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

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Siddhartha

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Interesting hustle.

However,
I don't agree with it at all.

But that's what makes it interesting

You found a white label marketing company, and you sold their service for 5,000$/mo recurring with options for more in the future. With just two customers you're now at 10k/mo.

This thread makes me question what I do and even my ethics but at the bottom level, however, you're doing better and actually doing something that very few other 17 year olds would do.

Gonna keep on eye on your thread
 
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PetePreneur

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Congrats on finally finding something that's bringing you success!

Just out of interest, what was the $6,000 course you took?

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.

Also I'm not having a go, but surely paying $5,000 service charge on top of the $500 for advertising basically makes it equivalent of spending 10 times per click than they would have if they did it themselves (which I realise would have a cost due to nobody willing to do it for free) or had a high budget compared to the service charge?

I get what you're saying about targeting long tail low competition keywords because it's cheaper, but doesn't the high service charge to ad spend ratio not make it so expensive for them that they might aswell just bid on the high volume high competition keywords and just spend 10 times per click whilst getting more traffic and leave it to run with minimal efficiency based management ect?

Wouldn't it be wiser for them to spend $5,000 on the adverts with a $1,000 service charge, which is equivalent of only spending 20% extra per click basically?

Again, I'm not having a go. 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?

Cheers!
 
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MJ DeMarco

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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.
 

lydialeads

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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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Guts

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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.
Hey man seriously, I commend you for your mentality and efforts. Keep on strong and do great things! Looking forward for another post on your successes in the future.
 

GeoffP

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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.
What resources for learning how to sell high dollar items do you recommend?
 

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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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Kfirdragon

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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
 

MJ DeMarco

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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.
 

GoodluckChuck

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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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garyfritz

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Maybe I missed something, but I don't think @Telamon2536 is pocketing $5000 per client. He's charging $5000 for the service, and then he's outsourcing to the white-label -- which is certainly charging for their services. But we don't know how much. So if they charge $500 and he's pocketing $4500, that seems a bit sketchy. But if they're charging $4000 and he keeps $1000, I don't think anybody would look askance at it. But that would mean he's not making anywhere close to $10k/mo (yet).

If I was the client, I might be delighted with the results, and happy to pay $5000 for it -- like Telamon's second client. Or I might say "I don't have to pay this guy for that," keep the $5000 I'm paying him, and 10x my marketing budget. I suspect that would produce more business, at the same blah 2-5% CTR, than paying $5000 to wring every drop out of the $600 marketing budget. And Telamon might want to do some of that himself: take 10% of his $5k fee and double the ad spend, or tell the client to do that. But the viability of that idea depends on how much he's clearing after paying the white-label.
 

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Good job guy, congrats.
By the way, what sales books/ videos/ training/ stuff you recommend?

Thank you.
 

Kevin Falting

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Love your story and the grit you have toward your goals. I do have a lingering question though, have your clients experienced the kind of revenue increases that you claim while selling them? Have they provided you any feedback after 6 months? If you haven't had enough time with the clients, I'd love to know how this works out.

I also feel weird about the outsourcing part of your business, but maybe that's just me.

Either way, way to get after it!
 
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mec64

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For everyone asking about the course he bought... I really don't think any course is worth that much until you start generating some good profit. OP clearly stated that he got started by locking himself in his room for days, ingesting ALL the sales material and then producing a very detailed 15 page script to follow.

I honestly think the only reason he was able to produce such great results is due to his single-minded pursuit and the hours of practice he put in to hone the skill of selling his service.

If you do a lot of reading/watching about the SPIN method of selling I think you'll eventually get similar results.

Basically choose a path, try it out and measure the process, then tweak. It's iterative, and OP stated he recorded his calls, which definitely helps the iterative process.

Here's a great intro to SPIN selling from @Fox:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxa8l4rWRA
 

Fox

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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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windchaser

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First of all, congratulations on your mindset and your discipline, especially considering your age.

On one side I think: wow, this guys is really smart, he decided to go for the right type of client, find a way to provide value and communicate it to clients and actually delivered it. I must admit that when I read 5000k management fee and 500 budget it raised a red flag to me and then the fact that you outsource everything at presumably a very low price didn't make it better.

But then I realized what you are doing is not different to what many companies do. I thought of my job experience: when I worked at a law firm as a junior lawyer the firm charged for our work around 300€ per hour and in practice (with the amount of hours we put in) we received way less than 30 per hour for that work. It was justified because the firm is the one bringing the clients and building the brand and providing the know how. However, in some ocassions they charged the client the same rate and then hire trainees working +12h for 600€ and sold the client the project as if it was carried out by lawyers.

In essence the value provide it to the client is the same, but the methods (and the transparency) is not, and when I am perfectly ok with the first method I feel sonething is terribly wrong with the second. Althought it is true that you are not actually creating the same value, as quality obviously suffered (the "con" autocorrected itself in the shape of quality, it also burnt out many talented lawyers who left the firm, and many other effects, so it is not that easy to get away with using shady tactics).

I guess what is bugging me about your tactics is the issue of transparency. If your clients knew it would not bug me at all. But then I imagine this company were your employees and in that case no one advertistes the cost of employees in a sales pitch so why would you? I think of my own business: I do not advertise my costs to my customers, in fact I do not think they would care, what they care about is the value my products provide them.

So I am not so sure your tactics are shady at all (or at least no different of what 90% of companies do).

In your case, your clients are happy, you are happy and so is the marketing agency you contract, so, who am I or anyone to judge?

Keep up the good work and your discipline and congrats on your success!
 
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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.
Wish you the best.. That is some huge growth.I am gonna start with cold emailing.
 
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SkyLake

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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...



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.

I agree he may be charging too much relative to the value he provides. But calling it a scam?

Then buying a $500 course that teaches you how to buy a $10 Udemy course to learn HTML&CSS so that you can get good enough to buy a $50 HTML theme and build websites for businesses out of it and sell it for $10k a piece, that isn't a scam?


I think people just can't get their head around the fact that a kid has found a way to provide value to someone and charged whatever he wanted. It takes balls for that. I see 40 years old selling websites for $500 apiece everywhere. While this kid instantly differentiated himself from the competition by simply deciding to deal with high-value clients only. And learning enough about sales to close them.

If he had hired a few employees in house and paid them a monthly salary, while charging the same price to his clients, no one would bat an eye. But he found a way to profit more money from his clients by not having any employees and hiring a remote white label agency.

As long as he delivers on what is written in the contracts his clients signed, there is nothing wrong with it. He is delivering them value, making them more money without them having to do anything other than focusing on the business.

If the value he provides is too little or not enough, the market will take care of it and his business will sooner or later downsize or even fail when a better agency steals his clients.


I do agree this probably won't work long term simply because there is only so much value a white label agency can deliver. So in the long term, it would be more advisable to hire employees and develop your own systems, while increasing your prices. Your employees could still be remotely based, no need to have an office space.


Great work OP.
 
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Jeff Noel

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I'd be curious to hear an update from OP as to how his business evolved in the last few weeks.
 

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Then buying a $500 course that teaches you how to buy a $10 Udemy course to learn HTML&CSS so that you can get good enough to buy a $50 HTML theme and build websites for businesses out of it and sell it for $10k a piece, that isn't a scam?

The websites I create bring in around $100k to 1 million-plus for a lot of clients.
They didn't buy code - they bought results.

The price of my code is no different from the price of a piece a paper a doctor gives you.
It is what it on it that counts.

These people bought ads.
Not some kid spending 95% of the budget thinking about buying ads.

One is a skill set the other is a physical thing.

Charing 95% mark up to just handoff ads to a white label biz who always has their own margins before anyone actually buys ads...

Ahhhh that is super greasy and low value.
 

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Then buying a $500 course that teaches you how to buy a $10 Udemy course to learn HTML&CSS so that you can get good enough to buy a $50 HTML theme and build websites for businesses out of it and sell it for $10k a piece, that isn't a scam?

Also on the student side here are 2 from 100s of success stories...



You sound like someone who tried web design for a week and didn't make easy instant cash.
So now it's my fault.
 

SkyLake

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Also on the student side here are 2 from 100s of success stories...



You sound like someone who tried web design for a week and didn't make easy instant cash.
So now it's my fault.

I wasn't trying to criticize your work/course. It was just an example to compare against what this guy is doing. You are not a scam, same for this guy.

After all, he's 19... how many of us here were making the money he's making at 19? He has time to figure out how to package his services better and provide better value. He has time to fail because the market decided his services were not good enough. He has time to try again, and again. Hardly anything close to a scam.
 
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I wasn't trying to criticize your work/course. It was just an example to compare against what this guy is doing. You are not a scam, same for this guy.

After all, he's 19... how many of us here were making the money he's making at 19? He has time to figure out how to package his services better and provide better value. He has time to fail because the market decided his services were not good enough. He has time to try again, and again. Hardly anything close to a scam.

Okay all good.

Ya my advice here is that he could easily adjust and give himself a much better shot at long term success.

He can sell so why not sell something better value. The margins are there to be delivering more for his clients (which brings in even more business and so on).
 

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Any updates? Company pay another month? Results?
 

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The only problem is that I tried to fuel my work with motivation instead of discipline and consistency

THIS!!!! One of the most common mis-conceptions. Everyone always says "I lack motivation" ... no, you lack consistency and discipline. Motivation comes with momentum, and you pick up momentum from being consistent and working on the right things every day.

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

This is an odd toss up. On one hand if the clients are very high value, it would be worth it. I think however, you will churn clients with this, especially as the market constantly evolves. But if he can grab say a 50k profit job for a client with $500, the management fee doesn't matter. The moment they do not get a client for that spend though, he will run into trouble.

Either way, I def admire the tenacity here.
 

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That story is good!
But I wonder, why no one mentioned : he got 10000 for the jobs; spent 6000 for a course, hast to pay for the outsourced service maybe 2000, has a Rest of maybe 2000, wants th buy ETFs and than has to pay taxes. ??? Oh no, no taxes, if its all.

Or am I completely wrong?
 

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