will do this. In fact, over a few months, they've gotten some ads to convert 20 to 30%. But that small increase in customers per month for a contracting company Is worth so much to them, they won't care what price it's at, sure they'll be hesitant at first, but if you build some rapport during the meeting, have some humor, get them to like you as a person, and be 100% transparent and honest. You will have already done for them something most people in this industry haven't done. Given IMMENSE value. go through the meeting in the way I've explained to you, by the end they'll understand perfectly, and there's a very high chance you WILL close the sale at whatever price you state. For the next high-ticket client I pitch, like an attorney or an hvac company, I'm going to try to push a $10,000 sale, I'll keep you guys updated. but It's really not much to ask for when you're GENUINELY showing them how they can tens of hundreds of thousands to the table.

That's the power of sales guys. That's why I invested $6,000 in learning how to close clients at higher ticket. It's what makes the difference betweeen a small company charging $2,000 for an "seo" package and ony having few clients, and an agency with 10 clients at 10k each making $100k per month.

don't just sell packages, like MJ said in unscripted , if you had the cure for cancer, and you show people it works, no one cares what age you are, or really even how you do it. they will come running to pay you whatever you charge. Sell a solution to a problem that genuinely works. And they will give you whatever you ask.

 

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[ExaltedLife]

Congrats on your success, however I question your decision to immediately spend $6000 on a marketing course.

If you've never had a job before and this is your first successful venture, I expect that you probably don't have much experience managing money.

You made your first $10,000 and you spent over half of it right away on something that you saw an ad for yesterday, and you could probably learn the same things from a $20 book.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I'm just questioning how you justified all this to them? Or maybe it's a matter of these companies being so clueless that they just didn't know or think about this stuff?

Whenever I get into these "gray areas" where something doesn't feel right, I ask myself "If the company knew the whole unadulterated truth, would they be OK with it? Or would they be upset?"

Another question to gauge these "Gray Areas" is ask yourself this: If the truth was front page news on Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Business, would the overwhelming response by the general public be "Good for you!" or "Wow, sketchy!"

I go back to the general contractor model. If I paid someone to install a septic system for $20,000 but later discovered my GC outsourced it to a third-party at $2K, I'd be pretty pissed. If I found out they outsourced it at $16K, or $15K, maybe not so much. Bottomline, I know nothing about septic systems so make lack of knowledge perceived "$20K" to be the going value. Ultimately, I'm to blame for a lack of due diligence.

 

[Fox]

Edit - I will tone this down from my original post but this thread really seems "off".

You know how to sell - great, its a super valuable skill and probably the main key business skill.

BUT what you are selling seems like a very bad deal your clients...

When you increase the conversion rate for a contractor from 5% to even 7% in the first month, off of a $600 ad spend.

Going by these figures:

- They were spending $600 and getting 5% conversion rates
- now they are paying you $5600 and getting 7%?

This isn't making much sense. Unless you are writing this wrong or left out some details - you are increasing their rates by nearly 10 times for a 40% increase in conversion? This seems way off.

You might say “well that 40% if worth $xxx,xxx to them” (hard to know where you are getting these figures after just a few weeks) but you could still be managing their money in a much more fair and transparent way. It is fine to make a profit (and a great profit if deserved) but outsourcing ads at 10% or less of what a client pays you is borderline a scam.

To charge $5,000 "management" for adspend that is a fraction of your fees is unethical.
They might not know it is unethical but you should.

Add into this that the adspend biz will also be taking a cut before actually buying ads and it is even worse.

Selling is more than just getting people to do what you want - you got to look after their best interests as well.

This highly leveraged outsourcing stuff rubs me the wrong way. Very little or any value is passed on to the client.

You got some great skills by you are not using them in the right way. There are a million different ethical ways to make money with great sales skills but this isn’t one of them. Sorry to burst your bubble on this one but it’s just grimy. Your clients deserve more even if they think you are great. You’re the expert - you should have their back and be looking out for them.

The title on this thread "in two weeks" implies you just started this. I don't see the long game and how this could work out well. These people aren't idiots and are going to figure out that 95% of their money is not getting spent on the ads.

Here is the big difference with why this is unethical - you aren't bringing the value.

If it was YOU (or your own team) who knew how to create ad magic and massively increase conversion rates on big ad campaigns then charge whatever the market wants.

But to charge a dentist 5k a month to white-label $600 in ads - bro.

If you can sell then just switch to a business model which can actually go somewhere and helps all those involved.

There is no reason to be shortchanging your clients this much.

I respect the hustle and effort gone into learning how to sell. I hate seeing what you are selling though.

 

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[AFMKelvin]

Any chance you'll buy MJs books now? I mean you stole the first one.

Other than that this is an amazing post. Great work.

 

[adamgalloway]

I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll begin with the book that set this all in effect.


I had always known people made money online, but I didn't know how. I was 15 years old, It feels like forever ago, but I remember at the time I had been really interested in wanting to make money from my room. Originally I tried bitcoin, as I thought that was the only way possible for me to hold money in my name, without having to approach my parents. Bitcoin started to blow up and I only had like $20 worth of bitcoin in my account. It rose to around $40 after a few days, and I spent it on some headphones on a bitcoin to Amazon service. Then bitcoin REALLY started to blow up. I decided to quit bitcoin. I still had this burning passion to keep up with the kids at school, I wanted to have all the cool tech they did, and be able to buy my own toys and stuff. I then started looking up forex trading. I spent my summer of 2017 taking notes in google drive (which I still have today) on how to grow from $100 to $100,000 or whatever guru's told me as a kid.

My dad advised me to start reading books If I wanted to learn how to make real money when I grow up. I slowly started reading books, but I never stuck to one. I was browsing the r/entrepreneur subreddit when someone another user to read the millionaire fastlane . The title sounded cool, and at the time I didn't have enough money so I pirated the book. I cannot emphasize this enough, The millionaire fastlane changed my life. I remember the book caught my attention so well I read through it in like one week. I didn't know it at the time, but It started an amazing domino chain which led up to now, 3 years later. At the recommendation of the end of the book, I joined the forum winter of 2017. I was greeted with Gold posts which inspired me, My favorite among which was "6 Figures at 18! 1 year on The Fastlane Forum" by PTP. I remember thinking, I'd love to have 6 figures at 18, If PTP can do it, so can I. I basically tried to copy what he did, I read through @biophase e-commerce thread, I looked up e-commerce videos on youtube (I only watched the ones with flashy cars and gurus promoting courses though). And thus started my first genuine attempt at a business. I didn't get very far, I spent months of inaction, I had a Shopify account, but I kept telling myself I was too young to be able to talk between suppliers and sell products. I knew what I had to do but it all scared me. And I kept thinking about what the end would be like instead of what I needed to do. After a while, I ""quit"" my e-commerce business (which I named ephebeum Importing, name took me a few weeks to come up with). After this, I felt doomed, but I still knew that there were people in my age group making money online, thanks to this forum, and I still remembered everything I read in TMF . I was determined that I would keep trying to become successful for the rest of my life, even if it took the same time MJ did.

Shortly after e-commerce, I tried Amazon FBA and affiliate marketing. Both of those ended with similar fates to my e-commerce venture. I think I was almost 16 now, and that's when I came across digital marketing and Sean Marshalls thread. I "officially" started the business when I turned 16 in January 2018, I was a bit more determined than I was in the past with my previous ventures, But I still had lingering thoughts of being too young, or not knowing how to do the work, or simply just failing. But I kept pushing, I kept reading books and trying to learn as much as possible in the space.

I had a few months of Inaction, but I was making slow and steady progress. I kept working on my website, and I even got my parents to make me a PayPal business account for "paying the taxes when I get paid". Fast forward 1 year, and I turn 17. This is when I had a miniature FTE. I got really fed up with myself, I kept seeing success on the internet, and by then I had read through hundreds of stories and videos of young teenagers that had "made it big" in the online business area. and I still felt like I wasn't moving. Around this time I also started my execution thread, and my main focus was getting my first client. By now I had only done a couple of sites for my father and his friends, but that was it. at the time of creating the thread, I was set on holding myself accountable and getting my first client. The only problem is that I tried to fuel my work with motivation instead of discipline and consistency, much like I had for all my previous business ventures. I was also doing work that wasn't getting results. I convinced myself I was doing hard work by sending out large email campaigns and trying to get a client that way.

after a few months, almost halfway into the year now, I had barely any results. My thread was starting to look less promising. and so was my "business". It started to piss me off. a lot. I really wanted to be successful early, because like I had learned years ago from reading the millionaire fastlane , there was no way in hell I wanted to go to college and go through the life my parents wanted me to live. This anger started to build up, day by day. But I still kept doing the same thing. then one day... POP. I had a genuine FTE. I knew that it was either I make this entrepreneurship thing work, or my life would be living hell knowing what I could be but never became.

I tried again, but this time I had something to prove to myself. I had been reading books and generally just building my knowledge over the years, but I never learned about what discipline does, or at least I never cared. This time I applied discipline to my attempt, and I laid out some simple goals. I wanted to: 1. Get my first client, and 2. grow my business to 10k after that.

The next couple of days felt like a blur, I locked myself in my room. I deleted all social media, I barely even spoke to my own family. I woke up every day at 6, and RELENTLESSLY worked on those 2 goals. until late at night. I learned every. single. thing. I could on cold calling, prospecting, and selling. All my focus was on learning to sell my marketing company to these potential clients and then closing them at high ticket. Looking back, I've probably consumed a few days worth of content on sales. At the same time, I started cold calling businesses. If I wasn't learning to sell, I was applying what I knew. After a few DAYS of this hard discipline and ACTION. I started seeing something..... Results. I was starting to get comfortable speaking on the phone, I had more confidence in my business, of course, I was still scared about what could go wrong, whether I would fail or not. But I KEPT going. Then some magical things happened. I started booking meetings. The first meeting I had was kind of a fail, the man was interested in what I had to offer, but I was so focused on selling him a service and making money than I was in actually helping him. He never responded after the meeting ended. I felt a ton of doubt and fear start to kick in, I thought all my work was worth nothing. But I KEPT going.

I researched a TON for the next few days, preparing for my next 2 appointments. I even stopped cold calling. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this.. then the days of my 2 meetings came.

Are you actually charging 5K management fees for $600 ad spend? How did you justify this to the client?

 

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[Telamon25346]

and one more thing guys, Sales is everything. Even if this marketing company phases out years from now, I've learned something I will never lose. How to sell. Like Jordan Belfort (check out his sales training by the way) said at the end of the wolf of wall street movie "We live in a place where everything is for sale, all you need to know is how to sell it."

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Sort of get your aversion MJ

Dropshipping
Selling on a commission basis
Flipping real estate
Hiring employees at far lower rates than you make on their hours

That's how I'm trying to look at it, perhaps it's because I know the details behind managing a website with some SEO attentiveness.

It just feels like $5K/mo is a bit much with so little for ad spend. I guess the best analogy is taking in my car to the shop because it's transmission is grinding and skipping. They charge me $5000 for a new gasket when the average retail price for the gasket repair is $500. But because I don't know transmissions (or gaskets) they can charge me that price. When the price is questioned, the mechanic says "You're transmission is fixed, right?" To which I say, YES. Just because the transmission is FIXED (value delivered) doesn't mean the transaction is safe from scrutiny.

Again, I'm happy for him and the impressive feat ... just feels a little dodgy to me.

Wonder what @GuitarManDan thinks?

 

[reedracer]

I also want to give back to the community. I remember just how frustrating it was for me a few weeks ago, and all I needed was some guidance which I found in myself. I really want to help others who were in my place succeed because I know what it felt like having a ton of doubt with me all the time.

This really syncs with me. Yes, a 58 year-old has been pondering what you said all day. I definitely want to mentor young people before they get into a rut. My son wants to be a college prof. I say fine, but sent him Unscripted and will help him fund that degenerate lifestyle
My daughter age 30 is following her mother by starting down the path of addiction to alcohol. She's 30 and about to lose her husband to that. Hopefully she gets turned around and sees the value of her meds and being sober. I'm working on ideas with her, too

BTW @Telamon25346 I got you covered. I've bought both audiobooks, both in kindle, and sent at least 5 copies of the print version to friends and family. But yeah, you should make good on anything you borrowed when you were poor. Clean up that karma, yo!

 

[GuitarManDan]

That's how I'm trying to look at it, perhaps it's because I know the details behind managing a website with some SEO attentiveness.

It just feels like $5K/mo is a bit much with so little for ad spend. I guess the best analogy is taking in my car to the shop because it's transmission is grinding and skipping. They charge me $5000 for a new gasket when the average retail price for the gasket repair is $500. But because I don't know transmissions (or gaskets) they can charge me that price. When the price is questioned, the mechanic says "You're transmission is fixed, right?" To which I say, YES. Just because the transmission is FIXED (value delivered) doesn't mean the transaction is safe from scrutiny.

Again, I'm happy for him and the impressive feat ... just feels a little dodgy to me.

Wonder what @GuitarManDan thinks?

This is a tricky one, for those who don't know my story I currently run a business doing web design and most recently monthly SEO services (haven't dealt with PPC and selling that service).

The thought I keep coming back to is if a company is willing to spend $5k per month in your management fees, why not up the ad spend? I really doubt it would make or break the sale if you moved it up from $500 per month in ad spend to maybe $2-3k per month?

You're still getting your usual management fee and the client has more ad spend to get better results. @Telamon25346 what do you think?

In terms of the overall premise, I completely agree with the value added approach (especially for digital services like this). What I'm currently working on with my business is bringing on clients and charging them based on an ROI approach vs. just fixed packages.

Using an SEO example, if you show the business owner that if you get their site on the 1st page for the keywords you're targeting, it will bring in an estimated $100,000 per month more to their bottom line, I think it's completely reasonable to want to charge $10k per month or so.

Curious to see what Telamon thinks about increasing the ad spend, especially if you start going for clients that you're going to be charging a $10k+ per month management fee.

 

[Telamon25346]

Congrats on your success, however I question your decision to immediately spend $6000 on a marketing course.

If you've never had a job before and this is your first successful venture, I expect that you probably don't have much experience managing money.

You made your first $10,000 and you spent over half of it right away on something that you saw an ad for yesterday, and you could probably learn the same things from a $20 book.

I agree with you, The course was a big purchase, however. In the private Facebook group of agency owners, I was recommended the course thousands of times over. They ran 5 to 6 figure a month marketing companies, and they got tremendous value from it. If they received value, It must not be a traditional "make money online" type of course. Having gone halfway through the course now, I definitely have spent my money wisely. My business has been given a great boost.

Doesn't mean I will continue making huge purchases. As I've said 10% of my income is used for expenses and spending. But I hardly spend, I don't have a slow lane mindset, and my only real expenses at my age are food, nice things, and gas money. Most of it will go into savings that's for sure.

 

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[Pat D. Rick]

I guess I have the same opinion as MJ on that one.
It's not that the price isn't justified because after all it is being paid.

What bugs me is that it will be hard for you to compeed against the guy that will offer him the same service for the same price. But instead of spending 500$ of the 5500$ your competitor could spend 1500$ out of it only for ads and still taking in 4000$ for himself.
It just doen't "feel" like you are acting in your clients best interest.

Nevertheless I congrats you on your progress!

 

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[GoodluckChuck]

Not sure what company is gonna pay 5k per month on management but only 500 on ads. Are you building them assets they own?

Seems like a rip off to me. The only saving grace would be that you can actually deliver what you say you can, but I don't see it happening with such a tiny ad budget unless the most extreme of cases.

Clicks for home construction industry are expensive.

 

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[Telamon25346]

I'm curious about this strategy. Aren't you worried about the possibility of clients finding out and going directly to the marketing agency? Won't the marketing agency have to contact the client and ask questions?

The company I work with Isn't that popular, took me a while to find them. But they understand my situation perfectly, The customer never interacts with them. they upload feedback to the customer through software I have placed on my website, but all communication between me and the team is done through a slack chat channel.

Plus, the second client has told me "I don't really care how you're getting these leads, I just want to get better customers out of them". Again, they want to understand what work is being done, but once you prove you can cure their cancer, they don't care much for anything else other than getting cured.

 

[lydialeads]

(if anyone is wondering, I outsource the work to an established white label marketing agency here in the US)

What agency is this, may I ask? Also, what is the $6000 course you purchased?

Very inspirational and motivating story you shared. Thanks for the encouragement!

 

[dru-man]

Congratulations.

However I'm a bit on the fence with the methods here. In a nutshell, you've convinced some business owners to pay you $5,500 month to manage their web presense, and included in that management is a $500 ad spend. From there you've outsourced the entire job to a third-party, profiting the difference (which is probably about $4K).

It sounds like you're simply arbitraging a service based on a market inefficiency.

The efficiency you're providing is being a better sales person for an offer (service) where adequate solutions aren't readily apparent. The value skew is from the third-party, you're a liason and a general contractor.

It's some legendary hustle (congrats) but it just doesn't feel right to me. I keep telling myself that it's no different than selling X at $100 hour and contracting it out for $25 hour, netting you $75 per hour, a general contracting model.

Maybe I'm getting too old.

Not sure if I should high five you or raise my eyebrow. I'll have to mull it over. Either way, don't let my undecided opinion marginalized what you've done. It's pretty impressive.

Sort of get your aversion MJ - I think it's a common impulse to people doing this kind of businesses online (not so much offline, it seems, maybe just because it's discussed less often?). I know years ago when friends would hear about me hiring Filipino web designers on a full time basis and then bringing in the clients, they acted like I'm some kind of con-man. I was writing the copy for the sites even, but they acted like I was just taking advantage of people on both ends.

On the other hand, I think your feeling that it's not much different than general contracting is more accurate.

Could also compare it to:

Dropshipping
Selling on a commission basis
Flipping real estate
Hiring employees at far lower rates than you make on their hours

Certainly his profit margin is huge (he makes more than the guys doing the work). But again, he's the one getting the clients in the door - provider is happy to have the ongoing work and the clients sound happy to have someone bring them a solution (a lot of companies would die to FINALLY meet someone who can actually deliver results with paid advertising). I talk to so many business owners that have been completely burnt.

Not to mention that, while sales can be tough enough as it is (why it's such a big value add), on top of the prospecting and closing deals, OP does still have his work cut out for him building a brand and business, managing clients through regular back and forth, disappointed expectations, run-of-the-mill assholery, etc, too.

As a copywriter, I've had people hire me on a ghostwriting basis (other copywriters, PR firms, web developers, marketers), and I tell them, hell, I don't care what you charge for my work on the other end as long as you bring the business in the door.

On the other hand, you know who probably has a REAL fastlane business? The guys lining up salesmen all over the Western World to service and on a white label basis...and never deal with the end customers. There's a reason they're doing it that way - they don't want to deal with hunting for, closing, and managing all those clients. And it's damn smart.

Now that's a biz I wouldn't mind being in. Lot of opportunity for scaling with a good system.

 

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[Telamon25346]

This is a tricky one, for those who don't know my story I currently run a business doing web design and most recently monthly SEO services (haven't dealt with PPC and selling that service).

The thought I keep coming back to is if a company is willing to spend $5k per month in your management fees, why not up the ad spend? I really doubt it would make or break the sale if you moved it up from $500 per month in ad spend to maybe $2-3k per month?

You're still getting your usual management fee and the client has more ad spend to get better results. @Telamon25346 what do you think?

In terms of the overall premise, I completely agree with the value added approach (especially for digital services like this). What I'm currently working on with my business is bringing on clients and charging them based on an ROI approach vs. just fixed packages.

Using an SEO example, if you show the business owner that if you get their site on the 1st page for the keywords you're targeting, it will bring in an estimated $100,000 per month more to their bottom line, I think it's completely reasonable to want to charge $10k per month or so.

Curious to see what Telamon thinks about increasing the ad spend, especially if you start going for clients that you're going to be charging a $10k+ per month management fee.

actually, the way the advertisement budgets work is not the way people usually think. most people think spending more money = making more money, but not during the first month setup stage. what you want to do first is optimize your ad with a contolled budget. starting off with a huge budget would just waste money in my opinion. I have the team target keywords that have low cost per click but are still effective, lfor example, if it were an auto shop I'd target smaller but still popular terms like "queens tire repair" as opposed to "new york oil change" which is very competitive. all of this is tested and figured out in the first month. hence why I cap ad spend on the first month at $1,000 maximum and i remoge that limit after 90 days. in those first 90 days, the team is always monitoring and tweaking. after that, the company can increase ad spend as much as they want.

as for the price, I'd say my flat fee of $5,000 a month is low budget for the companies im aiming at. most people starting out dont have acess to a team that delivers quality results, so they feel comfortable selling their website management or what have you at $500 to $2000 a month, and their clients are smaller companies like individual painters, gyms, etc.

but the larger marketing companies out there have a completely different ball park. Im planning to work with dentists and real estate brokers, and other larger businesses. and from what I've heard. they spend a ton out there. I've studied the way larger marketing companies sell their products, and I feel like im no where near their outrageous systems. Scorpion marketing, a company that specializes in attorneys, has charged $10,000 dollars for a website. I feel comfortable delivering my service at a flat fee knowing I genuinely help and bring results, rather than selling to large chains that are willing to dump cash into services that don't really do as much.

 

[lydialeads]

Whenever I get into these "gray areas" where something doesn't feel right, I ask myself "If the company knew the whole unadulterated truth, would they be OK with it? Or would they be upset?"

Been looking into more of these kinds of business dealings since I'm new. I'd be pissed too if I found out that the job could've been done at a lower rate. Feeling ripped off is no fun. And as for outsourcing to white label companies, as some mentioned in other threads, you're risking it because you don't have 100% control. I'd be pissed if I spent money on white label labor and they produced cheap crap.

Either way, along the Unscripted lines of being value-oriented instead of money-oriented, it doesn't feel right to dupe business owners just to make some money now. Hello scam?! After all, business ethics and integrity is important if you want to develop long-term business relationships that could produce returning customers, which is ultimately the golden ticket.

I'm sure there's a reason why this saying exists: "honesty is the best policy".

But I'm still learning...

 

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[Kfirdragon]

To everyone who were having at it because of the white labeling side, I'm seriously wondering - Would it make any difference for you if he held those talented marketers in house, employed them But still profited $4k (guessing) ?

Say you were to hire his services and found out he's white labeling and the service costs $1k but he's charging $5k, would you get upset?

Now what if he charged the same but held the marketers in house, still paying them $1k per project, but now the difference is that they're under 1 roof - but he's still banking $4k, would you still be upset?

when I answer those myself I find that I might be upset with the first one, but totally fine with the second one, might need to dig more into my own reasoning.

what do you guys think?
@MJ DeMarco @Siddhartha @GuitarManDan

 

[Telamon25346]

I need to know the latest news about the evolution of this situation too. I hope that he made tons of similar sales.

wow, It's been a while....

I've been very busy. I got a message from someone named CASEY who found my twitter and phone number today saying he read my post here. I almost forgot I made this post

It's 2x 5K on a monthly basis. If he stops wasting all the money upfront, he could easily cover his expenses the next month and go green.

The only problem here is that OP disappeared.

Haha I did disappear for a bit .

but to update, my agency and my prospecting method has changed entirely since I made this post. I use linkedin now, and I focus on the HVAC industry as my niche (I prospect with sales navigator and with the meetalfred plugin) I don't do cold-calls or cold email, the majority of my messaging is through connection requests and linkedin DMs.

I lost the two construction clients I signed shortly after I made this post. Most of it was due to bad communication and not delivering. I thought I could just hire awhite-label agency and go about my life. big mistake.

I've made LOTS and lots of mistakes in the past year. But I've also learned from them.

After I lost those clients, I had to take a step back and see things from an outside perspective. Looking back, the mindset I had when I signed both clients was a very needy mindset. I'm surprised that both of them initially signed on.

I've connected with a team of excellent agency owners and mentors in a private facebook group, And they've taught me almost everything I know about running my agency the right way and countless other things. High-ticket Sales and consulting, copywriting, physical health, mindset. I can't thank them enough.

They helped take me from 0 to over 30k/mo in revenue.

I've graduated highschool now, I originally applied to college but personally it isn't for me. I have in house fulfillment, and I don't use a white-label agency anymore.

Congrats on your success, however I question your decision to immediately spend $6000 on a marketing course.

If you've never had a job before and this is your first successful venture, I expect that you probably don't have much experience managing money.

You made your first $10,000 and you spent over half of it right away on something that you saw an ad for yesterday, and you could probably learn the same things from a $20 book.

My financial habits were TERRIBLE, of course I'm still learning, but my mentors have helped me tons. The only things I buy now are books, chipotle, and occasional necessities. I don't carry a balance on my credit card, I use less than 3% of my credit, and I save the majority of my money. I still believe that you can learn a lot from other people. The greatest purchase I made this year was a 1 on 1 mentorship with a 7 figure agency owner, it was expensive but the lessons I've learned are priceless.

my overall advice for anyone reading this thread, DO NOT do what I did in the beginning, blowing tons of cash on courses. The information is already out there, in my opinion, the best skills you can learn are how to write good copy, sales and high-ticket consulting (NOT to be confused with high ticket closing from dan lok) and speaking with correct tonality.

Find someone who has a business model that's already working, learn from them if you can, but stick to the model regardless of what you know or don't know. There's some things you can only learn by taking action.

I'd be more than happy to answer any questions and comments about my journey so far, what I've been doing etc. Haven't been on the forum in a while so I'd love to catch up

 

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[GoodluckChuck]

The issue for me is this:

Selling someone Google ads management for 5000/mo with 500 adspend is like selling someone a sandwich for 50 bucks with one small slice of meat in it.

That slice of meat better be the best wagyu beef in the world.

In my experience with Google ads, 500/mo doesn't get you far in the construction industry.

So, I can't see this working out very long before the client is wondering what's going on.

Now, if the client is happy in the long term, then I have no problem with it.

 

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[Telamon25346]

Looks like I cannot access your profile nor send you a message: View attachment 34250


Screw it:

Short summary of my situation: I'm about to launch partial (to acquire the rest of the skillset for full services), then full marketing agency services. We are working on our structure right now and creating our basic funnels (we even made one for our prospects).

I was just curious to know if you had any tips or resources to launch. I don't really know why I'm sharing all of this... it feels like I need some kind of validation.

We're aiming to offer a full-stack service, but we'll most likely begin with 70-80% of these (only what we know we can deliver and even overdeliver):

• SEO,
• Content creation/copywriting
• Products optimization
• SMM ( Social Media posts & engagement monitoring)
• Google/FB Ads
• Full Google My Business optimization / online presence optimization
• Funnel creation and management
• newsletter management
• etc.

As you can see, we're aiming wide and big here.
We have most of these skills in-house already and are getting the required training for the skills where we are lacking strength.

We have a strategy to build out prospects list and we're also working on a "prospect funnel" with an opt-in incentive to gather more data and more prospects that fit our multiple avatars.

We already are building up our social proofs (mainly in content creation and copywriting for now).

Our goal would be to hit $25K in the first 2 months after launching. At that point we would have contacted and provided value free of charge to at least 400 potential customers that fit one of our avatars and closed a deal with at least 8-10 of them (conservative estimates on both numbers). Even though we would focus on monthly retainers, we'd probably lose a few of these... but our most basic package wouldn't be cheaper than $1000/mo and our main customers would most likely opt for a $3-8K/mo package (which is why I believe we can hit these numbers early on).

Do you know of any resource that could help us launch without too much trouble ? Anything we didn't think about that would've made you progress faster in the first months ?

Last week I began consuming content from Rudy Mawer, which you probably know about. It helped a lot to work on the internal structure and funnels and so on. I somewhat have an idea on how to manage future employees/contractors/freelancers thanks to that. It felt good to find another place on the web that's providing value and not being too much of a guru.

Right now, I'm building funnels and trying to learn more about FB Ads, Homepage optimization, etc. to be ready to provide the best ROI possible for my customers.

This probably make it seem like I'm all over the place, so I'm sorry if you had to read through all of this . I'm kind of excited - never been as excited in a long time - as the more I progress, the more I feel like 2-4 months in, I'll be able leave my job and focus on building up my new customers revenue !

Have a good day/night,

Jeff

Awesome, You've got your services down and have a great array of skills in house.

I like the Idea of a prospect funnel, and everything else you said makes sense. But I think you should cut out a lot of it and focus on getting the machine moving, one step at a time. don't worry about future employees/contractors, facebook ads, funnels, or any of that just yet.

1. Create your Ideal avatar.

it can be in one niche, but this is your starting point. Pick a client that you want to work with, learn about their industry, become an EXPERT in that industry. know everything there is to running their business. Doing it this way helps you stand out from other agencies, be perceived as an expert in your niche, and help the clients build rapport and trust you more than large agencies just offering marketing.

you can change niches or branch out in the future but keep things simple in the beginning with one Ideal client.

2. have one or two services in mind that you know you can deliver results with, and connect that to your avatar.

example: if you're good at google my business, facebook ads, SEO, and web design. Take note of that and add it to the avatar, now you're only looking to take on clients that would need a combination or one of those things.

3. reach out to that avatar and get them on the phone, start getting prospects in the pipeline.

there are many ways to go about this, facebook ads, etc. an example would be a google advertisement that's a landing page, with a call to action that books a short phone call, I'll explain more about the phone call and the prospecting itself later.

my personal favorite is a LinkedIn account (craft a good offer in your bio and frame your account so that you are perceived as an expert on the services you offer and in your avatar's industry) then using connection requests and messaging to get clients on the phone.

4. don't offer your service first, consult, and offer to help solve the problem.

You already know how to reach out to clients and get them to book phone calls. but what you do once you get in contact with them decides everything. If anything, I think this is where most agency owners aren't doing it right. There needs to be a mindset shift from "I am an agency selling marketing to business owners, I offer xyz package, do you want to buy my service?" to "I work specifically with xyz industry and I'm looking to help iron out any problems they have in their businesses by providing the type of customers they want at will and on-demand. typically I do that through google ads or xyz services".

Here is an example:

lets say I want to start a marketing agency.

I'll note these things:
- my industry: I work with Personal Injury attorneys
- services I'm good at: I can provide personal injury attorneys with 5-10 quality cases a month, from people who are injured and looking for a personal injury attorney to represent them in court.
I do it by getting my clients at the top of the search engine when a customer in their city is looking for a personal injury attorney in THEIR city.
- where I look for clients: I send connection requests to personal injury attorneys that own law firms on Linkedin, and then ask them if they can handle 5-10 PI cases a month.

what I do if a prospect takes up my offer:
- I book short 15-minute "disqualifying" call with them. I use this call ONLY to see if they are Ideal or not. I ask them questions like: "how many cases a month do you usually do" "have you done marketing before" "how many associates do you have at your firm". this is beneficial for both sides because it places you as an expert in your industry by changing the frame, the client has to prove to YOU that they can handle 5-10 PI cases a month, and that they are actively looking for marketing services Instead of you trying to prove that they need your marketing service, by booking a short 15 minute call, it also relieves some of the pressure. they're not being "sold" or "pitched" right away. It also benefits you because you sort out any potential bad clients (trust me there are some).
- after the 15 minute "disqualifying" call, I get into a deep dive call, (most people call it a discovery call in the agency space). In this call, I won't sell them anything, my main goal is to understand their business, ask questions, find out their goals and problems before even make an offer. get them to talk about themselves. think of when you go to the doctor, he doesn't just prescribe you xanax because he's a doctor does he? no, he first asks you about your situation, where you're feeling pain, then tells you what he thinks is best for you. You need to be consulting and asking questions on this call, no selling. focus on their goals, motives, and problems. for example "where are you in terms of revenue? where do you plan to be in the next 6 months? what is your motive for reaching that revenue goal? what's holding you back from doing that? what type of customers are you looking for?"
- now for the proposal call. if they fit your avatar, and the services that you offer can help them, offer it to them. for example: "mr. prospect, in our last call you said that you wanted to focus more on personal injury cases because you plan on selling your law firm soon, here's what I think will allow you to do that, and here's how we can help".
- make your offer, if they take you up on it, congratulations you have a client, if not, onto the next.

now you can focus on delivering, getting more clients, doing the same thing in other industries and scaling.

there's a lot more to it, like tonality, asking the right kind of questions, and building rapport with the prospects on the call. The big thing, however, is having an abundance mindset. you can DM me and I'll explain anything I didn't quite clearly explain.

 

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[Vy Vy Anne]

Hello do you have a similar story

Hi, I'm on my way to sharing my experiences also.

 

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[samuraijack]

Good job!

As long as your white label company is actually delivering the promised results I dont see anything wrong with it.

You might want to follow @Andy Black . He's the expert on ads for service businesses here.

Btw, he will probably agree on this. You should get the white label company to provide you with all the data. This way you can get paid to learn and maybe even provide better service in the future than them.

 

[GuitarManDan]

actually, the way the advertisement budgets work is not the way people usually think. most people think spending more money = making more money, but not during the first month setup stage. what you want to do first is optimize your ad with a contolled budget. starting off with a huge budget would just waste money in my opinion. I have the team target keywords that have low cost per click but are still effective, lfor example, if it were an auto shop I'd target smaller but still popular terms like "queens tire repair" as opposed to "new york oil change" which is very competitive. all of this is tested and figured out in the first month. hence why I cap ad spend on the first month at $1,000 maximum and i remoge that limit after 90 days. in those first 90 days, the team is always monitoring and tweaking. after that, the company can increase ad spend as much as they want.

as for the price, I'd say my flat fee of $5,000 a month is low budget for the companies im aiming at. most people starting out dont have acess to a team that delivers quality results, so they feel comfortable selling their website management or what have you at $500 to $2000 a month, and their clients are smaller companies like individual painters, gyms, etc.

but the larger marketing companies out there have a completely different ball park. Im planning to work with dentists and real estate brokers, and other larger businesses. and from what I've heard. they spend a ton out there. I've studied the way larger marketing companies sell their products, and I feel like im no where near their outrageous systems. Scorpion marketing, a company that specializes in attorneys, has charged $10,000 dollars for a website. I feel comfortable delivering my service at a flat fee knowing I genuinely help and bring results, rather than selling to large chains that are willing to dump cash into services that don't really do as much.

I get that, especially the part about that more money in ad spend doesn't equal more money in revenue. If you're targeting bad keywords or the data is showing it isn't producing a good ROI, more money just means you'll be throwing more away in ad spend.

However, I think that once you get through those initial months of research and really tap into what's working for the client, my question is do you increase the ad spend by a good amount (I saw you mention $1000 as a max)?

The dynamics of it are really interesting, that's really what fascinates me with the monthly recurring side of things for digital marketing services. Going with some smaller businesses like you mentioned an individual painter means that $1k a month is insanely expensive to him, but $5k per month to a small-mid size company puts a lot less pressure (especially for SEO which the results take a while).

 

[MJ DeMarco]

To everyone who were having at it because of the white labeling side, I'm seriously wondering - Would it make any difference for you if he held those talented marketers in house, employed them But still profited $4k (guessing) ?

Say you were to hire his services and found out he's white labeling and the service costs $1k but he's charging $5k, would you get upset?

Now what if he charged the same but held the marketers in house, still paying them $1k per project, but now the difference is that they're under 1 roof - but he's still banking $4k, would you still be upset?

when I answer those myself I find that I might be upset with the first one, but totally fine with the second one, might need to dig more into my own reasoning.

what do you guys think?
@MJ DeMarco @Siddhartha @GuitarManDan

Hard to say without knowing the details of the work involved. I'm totally OK with any human resource model as one should charge a premium on talent. To be honest, not sure what's going on here ... could be massive talent, or just an opportunity to sell something that most folks know nothing about.

Even at $100/hour, $5000 in management suggests there's 50 hours of management involved. I'm betting it's not 50 hours a month, but 5 at best.