$40K/MRR, Now What?

[DrWumbo]

Hey everyone, would love some advice on what direction I should be taking my life and business.

I'm the owner of a digital marketing company that just hit $40K/MRR. As much as I'm proud of this accomplishment, I can't help but feel burnt out about working with clients and managing the business.

As we are hiring more people, I am slowly getting out of the day-to-day and ultimately will get out of client communication. I'm very happy about this, along with our new MRR milestone, but I feel like there has been a "spark" lost with the business.

I know I can get this to $1M/year, but the idea of that no longer excites me as it used to, and I feel like I am itching to get into something new that mentally stimulates and excites me.

Some ideas that come to my mind are expanding the business (obviously), buying another existing business, and, ideally, getting into a business where you need to minimally talk to clients.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to give up on this business yet, but I can't help but wonder what else is out there and what impact I can make in other areas.

I'd love to get some advice from the community on how I should be strategically thinking about my life and business going forward. What would you do in my situation? What are your thoughts and experiences?

 

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[Paul David]

Great milestone, what's the core offering of your agency?

Still facebook ads?

You've come along way since our consultancy call James! Maybe I should be paying you now for one!

 

[DrWumbo]

Great milestone, what's the core offering of your agency?

Web dev, SEO, GMB Optimization, GHL, PPC & LSA

 

[Paul David]

Web dev, SEO, GMB Optimization, GHL, PPC & LSA

Yeh you've spread your service pretty thin.

I'm moved into Saas more now, much rather get £10k a month and rarely speak to my clients! Although I'm even at that point yet but I will be soon!

When it comes to "lead" generation as such, the churn rate is high, or you're spinning too many wheels. Could you convert any of the current clients into a Saas plan of some sort with GHL? and discontinue some other services?

 

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[DrWumbo]

Yeh you've spread your service pretty thin.

I'm moved into Saas more now, much rather get £10k a month and rarely speak to my clients! Although I'm even at that point yet but I will be soon!

When it comes to "lead" generation as such, the churn rate is high, or you're spinning too many wheels. Could you convert any of the current clients into a Saas plan of some sort with GHL? and discontinue some other services?

If I started over again, I'd just focus on 1 service

But currently, we focus on 1 industry with all those services, so a lot of our stuff is the same for each client. We currently are at 40+% net margins, which doesn't include what the company pays to me. Including that means we are at 56% net margin, so we are making plenty of $$

Average LTV is $32K and growing month over month

 

[Andy Black]

What can you stop doing entirely, delegate, automate, optimise, etc?

I'm working with an agency owner who has over 100 clients. His team deals with clients, not him. His team signs up clients, not him. He sets up systems and processes and gets the team to follow them.

Personally, I prefer providing one service to multiple industries, and getting better and better at it. We're developing our in-house tools, reports, and processes to speed things up. I mostly deal with agency owners and rarely deal with end-clients.

If you could click your fingers and spend most of your time on 3 things then what would they be? What's stopping you?

Happy to have a chat if you want.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Can you start focusing most of your time on writing procedures and training/delegating more? I guess that's what you mean by "expand the business." To me, this would be the best option. Build it to run without you. Then you can prime it for a sale, or just take yourself out of the day-to-day and focus on something new.

Systems and procedures are the coolest part of business in my opinion. The hard part is you have to have a real business before you can get to that part. Well, you are there!

I'd start with your "critical processes," make a flowchart of every step when you get a new client, and make it as dead simple as possible.

Then I would train someone to do the client-facing part that you do now, so that they can do it for you, and write down notes while you train them.

Then write a procedure on how to train someone exactly the way you trained that person.

Build the company like a computer program.

This is my CEO strategy.

Also, make sure you have flowcharts for the boring stuff like paying for things and collecting payments from customers. Also good to have a diagram or chart of the structure of your business as far as employees and what everyone does.

 

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[Andy Black]

Build it to run without you. Then you can prime it for a sale, or just take yourself out of the day-to-day

^^^ This.


Also, can you start creating customer facing brands?

 

[Funky Monkey]

Hey everyone, would love some advice on what direction I should be taking my life and business.

I'm the owner of a digital marketing company that just hit $40K/MRR. As much as I'm proud of this accomplishment, I can't help but feel burnt out about working with clients and managing the business.

As we are hiring more people, I am slowly getting out of the day-to-day and ultimately will get out of client communication. I'm very happy about this, along with our new MRR milestone, but I feel like there has been a "spark" lost with the business.

I know I can get this to $1M/year, but the idea of that no longer excites me as it used to, and I feel like I am itching to get into something new that mentally stimulates and excites me.

Some ideas that come to my mind are expanding the business (obviously), buying another existing business, and, ideally, getting into a business where you need to minimally talk to clients.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to give up on this business yet, but I can't help but wonder what else is out there and what impact I can make in other areas.

I'd love to get some advice from the community on how I should be strategically thinking about my life and business going forward. What would you do in my situation? What are your thoughts and experiences?

Are you asking more on what to do next or more so how can you make your current business better.
If you want to make more business less you dependent and sell more I would recommend built to sell by John Warlow
Me personally I like @Kak entreprenuer philosphy of doing something bigger than your self and helping people. Maybe you can go after larger projects (like a impact focused company rather than profit [ex. OpenAI or Charitywater]) or make your business even larger

 

[BizyDad]

Hey everyone, would love some advice on what direction I should be taking my life and business.

I'm the owner of a digital marketing company that just hit $40K/MRR. As much as I'm proud of this accomplishment, I can't help but feel burnt out about working with clients and managing the business.

As we are hiring more people, I am slowly getting out of the day-to-day and ultimately will get out of client communication. I'm very happy about this, along with our new MRR milestone, but I feel like there has been a "spark" lost with the business.

I know I can get this to $1M/year, but the idea of that no longer excites me as it used to, and I feel like I am itching to get into something new that mentally stimulates and excites me.

Some ideas that come to my mind are expanding the business (obviously), buying another existing business, and, ideally, getting into a business where you need to minimally talk to clients.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to give up on this business yet, but I can't help but wonder what else is out there and what impact I can make in other areas.

I'd love to get some advice from the community on how I should be strategically thinking about my life and business going forward. What would you do in my situation? What are your thoughts and experiences?

If I started over again, I'd just focus on 1 service

But currently, we focus on 1 industry with all those services, so a lot of our stuff is the same for each client. We currently are at 40+% net margins, which doesn't include what the company pays to me. Including that means we are at 56% net margin, so we are making plenty of $$

Average LTV is $32K and growing month over month

I know the feeling.

So what excites you? I don't think I saw the answer to that. So without knowing the answer to that, my best advice is...

Stack your cash and buy another business.

You've got a team of people skilled at multiple ways of marketing. So make sure your business is tangentially related to what your clients do.

This way your team will be able to market it.

And it's one more thing that you'll be able to offer your existing client list.

Make sure you establish processes in that new business. Do your best to have it run without you.

And then...

Stack your cash and buy another business. Have it be related...

I wrote this post about this strategy and how will marketing agency is the perfect hub for it. Hope this helps.

MINDSET - How Marketing Agency Owners Chase Thousands and Ignore Millions

I've been wanting to write this post for a while. I thought I might call it the biggest mistake marketing agency owners make. Before we get to the good stuff, I have a bone to pick with marketing agencies. If you run the kind of marketing agency where you take a client's money, but you...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[DeepChill]

Hey everyone, would love some advice on what direction I should be taking my life and business.

I'm the owner of a digital marketing company that just hit $40K/MRR. As much as I'm proud of this accomplishment, I can't help but feel burnt out about working with clients and managing the business.

As we are hiring more people, I am slowly getting out of the day-to-day and ultimately will get out of client communication. I'm very happy about this, along with our new MRR milestone, but I feel like there has been a "spark" lost with the business.

I know I can get this to $1M/year, but the idea of that no longer excites me as it used to, and I feel like I am itching to get into something new that mentally stimulates and excites me.

Some ideas that come to my mind are expanding the business (obviously), buying another existing business, and, ideally, getting into a business where you need to minimally talk to clients.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to give up on this business yet, but I can't help but wonder what else is out there and what impact I can make in other areas.

I'd love to get some advice from the community on how I should be strategically thinking about my life and business going forward. What would you do in my situation? What are your thoughts and experiences?

How long did it take you to get here?

 

[Johnny boy]

Growing is painful

We usually have a decent reason to grow. Something pushing us from behind and something pulling us from the front.

At first you're pushed by "F*ck, I need to pay rent this month"

You get a little success and you're pulled by "wow I could make a ton of money and change my life".

Now you're sitting there, making good money.

Nothing's pulling you. You make nearly 500k. You have a good life. You can buy the car you want. Everything's nice.

Nothing's pushing you. Everyone thinks you're cool so there's less insecurity. You can pay your bills and then some.

Same pain, no reason to do much more.

Right now the only push is the thought of "eh, I could do better".

That's why you're not excited. If the growth was a problem and you were motivated, you would feel anger, focus, drive. But you're just restless. Lowering the pain by making life easier is a false trap for somewhat successful people. It's not the "next level". It's just they've lost the motivation from being pushed from behind or pulled from the front, so they think the fix is to remove the pain. This is why there is something deeper going on behind every man who does great things, even though he could've stopped long ago.

There's two things to do. Get back the feeling of being pulled from the front, and get back the feeling of being pushed from behind.

Being pushed from behind: Nihilism, realizing that just because you're the greatest from your hometown, you still aren't shit yet. You still have left no mark. Is all you were made for is to run some online agency? Is the life you're living any special? Do you think that God gave you the precious breath of your one and only short life so you could work a bit, take some vacations and then die? Even if you are "successful" it's just a tweaked version of the same thing. You get one shot at this thing and then it's back to nothing forever. Does that not scare you? Does that not immediately wake you up? A side effect of this nihilism is being freed from most fears and wanting to resist pain. The same "who gives a F*ck, it doesn't matter anyways" can be applied to any obstacles in your way. You will do what is necessary, not just what's comfortable.

Being pulled from the front: Grandeur and ego. You've grown your business and have seen firsthand the value in not listening to others, that anything is achievable with concentrated effort for extended periods, and that everyone seems to end up where they believe deep down they ought to end up. There is some great mission for you, and it will take a lifetime. Do you not want to try to become the greatest man who ever lived...who does things no one else could do? Do you not think there is some great war to win? Some great thing that needs to be done? As the executive of your life, you have a fiduciary duty over it to maximize everything you can and be the greatest that your potential allows, and you should know that there is practically no limit aside from what is self-imposed.

That's why there's no good next step like just buying another business. For what? What's the point? Why keep going in the first place? You want to improve your income a little bit for just a bit more comfort? You want to put a little bit more away for retirement? Those are BS empty reasons that will not light a fire under your a$$ and won't fix anything.

That's the great conundrum of lukewarm motivations. Why feel more pain to grow if the goal is just more comfort? So then it becomes the only reason to try at all is to avoid the pain of moving backwards. I meet a lot of guys like that.

That's what I think about restlessness from someone in your tax bracket.

You need to think bigger. Bigger in the way that it makes you feel small right now, but bigger in the way that there's something important to do.

(if any of you start arguing with me about the definition of nihilism, don't. I meant it in whatever context and definition that fit the point I was making)

 

[DrWumbo]

Can you start focusing most of your time on writing procedures and training/delegating more? I guess that's what you mean by "expand the business." To me, this would be the best option. Build it to run without you. Then you can prime it for a sale, or just take yourself out of the day-to-day and focus on something new.

Systems and procedures are the coolest part of business in my opinion. The hard part is you have to have a real business before you can get to that part. Well, you are there!

I'd start with your "critical processes," make a flowchart of every step when you get a new client, and make it as dead simple as possible.

Then I would train someone to do the client-facing part that you do now, so that they can do it for you, and write down notes while you train them.

Then write a procedure on how to train someone exactly the way you trained that person.

Build the company like a computer program.

This is my CEO strategy.

Also, make sure you have flowcharts for the boring stuff like paying for things and collecting payments from customers. Also good to have a diagram or chart of the structure of your business as far as employees and what everyone does.

We recently hired a consulting company that is doing all of this for us. I think once we achieve this (end of May) we will be in a whole different place.

 

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[DrWumbo]

^^^ This.


Also, can you start creating customer facing brands?

We will catch up here soon for sure.

Could you expand on "customer facing brands"?

 

[DrWumbo]

I know the feeling.

So what excites you? I don't think I saw the answer to that. So without knowing the answer to that, my best advice is...

Stack your cash and buy another business.

You've got a team of people skilled at multiple ways of marketing. So make sure your business is tangentially related to what your clients do.

This way your team will be able to market it.

And it's one more thing that you'll be able to offer your existing client list.

Make sure you establish processes in that new business. Do your best to have it run without you.

And then...

Stack your cash and buy another business. Have it be related...

I wrote this post about this strategy and how will marketing agency is the perfect hub for it. Hope this helps.

MINDSET - How Marketing Agency Owners Chase Thousands and Ignore Millions

I've been wanting to write this post for a while. I thought I might call it the biggest mistake marketing agency owners make. Before we get to the good stuff, I have a bone to pick with marketing agencies. If you run the kind of marketing agency where you take a client's money, but you...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Funny enough, this is one of my original goals in starting my marketing company. Get it to $1M a year and start focusing on acquiring other businesses and utilizing our internal team to blow them up.

I read your thread, and it is a gold mine and literally exactly what I want to do. Go for the whole pie, not part of it.

We are actually planning to open up a restoration branch with our biggest client next year, so while not acquiring a business, it is similar to the process outlined in your thread.

Something that I do not excel in is an organization or having a clear vision of going after goals. I kind of just think about it and try tot do it, which is not a good plan.

I started using @LightHouse GSD system in clickup the past few days and it has given me so much more clarity. I consistently see my huge goals, things I need to do to make it a reality, etc. and it has brought a ton of clarity to my vision

 

[Andy Black]

We will catch up here soon for sure.

Could you expand on "customer facing brands"?

You have an agency. That's a business facing brand. Your clients are businesses who serve consumers. You're using your skills to help other people build their business serving consumers.

Booking dot com has the in-house skills to build a marketing agency that serves hotels. Instead they built a consumer facing brand that consumers goto to book hotels.

I've zero intention of building an agency. Helping business with their marketing is fun and pays the bills. It's never been my end goal.

 

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[DrWumbo]

Growing is painful

We usually have a decent reason to grow. Something pushing us from behind and something pulling us from the front.

At first you're pushed by "F*ck, I need to pay rent this month"

You get a little success and you're pulled by "wow I could make a ton of money and change my life".

Now you're sitting there, making good money.

Nothing's pulling you. You make nearly 500k. You have a good life. You can buy the car you want. Everything's nice.

Nothing's pushing you. Everyone thinks you're cool so there's less insecurity. You can pay your bills and then some.

Same pain, no reason to do much more.

Right now the only push is the thought of "eh, I could do better".

That's why you're not excited. If the growth was a problem and you were motivated, you would feel anger, focus, drive. But you're just restless. Lowering the pain by making life easier is a false trap for somewhat successful people. It's not the "next level". It's just they've lost the motivation from being pushed from behind or pulled from the front, so they think the fix is to remove the pain. This is why there is something deeper going on behind every man who does great things, even though he could've stopped long ago.

There's two things to do. Get back the feeling of being pulled from the front, and get back the feeling of being pushed from behind.

Being pushed from behind: Nihilism, realizing that just because you're the greatest from your hometown, you still aren't shit yet. You still have left no mark. Is all you were made for is to run some online agency? Is the life you're living any special? Do you think that God gave you the precious breath of your one and only short life so you could work a bit, take some vacations and then die? Even if you are "successful" it's just a tweaked version of the same thing. You get one shot at this thing and then it's back to nothing forever. Does that not scare you? Does that not immediately wake you up? A side effect of this nihilism is being freed from most fears and wanting to resist pain. The same "who gives a F*ck, it doesn't matter anyways" can be applied to any obstacles in your way. You will do what is necessary, not just what's comfortable.

Being pulled from the front: Grandeur and ego. You've grown your business and have seen firsthand the value in not listening to others, that anything is achievable with concentrated effort for extended periods, and that everyone seems to end up where they believe deep down they ought to end up. There is some great mission for you, and it will take a lifetime. Do you not want to try to become the greatest man who ever lived...who does things no one else could do? Do you not think there is some great war to win? Some great thing that needs to be done? As the executive of your life, you have a fiduciary duty over it to maximize everything you can and be the greatest that your potential allows, and you should know that there is practically no limit aside from what is self-imposed.

That's why there's no good next step like just buying another business. For what? What's the point? Why keep going in the first place? You want to improve your income a little bit for just a bit more comfort? You want to put a little bit more away for retirement? Those are BS empty reasons that will not light a fire under your a$$ and won't fix anything.

That's the great conundrum of lukewarm motivations. Why feel more pain to grow if the goal is just more comfort? So then it becomes the only reason to try at all is to avoid the pain of moving backwards. I meet a lot of guys like that.

That's what I think about restlessness from someone in your tax bracket.

You need to think bigger. Bigger in the way that it makes you feel small right now, but bigger in the way that there's something important to do.

(if any of you start arguing with me about the definition of nihilism, don't. I meant it in whatever context and definition that fit the point I was making)

This is absolute fire.

When I started my 1st company, pressure washing, it was out of a need to support myself (you can read the story in my progress thread)

I started the marketing agency because I sold the PW company and needed to support myself in another business.

I'm 100% comfortable where I am now. Of course, I want nicer things, more money to spend on experiences etc, but I live a F*cking incredible life right now, so there's no real struggle to continue on.

I read your comment yesterday and have been thinking about it. I'm spending the next few days coming up with goals, vision, etc. to motivate myself to go after something BIGGER.

I have a few things already figured out, which has given me a boost to keep on growing.

Once I have the plan laid out, I will come back to this thread and lay it out.

Thank you for your comment, it has given me a lot of clarity and food for thought.

 

[Andy Black]

Growing is painful

We usually have a decent reason to grow. Something pushing us from behind and something pulling us from the front.

At first you're pushed by "F*ck, I need to pay rent this month"

You get a little success and you're pulled by "wow I could make a ton of money and change my life".

Now you're sitting there, making good money.

Nothing's pulling you. You make nearly 500k. You have a good life. You can buy the car you want. Everything's nice.

Nothing's pushing you. Everyone thinks you're cool so there's less insecurity. You can pay your bills and then some.

Same pain, no reason to do much more.

Right now the only push is the thought of "eh, I could do better".

That's why you're not excited. If the growth was a problem and you were motivated, you would feel anger, focus, drive. But you're just restless. Lowering the pain by making life easier is a false trap for somewhat successful people. It's not the "next level". It's just they've lost the motivation from being pushed from behind or pulled from the front, so they think the fix is to remove the pain. This is why there is something deeper going on behind every man who does great things, even though he could've stopped long ago.

There's two things to do. Get back the feeling of being pulled from the front, and get back the feeling of being pushed from behind.

Being pushed from behind: Nihilism, realizing that just because you're the greatest from your hometown, you still aren't shit yet. You still have left no mark. Is all you were made for is to run some online agency? Is the life you're living any special? Do you think that God gave you the precious breath of your one and only short life so you could work a bit, take some vacations and then die? Even if you are "successful" it's just a tweaked version of the same thing. You get one shot at this thing and then it's back to nothing forever. Does that not scare you? Does that not immediately wake you up? A side effect of this nihilism is being freed from most fears and wanting to resist pain. The same "who gives a F*ck, it doesn't matter anyways" can be applied to any obstacles in your way. You will do what is necessary, not just what's comfortable.

Being pulled from the front: Grandeur and ego. You've grown your business and have seen firsthand the value in not listening to others, that anything is achievable with concentrated effort for extended periods, and that everyone seems to end up where they believe deep down they ought to end up. There is some great mission for you, and it will take a lifetime. Do you not want to try to become the greatest man who ever lived...who does things no one else could do? Do you not think there is some great war to win? Some great thing that needs to be done? As the executive of your life, you have a fiduciary duty over it to maximize everything you can and be the greatest that your potential allows, and you should know that there is practically no limit aside from what is self-imposed.

That's why there's no good next step like just buying another business. For what? What's the point? Why keep going in the first place? You want to improve your income a little bit for just a bit more comfort? You want to put a little bit more away for retirement? Those are BS empty reasons that will not light a fire under your a$$ and won't fix anything.

That's the great conundrum of lukewarm motivations. Why feel more pain to grow if the goal is just more comfort? So then it becomes the only reason to try at all is to avoid the pain of moving backwards. I meet a lot of guys like that.

That's what I think about restlessness from someone in your tax bracket.

You need to think bigger. Bigger in the way that it makes you feel small right now, but bigger in the way that there's something important to do.

(if any of you start arguing with me about the definition of nihilism, don't. I meant it in whatever context and definition that fit the point I was making)

I didn't spot this comment. I personally agree that buying another (unrelated) business isn't a fix. Grow the one you have and push on through. Sure, expand into other areas etc, by growing what you've already built.