CHECKLIST: How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency & Hit $5K in Less than 90 Days

[GetBusyOnTop]

I said that in the very first post I made in this thread which I can't believe was in 2018!

I've been happy to update the thread over the years as questions have come in. But also, part of me feels like what I listed out was too complicated. Like, it gave people too much to think about, learn about, and hem & hah about (paralysis by analysis).

In other words, NOT taking action.

Taking action is the ONLY thing that matters. And by that I mean the following 7 things:

1. Choose a niche
2. Find a real problem this industry deals with
3. Find a way to solve that problem
4. Create a dynamite no-brainer offer
5. Build a landing page
6. Run ads to the landing page (Facebook, Google, or YouTube)
7. Book calls and close deals

That's it!

Stuff like what colors you use in your logo, payment processor, how to hire people are all good - but this is what you NEED to do right now to get the revenue coming in fast. In fact, you could do this all in one day if you wanted.

I can expand on what I mean just a bit:

#1 - Choose a niche

Let's say you choose hair salons. Maybe you already know the industry, have some contacts there, or just plain want to work with hair salons.

#2 - Find a real problem this industry deals with

Ask some hair salons owners what they're dealing with when it comes to driving new business online. What do they struggle with? What do they want more of? Less of?

Let's say that most hair salons owners desperately want to have more reviews. They know it leads to new business and maybe their front desk person isn't the best at asking for those reviews. Maybe they don't have any systems set up to automatically ask for reviews. You can do that.

#3 - Find a way to solve that problem

Knowing that they need more reviews, think of a way to set that up for them. Maybe you can do a database reactivation (email blast) to all their past and current customers asking for reviews. Maybe you can set up a process where the customers automatically get a text after they visit the salon that links to a review page. And so on.

#4 - Create a dynamite no-brainer offer

Now that you know the pain, and you have the solution to that pain (a.k.a Value), you need to create a no-brainer offer. This usually looks something like this:

(Highly Desired Result) in (Set Time Frame) or (Risk Reversal)

For example:

We'll get you 10 new 5-star reviews in 30 days or we'll give you $500

You're basically guaranteeing them their desired result and taking away any risk of working with you. Btw - in that particular example, the $500 is the investment they make to enlist your services. It's basically just another way of saying you're giving them their money back.

#5 - Build a landing page

Now you need to build a simple landing page that highlights this offer. So many people get hung up on creating the perfect website for their agency. You don't have to.

Most clients don't care about your website. They care about whether or not you're going to make them money. If you're simple landing page has a compelling offer, then that's good enough (ideally with some social proof).

Be sure to have a clear call-to-action (CTA) like "Get More Reviews Now" or "Book a Call" and have it link to your calendar.

#6 - Run ads to the landing page (Facebook, Google, or YouTube)

Now that you have your offer in place, together with a landing page, now you need to run some ads to it. Yes, this is an expense but you don't have to start big. In fact, unless you really know what you're doing when it comes to online ads, you should start small.

If you're using Google, you can get coupons/credits for starting a new Google/ad account. Use that to get started, track your results, adjust, and refine. Once you have leads coming in (& ideally a few new clients), then you can scale up.

#7 - Book calls and close deals

Once you get those ads running, the calls will come in. Your job is basically to learn about the prospect's business, their pains (they need reviews), show how you're the solution, and close the deal.

That's it!

I don't mean to make it sound too simplistic but that's really what this entire thread boils down to. If you haven't read anything else in this thread, then this is all you really need!

Happy New Year Fellow Fastlaners! I wish you a very prosperous 2022!

Bravo! Deserving of a gold medal. You sir, take center podium.

Imho, #4 is where the goldmine erupts.

I'd like add another guarantee variation on Sean's "We'll get you 10 new 5-star reviews in 30 days or we'll give you $500" coz it can be a little unsettling when you're first starting out and don't know for sure if you can provide this bold of a guarantee yet.

You might try something like this, "We'll get you 10 new 5-star reviews in 30 days or less or we'll work for FREE until we get every last one of them for you >biz owner name<."

This allows you more breathing room where you won't have to return any money that you may have spent already as a startup (which now you also broke a promise to repay so you'll have 2 strikes against you).

If they write a bad review about you, 1) you only got 2 five star reviews and 2) didn't repay $500, it could spell doom for you even though you have honorable intentions.

Later on when you understand your biz better, you can add this bolder guarantee Sean stated after you have better data on what niches you can offer it on without much problem.

Do what makes you sleep easier at night, but do give the best guarantee + risk reversal you can live with that turns a prospect's pain point into a pleasure point as much as possible and watch your biz explode.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Gavingonz]

Hey Fastlaners,
I've spent the week reading almost every page on this thread,
Wanted to soak up some knowledge before diving headfirst into sales
got my website basically set up too & would love some critical feedback

Note
The domain is still the same as my previous recording studio business
The mobile version of the site and desktop version are fairly different. Desktop version is much more professional looking

Website: Home | More Soul Records

Act, Access, Adjust
In regards to finding my first client I will target luxury apartments in my city (does anyone have experience here?), or any residential building for that matter & offer social media services such as, but not limited to:

Social Media Marketing​

- Post key content (frequency based on platform)
- Maintenance of profiles (clean & spam free)
- Follower engagement

Creative Content Creation​

- Custom blog writing & posting
- Frequent pinging of content to key directories
- Optimize company YouTube channel
- Custom videos
- Upload to YouTube/ Instagram/ Twitter/ Facebook

Reputation Management​

- Create/optimize profile on key platforms
- Manage and report reviews & ratings
- Respond to all reviews appropriately
- Supply tools to solicit reviews

(Thanks Sean ^^^)

I will create creative interactive posts for Apartments with little to almost non existent social media presence, I've researched some and they were blah, no life to the pictures/videos, no consistent uploads plus poor quality images etc.. I'll highlight the rooms/building/lobbies/gyms/ community rooms etc for potential clients and email them

My goal was to have majority of the setup part completed by Aug 31 then start engaging & executing on acquiring my first client on Sept 1, I'm ahead of schedule

I feel ready, just have to think of my prices basically, ill update you on that
Everything else will come as I act, I wont worry about "what color Ferrari I need" just yet

Wanted to post this as a last minute checklist/ any improvements I can make? Any extra personal advice before diving into the sales part? This thread truly does cover everything, I'm grateful, I guess this post is just a brief farewell before I enter the battlefield Lol,, any reply would be helpful to my self esteem

 

[Dockid]

Hey Fastlaners,
I've spent the week reading almost every page on this thread,
Wanted to soak up some knowledge before diving headfirst into sales
got my website basically set up too & would love some critical feedback

Note
The domain is still the same as my previous recording studio business
The mobile version of the site and desktop version are fairly different. Desktop version is much more professional looking

Website: Home | More Soul Records

Act, Access, Adjust
In regards to finding my first client I will target luxury apartments in my city (does anyone have experience here?), or any residential building for that matter & offer social media services such as, but not limited to:

Social Media Marketing​

- Post key content (frequency based on platform)
- Maintenance of profiles (clean & spam free)
- Follower engagement

Creative Content Creation​

- Custom blog writing & posting
- Frequent pinging of content to key directories
- Optimize company YouTube channel
- Custom videos
- Upload to YouTube/ Instagram/ Twitter/ Facebook

Reputation Management​

- Create/optimize profile on key platforms
- Manage and report reviews & ratings
- Respond to all reviews appropriately
- Supply tools to solicit reviews

(Thanks Sean ^^^)

I will create creative interactive posts for Apartments with little to almost non existent social media presence, I've researched some and they were blah, no life to the pictures/videos, no consistent uploads plus poor quality images etc.. I'll highlight the rooms/building/lobbies/gyms/ community rooms etc for potential clients and email them

My goal was to have majority of the setup part completed by Aug 31 then start engaging & executing on acquiring my first client on Sept 1, I'm ahead of schedule

I feel ready, just have to think of my prices basically, ill update you on that
Everything else will come as I act, I wont worry about "what color Ferrari I need" just yet

Wanted to post this as a last minute checklist/ any improvements I can make? Any extra personal advice before diving into the sales part? This thread truly does cover everything, I'm grateful, I guess this post is just a brief farewell before I enter the battlefield Lol,, any reply would be helpful to my self esteem

Hey man,

Best of luck with your business, I'm going to be honest however your website looks completely broken and takes over 3 seconds to load content on my laptop. I think it is going to do more damage then good to your business when doing outreach. You should probably do some more work on it to fix it up.

 

[Gavingonz]

Hey man,

Best of luck with your business, I'm going to be honest however your website looks completely broken and takes over 3 seconds to load content on my laptop. I think it is going to do more damage then good to your business when doing outreach. You should probably do some more work on it to fix it up.

Thank you! I will work on it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Sean Marshall]

You might try something like this, "We'll get you 10 new 5-star reviews in 30 days or less or we'll work for FREE until we get every last one of them for you >biz owner name<."

Agreed!

 

[Gavingonz]

Just took the first step towards my first client and sent an email with a video attached to it,
Any feedback? Starting the next video for another potential client now, thanks

Email:

"Goodmorning POTP,

I made a 20 second video for your social media in the link below, I would love to help with promotion and keeping your presence up to date online.

Give me a call at 215-847-5613 or send me back a quick email if you're interested!
Hoping to hear back from you soon.

Video:

newnew_1.mp4

1 file sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

wetransfer.com

Website:

Home | More Soul Records "

Also when is a good time to follow up?

Edit: Just realized I sent the video titled as "newnew_1" Lol shouldn't be a problem though

 

[Mister]

Just took the first step towards my first client and sent an email with a video attached to it,
Any feedback? Starting the next video for another potential client now, thanks

Email:

"Goodmorning POTP,

I made a 20 second video for your social media in the link below, I would love to help with promotion and keeping your presence up to date online.

Give me a call at 215-847-5613 or send me back a quick email if you're interested!
Hoping to hear back from you soon.

Video:

newnew_1.mp4

1 file sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

wetransfer.com

Website:

Home | More Soul Records "

Also when is a good time to follow up?

Edit: Just realized I sent the video titled as "newnew_1" Lol shouldn't be a problem though

Perhaps you call the potential client first. So that you can be sure that we want / needs help.

Example:
Let’s say you need 30min to create a video.

Of 100 Email+Videos react 1 to your video.
So you spend 3000mins for one reaction

You could call 1 person let’s say each 5 min.
From 100 calls has 1 person interest.
So you spend 500min for one reaction.
Now you can make the 30min video and has a much higher % that the person will become a client.

So I think you can use your time better.
To the video:
I didn’t watch it than I don’t have the app on my phone.
Why don’t you upload it to YouTube and send a link ?

Like that there is no barrier for the client.

I think there are also quit a few people that don’t know what a mp4 file is.
An because of that fee uncomfortable downloading a file of a stranger.


Did you try to talk to biz‘s in you local area or ask friends and family?
Could be a easy way to your first gig

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Gavingonz]

Perhaps you call the potential client first. So that you can be sure that we want / needs help.

Example:
Let’s say you need 30min to create a video.

Of 100 Email+Videos react 1 to your video.
So you spend 3000mins for one reaction

You could call 1 person let’s say each 5 min.
From 100 calls has 1 person interest.
So you spend 500min for one reaction.
Now you can make the 30min video and has a much higher % that the person will become a client.

Wow, Thanks for the reply! You just saved me ALOT of time as I put several hours into my videos.. I already made 2 sample videos for apartments before your reply... I can use them as reference, Ill attach them below,
My One Thing today is to cold call 100 businesses,
I love this forum

Did you try to talk to biz‘s in you local area or ask friends and family?
Could be a easy way to your first gig

I have some old jobs In mind that could definitely use my help

View attachment societymov.mp4
View attachment POTP.mp4What do you think?

 

[RedCloud]

This all sounds very exciting and is an extremely useful post but sounds quite daunting for anyone starting out their first ever business like me. Also, I thought that a real "entrepreneur" is a person that manages to solve these issues themselves rather than following a guide? If everything was ripped from a student of yours and they didn't have your help, I bet they wouldn't be able to recover. A real "entrepreneur" with a real mindset would be able to recover as there is always a way, you just have to find it for yourself.

My current aim is just to start something small, such as selling a service then out sourcing the work, as that is a lot smaller of an operation but will still give you a feel of your own business.

As for this guide specifically, I see a problem:
Sean's initial success was likely because:
1. He already had experience as a digital marketer as that was his job
2. That job likely allowed him to build a network passively so that when he did reach out to people there were many options available

Me on the other hand:
1. Have never done digital marketing in my life
2. Have never spoken to or acknowledged any business person, let alone digital marketing specifically

I assume the solution to this is to become more confident in digital marketing. Be it through courses, videos, asking real life people what they do each day, and I'm sure there are many, many other ways.
But you can't deny that Sean's initial position was very advantageous.
That's no excuse to not do anything though!

What's your opinions?

 

[Sean Marshall]

As for this guide specifically, I see a problem:
Sean's initial success was likely because:
1. He already had experience as a digital marketer as that was his job
2. That job likely allowed him to build a network passively so that when he did reach out to people there were many options available

At my last job ever, yes, I built them a new website (wordpress) and I did some email marketing. That said, after I started my business, I learned to do everything on the fly. Really.

Example: One time I was on the way to meet with a small law firm about using social media in their practice. I'd never done that before. And in fact, I forgot to research it. So literally on the way, I called my wife, had her Google it, and then I simply regurgitated the same stuff she read to me over the phone. And, I got them as clients!

To be fair, because I didn't know a ton of info, I spent most of that meeting asking them questions about their practice and what they wanted to achieve. I then told them I'd put together a game plan (which I did later, after looking up more info).

I don't recommend everyone doing that. Heck, the lawyers themselves could have just Googled it. But they didn't have the time or inclination to do so. Which is why they paid me.

My job did NOT help me with my network because we moved states within weeks of me getting let go. We we're in Orange County, CA and we went up to Seattle. Besides an old friend, I started from scratch with BNI's, chambers, mixers, etc. I hustled to build a network, pretty much from scratch.

I agree that if you've never had your own business before, you should start small. Sell a service. Get paid. Do the work. Then scale with systems and staff.

Nowadays, with the forum, YouTube, ChatGPT, Reddit, etc - there's literally no reason someone can't get this going. I'm not saying a digital marketing agency is for everyone. Just like any business, it's gonna take a lot of mental work first. You have to believe you can. But when you get that first sale, like someone pays you real money to do a thing, your belief skyrockets.

Then you use the info available to grow strong and fast.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BizyDad]

I spent most of that meeting asking them questions about their practice and what they wanted to achieve. I then told them I'd put together a game plan

Been running my own agency for 14 years. This is literally what I do every time. I ask a lot of questions, and I tell him I'll put together a game plan. I don't close until the second meeting. I don't talk money until the second meeting. The first meeting is all fact finding.

Clients have a certain degree of comfort when they feel like you're doing a bunch of research/game planning personalized for them. Even if the research only takes me 20 minutes anymore...

 

[Muthembwa]

At my last job ever, yes, I built them a new website (wordpress) and I did some email marketing. That said, after I started my business, I learned to do everything on the fly. Really.

Example: One time I was on the way to meet with a small law firm about using social media in their practice. I'd never done that before. And in fact, I forgot to research it. So literally on the way, I called my wife, had her Google it, and then I simply regurgitated the same stuff she read to me over the phone. And, I got them as clients!

To be fair, because I didn't know a ton of info, I spent most of that meeting asking them questions about their practice and what they wanted to achieve. I then told them I'd put together a game plan (which I did later, after looking up more info).

I don't recommend everyone doing that. Heck, the lawyers themselves could have just Googled it. But they didn't have the time or inclination to do so. Which is why they paid me.

My job did NOT help me with my network because we moved states within weeks of me getting let go. We we're in Orange County, CA and we went up to Seattle. Besides an old friend, I started from scratch with BNI's, chambers, mixers, etc. I hustled to build a network, pretty much from scratch.

I agree that if you've never had your own business before, you should start small. Sell a service. Get paid. Do the work. Then scale with systems and staff.

Nowadays, with the forum, YouTube, ChatGPT, Reddit, etc - there's literally no reason someone can't get this going. I'm not saying a digital marketing agency is for everyone. Just like any business, it's gonna take a lot of mental work first. You have to believe you can. But when you get that first sale, like someone pays you real money to do a thing, your belief skyrockets.

Then you use the info available to grow strong and fast.

I was inspired by this post when I was in Medical School, so after graduating I followed it and now I'm confident I can write killer copy and also has money skills too, that is FB Ad writing and testing ATF copy, Email Copywriting and Advertorials/sales pages, Copy critiques , Customer research (different types and approaches). My little challenge is landing my first client. I'm offering to write for you three email creatives or FB Adverts and if you feel I'm a good fit then you can give me jobs

 

[ramony]

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. It's basically the story of how I started a digital marketing agency to be able to do cool stuff. And I would like to give you a nice little checklist that you could use as well if it interests you.

I started my business in 2010. Since then, I reduced my own work load to less than 10 hours a month, lived in Mexico for 4 1/2 years, traveled to 15 countries, and am prepping to head to Scotland for 6 months in Sept - all together with my wife & 3 kids.

I cracked the code to scaling a service-based business using detailed systems (a fancy checklist on Asana) and a good team (all based in the Philippines).

I made $2,450 in my first month. Not crazy I know but it was a big deal for me just starting out. More importantly, that number increased every single month afterwards.

At about month 11 is when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed how I viewed my business. I made a bunch of changes based on MJ's advice and started hitting 5 figure months about two months later.

DOES IT FOLLOW MJ'S COMMANDMENTS?

I need to mention that a digital marketing agency does NOT follow all of MJ's 5 business commandments. It breaks one - Barrier to Entry. Basically, anyone can do this. They really can.

BUT, that's also the catch - most people DON'T ACTUALLY EXECUTE! You can give them all the tools, step-by-step instructions, templates, etc and they still won't do anything. I know because I offer a course giving people literally everything they need and only a handful of people actually do the thing.

So in a way, the barrier to entry commandment is almost a non-issue. Besides, there's more than enough business out there.

With the other commandments (time, scale, control, & need), this kind of business passes with full marks.

MAKING $5K IN UNDER 90 DAYS

Why $5,000? Two reasons:

1. It’s usually enough money for most people to quit their jobs to focus full time on the business
2. It’s totally realistic & achievable

This is a number that most people can hit with some focused work. How fast you’re able to hit $5k is up to two things:

1. Your Prices
2. Your Hustle

Obviously, the more you sell, the more you’ll make. Keep in mind that some services typically cost more than others (for example: websites cost more than social media management)

Like I said, I made $2,450 in my first month. How did I make that money? I networked with people I already knew and got in touch with a few key business owners. I shook hands and spoke with everyone I knew.

Simply put, I hustled.

Hitting $5K in under 90 days is totally doable. I have students in my course that have done much more in less time.

WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY?

Before I give you a checklist, I have to answer, what is an online marketing agency?

There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.

In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which is all of them.

This includes services like SEO, social media management, reputation management, website design, and more.

You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.

As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.

There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.

*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!

QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

The benefits primarily include:

• You can get started for less than $300
• Extremely low overhead
• Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
• Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it's up to you
• Work online
• Flexible schedule

THE 5 S's OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S's.

1. Setup
2. Sales
3. Systems
4. Staffing
5. Scaling-Up

I'm going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.

The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I'll be paying attention to this thread. I won't hold anything back.

Just ask.

***

SETUP
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.

• Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
• Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
• Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com or Lynda.com to get an overview of the online marketing world. Strongly consider also going to QuickSprout.com/University
• Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
• Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
• List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
• Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
• Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
• Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
• Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
• Identify and write out your USP.
• Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
• Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
• Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
• Pick your colors. These can literally be your favorite colors. Don’t stress on this one.
• Get a logo done (use 99designs.com, Upwork.com, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
• Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
  o What is your company name?
  o What is your company tagline?
  o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
  o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
  o What is your USP?
  o How much do you charge?
  o What is your monthly revenue goal?
  o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
  o How do you get new clients?
  o How will you fulfill your services? Who makes up your production team?
  o Who are the other key players of your team? List their names and titles.
  
  
• Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
• Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
• Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com. Set up your website (use Wordpress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click Wordpress install.
• Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are bonus).
• Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.

SALES
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.

• Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
• Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
• Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
• Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
• Use online directories like Manta.com to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
• Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
• Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
• Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
• Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.

SYSTEMS
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.

• Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
• Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just gmail to make it easy and route your Name@Company.com email through it)
• Set up your account in Asana.com – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
• Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
• Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks

STAFFING
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.

• Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
• List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
• Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
• Hire your first employee or contractor – generally this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
• Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com.
• As soon as revenue and need justifies it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.

SCALING-UP
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.

• Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
• Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any "high maintenance" clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
• Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
• Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
• As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
• Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.

***

That's it! Just sell. There's plenty of businesses out there. I don't mean to downplay it at all but really, I'm nobody special. I'm not like most of the successful hustlers in this forum. I'm a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.

You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.

If you have any questions, just ask!

-Sean

This, this is gold, it can literally be applied to anything, time to start!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Asj]

Thank you for this awesome post, huge value bomb!

I’m in the process of setting up a company that takes people through the setup and and initial sales portion of starting an online business.

I am concerned about the one off nature however I see a big opportunity in the area no-code software development.

After reading this post I’ve realized that ongoing marketing services are a great addition to my product offering!

Thanks you again for opening my eyes!

I know it's been 5 years since you posted this, but im intrigued to know if you got started and how has it gone so far?

 

[Alex Will-Bet]

At my last job ever, yes, I built them a new website (wordpress) and I did some email marketing. That said, after I started my business, I learned to do everything on the fly. Really.

Example: One time I was on the way to meet with a small law firm about using social media in their practice. I'd never done that before. And in fact, I forgot to research it. So literally on the way, I called my wife, had her Google it, and then I simply regurgitated the same stuff she read to me over the phone. And, I got them as clients!

To be fair, because I didn't know a ton of info, I spent most of that meeting asking them questions about their practice and what they wanted to achieve. I then told them I'd put together a game plan (which I did later, after looking up more info).

I don't recommend everyone doing that. Heck, the lawyers themselves could have just Googled it. But they didn't have the time or inclination to do so. Which is why they paid me.

My job did NOT help me with my network because we moved states within weeks of me getting let go. We we're in Orange County, CA and we went up to Seattle. Besides an old friend, I started from scratch with BNI's, chambers, mixers, etc. I hustled to build a network, pretty much from scratch.

I agree that if you've never had your own business before, you should start small. Sell a service. Get paid. Do the work. Then scale with systems and staff.

Nowadays, with the forum, YouTube, ChatGPT, Reddit, etc - there's literally no reason someone can't get this going. I'm not saying a digital marketing agency is for everyone. Just like any business, it's gonna take a lot of mental work first. You have to believe you can. But when you get that first sale, like someone pays you real money to do a thing, your belief skyrockets.

Then you use the info available to grow strong and fast.

In all honesty, I believe that once you achieve a certain level of dedication and financial security, you lose interest in learning a new field where you have no prior experience and no understanding at all.

 

[BizyDad]

In all honesty, I believe that once you achieve a certain level of dedication and financial security, you lose interest in learning a new field where you have no prior experience and no understanding at all.

In all honesty, I believe that you believe that.

It's just not true for everyone. As an employee, I've mastered two separate industries and achieved a measure of financial security in the second one.

I still branched out to a third industry. Last year I purchased a business in a fourth industry. And while I am more financially secure than I've ever been, I had meetings today about entering a fifth. This one is the one I am least prepared for, and that is probably one of the reasons I'm more excited about it than any of the previous...

You either love learning or you don't. And I believe the love of learning, especially learning from your mistakes, is one of the best skills an entrepreneur can have...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Slipshod]

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. It's basically the story of how I started a digital marketing agency to be able to do cool stuff. And I would like to give you a nice little checklist that you could use as well if it interests you.

I started my business in 2010. Since then, I reduced my own work load to less than 10 hours a month, lived in Mexico for 4 1/2 years, traveled to 15 countries, and am prepping to head to Scotland for 6 months in Sept - all together with my wife & 3 kids.

I cracked the code to scaling a service-based business using detailed systems (a fancy checklist on Asana) and a good team (all based in the Philippines).

I made $2,450 in my first month. Not crazy I know but it was a big deal for me just starting out. More importantly, that number increased every single month afterwards.

At about month 11 is when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed how I viewed my business. I made a bunch of changes based on MJ's advice and started hitting 5 figure months about two months later.

DOES IT FOLLOW MJ'S COMMANDMENTS?

I need to mention that a digital marketing agency does NOT follow all of MJ's 5 business commandments. It breaks one - Barrier to Entry. Basically, anyone can do this. They really can.

BUT, that's also the catch - most people DON'T ACTUALLY EXECUTE! You can give them all the tools, step-by-step instructions, templates, etc and they still won't do anything. I know because I offer a course giving people literally everything they need and only a handful of people actually do the thing.

So in a way, the barrier to entry commandment is almost a non-issue. Besides, there's more than enough business out there.

With the other commandments (time, scale, control, & need), this kind of business passes with full marks.

MAKING $5K IN UNDER 90 DAYS

Why $5,000? Two reasons:

1. It’s usually enough money for most people to quit their jobs to focus full time on the business
2. It’s totally realistic & achievable

This is a number that most people can hit with some focused work. How fast you’re able to hit $5k is up to two things:

1. Your Prices
2. Your Hustle

Obviously, the more you sell, the more you’ll make. Keep in mind that some services typically cost more than others (for example: websites cost more than social media management)

Like I said, I made $2,450 in my first month. How did I make that money? I networked with people I already knew and got in touch with a few key business owners. I shook hands and spoke with everyone I knew.

Simply put, I hustled.

Hitting $5K in under 90 days is totally doable. I have students in my course that have done much more in less time.

WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY?

Before I give you a checklist, I have to answer, what is an online marketing agency?

There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.

In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which is all of them.

This includes services like SEO, social media management, reputation management, website design, and more.

You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.

As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.

There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.

*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!

QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

The benefits primarily include:

• You can get started for less than $300
• Extremely low overhead
• Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
• Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it's up to you
• Work online
• Flexible schedule

THE 5 S's OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S's.

1. Setup
2. Sales
3. Systems
4. Staffing
5. Scaling-Up

I'm going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.

The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I'll be paying attention to this thread. I won't hold anything back.

Just ask.

***

SETUP
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.

• Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
• Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
• Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com or Lynda.com to get an overview of the online marketing world. Strongly consider also going to QuickSprout.com/University
• Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
• Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
• List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
• Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
• Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
• Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
• Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
• Identify and write out your USP.
• Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
• Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
• Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
• Pick your colors. These can literally be your favorite colors. Don’t stress on this one.
• Get a logo done (use 99designs.com, Upwork.com, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
• Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
  o What is your company name?
  o What is your company tagline?
  o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
  o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
  o What is your USP?
  o How much do you charge?
  o What is your monthly revenue goal?
  o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
  o How do you get new clients?
  o How will you fulfill your services? Who makes up your production team?
  o Who are the other key players of your team? List their names and titles.
  
  
• Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
• Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
• Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com. Set up your website (use Wordpress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click Wordpress install.
• Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are bonus).
• Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.

SALES
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.

• Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
• Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
• Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
• Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
• Use online directories like Manta.com to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
• Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
• Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
• Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
• Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.

SYSTEMS
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.

• Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
• Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just gmail to make it easy and route your Name@Company.com email through it)
• Set up your account in Asana.com – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
• Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
• Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks

STAFFING
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.

• Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
• List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
• Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
• Hire your first employee or contractor – generally this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
• Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com.
• As soon as revenue and need justifies it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.

SCALING-UP
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.

• Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
• Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any "high maintenance" clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
• Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
• Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
• As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
• Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.

***

That's it! Just sell. There's plenty of businesses out there. I don't mean to downplay it at all but really, I'm nobody special. I'm not like most of the successful hustlers in this forum. I'm a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.

You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.

If you have any questions, just ask!

-Sean

Great post man! I've been thinking of opening my own Agency for a while now, and I have a few doubts:

First, How do you gain the knowledge for this field, I've no idea where to start?

Second, What should I keep in mind when making these service packages for clients? I mean what expenses need be kept in mind?

Third, How do you manage the communication gap between the client and the person providing the service for us?

 

[Sean Marshall]

First, How do you gain the knowledge for this field, I've no idea where to start?

Second, What should I keep in mind when making these service packages for clients? I mean what expenses need be kept in mind?

Third, How do you manage the communication gap between the client and the person providing the service for us?

1 - Start here! This forum has a lot of gold nuggets that will walk you through everything. Then there's about a million courses out there. I know of a great one personally... Then there's Reddit, Google, and Youtube. And of course, I can help.

Knowing where to start isn't a problem. It's simple. What do business owners need? (Help driving business online). How do you actually do that? (That's what the mighty internet is for).

2 - For the kinds of services you offer, it's up to you. But I like to offer the most effective services - stuff that's actually going to drive a tangible ROI. Posting on Twitter for a plumber? Not so effective. Running a targeted ad campaign with a great offer? 100%

Expenses in this industry are relatively low. Between software and virtual assistants, your costs are relatively super low,. Of course it depends on the size of your team, but to give you an idea, no more than $1000/mo (that's not including ad spend if you're running ads to drive your own traffic).

3 - It depends on the services you offer but generally speaking, most clients are fine with email. Once you trust your VA, you can have them communicate directly with your clients.

There's a lot of great stuff in this thread alone that will help you. And I'm happy to answer any other questions.

 

[Myia1556]

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. It's basically the story of how I started a digital marketing agency to be able to do cool stuff. And I would like to give you a nice little checklist that you could use as well if it interests you.

I started my business in 2010. Since then, I reduced my own work load to less than 10 hours a month, lived in Mexico for 4 1/2 years, traveled to 15 countries, and am prepping to head to Scotland for 6 months in Sept - all together with my wife & 3 kids.

I cracked the code to scaling a service-based business using detailed systems (a fancy checklist on Asana) and a good team (all based in the Philippines).

I made $2,450 in my first month. Not crazy I know but it was a big deal for me just starting out. More importantly, that number increased every single month afterwards.

At about month 11 is when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed how I viewed my business. I made a bunch of changes based on MJ's advice and started hitting 5 figure months about two months later.

DOES IT FOLLOW MJ'S COMMANDMENTS?

I need to mention that a digital marketing agency does NOT follow all of MJ's 5 business commandments. It breaks one - Barrier to Entry. Basically, anyone can do this. They really can.

BUT, that's also the catch - most people DON'T ACTUALLY EXECUTE! You can give them all the tools, step-by-step instructions, templates, etc and they still won't do anything. I know because I offer a course giving people literally everything they need and only a handful of people actually do the thing.

So in a way, the barrier to entry commandment is almost a non-issue. Besides, there's more than enough business out there.

With the other commandments (time, scale, control, & need), this kind of business passes with full marks.

MAKING $5K IN UNDER 90 DAYS

Why $5,000? Two reasons:

1. It’s usually enough money for most people to quit their jobs to focus full time on the business
2. It’s totally realistic & achievable

This is a number that most people can hit with some focused work. How fast you’re able to hit $5k is up to two things:

1. Your Prices
2. Your Hustle

Obviously, the more you sell, the more you’ll make. Keep in mind that some services typically cost more than others (for example: websites cost more than social media management)

Like I said, I made $2,450 in my first month. How did I make that money? I networked with people I already knew and got in touch with a few key business owners. I shook hands and spoke with everyone I knew.

Simply put, I hustled.

Hitting $5K in under 90 days is totally doable. I have students in my course that have done much more in less time.

WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY?

Before I give you a checklist, I have to answer, what is an online marketing agency?

There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.

In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which is all of them.

This includes services like SEO, social media management, reputation management, website design, and more.

You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.

As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.

There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.

*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!

QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

The benefits primarily include:

• You can get started for less than $300
• Extremely low overhead
• Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
• Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it's up to you
• Work online
• Flexible schedule

THE 5 S's OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S's.

1. Setup
2. Sales
3. Systems
4. Staffing
5. Scaling-Up

I'm going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.

The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I'll be paying attention to this thread. I won't hold anything back.

Just ask.

***

SETUP
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.

• Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
• Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
• Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com or Lynda.com to get an overview of the online marketing world. Strongly consider also going to QuickSprout.com/University
• Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
• Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
• List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
• Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
• Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
• Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
• Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
• Identify and write out your USP.
• Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
• Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
• Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
• Pick your colors. These can literally be your favorite colors. Don’t stress on this one.
• Get a logo done (use 99designs.com, Upwork.com, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
• Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
  o What is your company name?
  o What is your company tagline?
  o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
  o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
  o What is your USP?
  o How much do you charge?
  o What is your monthly revenue goal?
  o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
  o How do you get new clients?
  o How will you fulfill your services? Who makes up your production team?
  o Who are the other key players of your team? List their names and titles.
  
  
• Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
• Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
• Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com. Set up your website (use Wordpress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click Wordpress install.
• Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are bonus).
• Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.

SALES
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.

• Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
• Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
• Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
• Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
• Use online directories like Manta.com to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
• Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
• Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
• Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
• Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.

SYSTEMS
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.

• Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
• Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just gmail to make it easy and route your Name@Company.com email through it)
• Set up your account in Asana.com – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
• Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
• Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks

STAFFING
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.

• Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
• List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
• Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
• Hire your first employee or contractor – generally this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
• Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com.
• As soon as revenue and need justifies it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.

SCALING-UP
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.

• Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
• Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any "high maintenance" clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
• Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
• Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
• As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
• Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.

***

That's it! Just sell. There's plenty of businesses out there. I don't mean to downplay it at all but really, I'm nobody special. I'm not like most of the successful hustlers in this forum. I'm a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.

You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.

If you have any questions, just ask!

-Sean

Hey Sean, great post man. I’ve been thinking of starting my own online marketing agency but have a couple of questions. Im a broke university student barely living off of scholarships and am fed up with school and see no way out of the slowlane as an engineer. I have a brother who is doing well for himself as a tire shop owner but has a major flaw in his business plan, which is that he has zero online presence. He works 6 days a week for his business but I see him trapped there stressed out. I wanted to start an online marketing agency for tire / mechanic shops or similar shops. I have come along the setup process well until the packages part. I understand the services I should provide these shops but I have zero clue on how to do any of them. My concern is that when I get my first client, how do I expect them to pay me when I don’t know how to do anything. I know you said to use upwork to find someone immediately, but how do I know how much to charge them with relation to how much the project itself is going to cost. I’ve been reading the books and the forums and am driven to start but I am not in a position to throw money away. I would appreciate it if you could give me a couple of words to guide me in the right direction. Again, great post and thank you Sean.
Best,
Ray

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Myia1556]

Hey Sean, great post man. I’ve though about it for around 2 days and I want to get into this field. I am a college student who barely lives off of scholarships. I’m fed up with school and see no future as an engineer. I have a brother who is doing well for himself as a tire shop owner but I see a major flaw in his business plan, which is that he has ZERO online presence. I wan’t to start an online marketing agency for tire shops and mechanic shops and similar family owned businesses. I have come along the setup part of your checklist pretty well up until the services. I somewhat understand the services and what they achieve but have no expertise in this field. When I ger

Hey Sean, great post man. I’ve been thinking of starting my own online marketing agency but have a couple of questions. Im a broke university student barely living off of scholarships and am fed up with school and see no way out of the slowlane as an engineer. I have a brother who is doing well for himself as a tire shop owner but has a major flaw in his business plan, which is that he has zero online presence. He works 6 days a week for his business but I see him trapped there stressed out. I wanted to start an online marketing agency for tire / mechanic shops or similar shops. I have come along the setup process well until the packages part. I understand the services I should provide these shops but I have zero clue on how to do any of them. My concern is that when I get my first client, how do I expect them to pay me when I don’t know how to do anything. I know you said to use upwork to find someone immediately, but how do I know how much to charge them with relation to how much the project itself is going to cost. I’ve been reading the books and the forums and am driven to start but I am not in a position to throw money away. I would appreciate it if you could give me a couple of words to guide me in the right direction. Again, great post and thank you Sean.
Best,
Ray

I don't know how to delete this, disregard this one.

 

[Sean Marshall]

I don't know how to delete this, disregard this one.

Hey man - I hear ya with the college thing. And congrats on making as much progress as you have so far.

It seems like your main concern is around the actual services - pricing them and getting them fulfilled. Is that right?

Before you can price and find people, you need to first decide what kind of services would be best. If you're planning on working with tire/mechanic shops, that's great - especially because you already are familiar with the industry & you can get your first "client" with your brother.

I'll just tell you that all those guys need a LOT of help with their reviews, Google Business Profile, websites, etc. Even just having a 24/7 live chat would be incredible. Especially for tire shops. People are calling, and especially texting, to check prices and availability and so on. You can use software (like GoHighLevel) to do most of the heavy lifting for you all with no staff.

So, first, decide what services these guys need and then formulate your offer around that.

Hope this helps. I'm sure you have more questions - feel free to ask!

 

[Myia1556]

Hey man - I hear ya with the college thing. And congrats on making as much progress as you have so far.

It seems like your main concern is around the actual services - pricing them and getting them fulfilled. Is that right?

Before you can price and find people, you need to first decide what kind of services would be best. If you're planning on working with tire/mechanic shops, that's great - especially because you already are familiar with the industry & you can get your first "client" with your brother.

I'll just tell you that all those guys need a LOT of help with their reviews, Google Business Profile, websites, etc. Even just having a 24/7 live chat would be incredible. Especially for tire shops. People are calling, and especially texting, to check prices and availability and so on. You can use software (like GoHighLevel) to do most of the heavy lifting for you all with no staff.

So, first, decide what services these guys need and then formulate your offer around that.

Hope this helps. I'm sure you have more questions - feel free to ask!

Yeah, my main concern was the pricing and doing the actual service I charged for. I saw an introductory video on the GoHighLevel site, and I have to say its very impressive. Its an extremely useful site and I will keep reading and try to wrap my head around it as best as possible. His phone is always blown up to the point where he can't respond at times, so I see how the live chat would be extremely useful for him. Thank you Sean and I will let you know if I have any further questions. I'm all ears if you have any other tips or recommendations that come to mind.
Best,
Ray

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Sean Marshall]

His phone is always blown up to the point where he can't respond at times

Yep - having a missed call text back automation is perfect for that. In fact, with Chat/AI/etc, you can even build in automated FAQ's/replies so that it prescreens the calls for him. So many fun possibilities now.

 

[Absar]

#2 - Find a real problem this industry deals with

Ask some hair salons owners what they're dealing with when it comes to driving new business online. What do they struggle with? What do they want more of? Less of?

Let's say that most hair salons owners desperately want to have more reviews. They know it leads to new business and maybe their front desk person isn't the best at asking for those reviews. Maybe they don't have any systems set up to automatically ask for reviews. You can do that.

An enormously valuable thread.

One thing I am confused about is that can I offer two different services to the same niche?
or it is better to stick to just one particular service?

 

[Sean Marshall]

One thing I am confused about is that can I offer two different services to the same niche?
or it is better to stick to just one particular service?

Let's say you're choosing to work with lawyers. One service could include running ads for them. Another service could be content marketing. Yet another service could be SEO.

You can easily offer a spread of digital marketing services all within the same vertical.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Emily_2849]

Thank you so much for this post!! I've recently been looking in to starting a advertising business, and this clarifies a lot of questions I had. I feel like there is a lot of valuable information in this post, and a lot to take note of, so thank you for sharing this. I know this will help a lot!!

 

[Aristoss]

Amazing stuff!
Thanks for it.

 

[DW85014]

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. It's basically the story of how I started a digital marketing agency to be able to do cool stuff. And I would like to give you a nice little checklist that you could use as well if it interests you.

I started my business in 2010. Since then, I reduced my own work load to less than 10 hours a month, lived in Mexico for 4 1/2 years, traveled to 15 countries, and am prepping to head to Scotland for 6 months in Sept - all together with my wife & 3 kids.

I cracked the code to scaling a service-based business using detailed systems (a fancy checklist on Asana) and a good team (all based in the Philippines).

I made $2,450 in my first month. Not crazy I know but it was a big deal for me just starting out. More importantly, that number increased every single month afterwards.

At about month 11 is when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed how I viewed my business. I made a bunch of changes based on MJ's advice and started hitting 5 figure months about two months later.

DOES IT FOLLOW MJ'S COMMANDMENTS?

I need to mention that a digital marketing agency does NOT follow all of MJ's 5 business commandments. It breaks one - Barrier to Entry. Basically, anyone can do this. They really can.

BUT, that's also the catch - most people DON'T ACTUALLY EXECUTE! You can give them all the tools, step-by-step instructions, templates, etc and they still won't do anything. I know because I offer a course giving people literally everything they need and only a handful of people actually do the thing.

So in a way, the barrier to entry commandment is almost a non-issue. Besides, there's more than enough business out there.

With the other commandments (time, scale, control, & need), this kind of business passes with full marks.

MAKING $5K IN UNDER 90 DAYS

Why $5,000? Two reasons:

1. It’s usually enough money for most people to quit their jobs to focus full time on the business
2. It’s totally realistic & achievable

This is a number that most people can hit with some focused work. How fast you’re able to hit $5k is up to two things:

1. Your Prices
2. Your Hustle

Obviously, the more you sell, the more you’ll make. Keep in mind that some services typically cost more than others (for example: websites cost more than social media management)

Like I said, I made $2,450 in my first month. How did I make that money? I networked with people I already knew and got in touch with a few key business owners. I shook hands and spoke with everyone I knew.

Simply put, I hustled.

Hitting $5K in under 90 days is totally doable. I have students in my course that have done much more in less time.

WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY?

Before I give you a checklist, I have to answer, what is an online marketing agency?

There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.

In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which is all of them.

This includes services like SEO, social media management, reputation management, website design, and more.

You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.

As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.

There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.

*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!

QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

The benefits primarily include:

• You can get started for less than $300
• Extremely low overhead
• Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
• Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it's up to you
• Work online
• Flexible schedule

THE 5 S's OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S's.

1. Setup
2. Sales
3. Systems
4. Staffing
5. Scaling-Up

I'm going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.

The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I'll be paying attention to this thread. I won't hold anything back.

Just ask.

***

SETUP
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.

• Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
• Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
• Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com or Lynda.com to get an overview of the online marketing world. Strongly consider also going to QuickSprout.com/University
• Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
• Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
• List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
• Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
• Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
• Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
• Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
• Identify and write out your USP.
• Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
• Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
• Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
• Pick your colors. These can literally be your favorite colors. Don’t stress on this one.
• Get a logo done (use 99designs.com, Upwork.com, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
• Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
  o What is your company name?
  o What is your company tagline?
  o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
  o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
  o What is your USP?
  o How much do you charge?
  o What is your monthly revenue goal?
  o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
  o How do you get new clients?
  o How will you fulfill your services? Who makes up your production team?
  o Who are the other key players of your team? List their names and titles.
  
  
• Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
• Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
• Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com. Set up your website (use Wordpress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click Wordpress install.
• Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are bonus).
• Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.

SALES
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.

• Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
• Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
• Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
• Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
• Use online directories like Manta.com to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
• Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
• Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
• Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
• Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.

SYSTEMS
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.

• Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
• Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just gmail to make it easy and route your Name@Company.com email through it)
• Set up your account in Asana.com – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
• Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
• Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks

STAFFING
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.

• Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
• List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
• Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
• Hire your first employee or contractor – generally this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
• Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com.
• As soon as revenue and need justifies it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.

SCALING-UP
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.

• Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
• Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any "high maintenance" clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
• Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
• Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
• As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
• Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.

***

That's it! Just sell. There's plenty of businesses out there. I don't mean to downplay it at all but really, I'm nobody special. I'm not like most of the successful hustlers in this forum. I'm a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.

You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.

If you have any questions, just ask!

-Sean

This is great 5 years later.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Sean Marshall]

This is great 5 years later.

Thank you!

 

[DondisTreasures]

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. It's basically the story of how I started a digital marketing agency to be able to do cool stuff. And I would like to give you a nice little checklist that you could use as well if it interests you.

I started my business in 2010. Since then, I reduced my own work load to less than 10 hours a month, lived in Mexico for 4 1/2 years, traveled to 15 countries, and am prepping to head to Scotland for 6 months in Sept - all together with my wife & 3 kids.

I cracked the code to scaling a service-based business using detailed systems (a fancy checklist on Asana) and a good team (all based in the Philippines).

I made $2,450 in my first month. Not crazy I know but it was a big deal for me just starting out. More importantly, that number increased every single month afterwards.

At about month 11 is when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed how I viewed my business. I made a bunch of changes based on MJ's advice and started hitting 5 figure months about two months later.

DOES IT FOLLOW MJ'S COMMANDMENTS?

I need to mention that a digital marketing agency does NOT follow all of MJ's 5 business commandments. It breaks one - Barrier to Entry. Basically, anyone can do this. They really can.

BUT, that's also the catch - most people DON'T ACTUALLY EXECUTE! You can give them all the tools, step-by-step instructions, templates, etc and they still won't do anything. I know because I offer a course giving people literally everything they need and only a handful of people actually do the thing.

So in a way, the barrier to entry commandment is almost a non-issue. Besides, there's more than enough business out there.

With the other commandments (time, scale, control, & need), this kind of business passes with full marks.

MAKING $5K IN UNDER 90 DAYS

Why $5,000? Two reasons:

1. It’s usually enough money for most people to quit their jobs to focus full time on the business
2. It’s totally realistic & achievable

This is a number that most people can hit with some focused work. How fast you’re able to hit $5k is up to two things:

1. Your Prices
2. Your Hustle

Obviously, the more you sell, the more you’ll make. Keep in mind that some services typically cost more than others (for example: websites cost more than social media management)

Like I said, I made $2,450 in my first month. How did I make that money? I networked with people I already knew and got in touch with a few key business owners. I shook hands and spoke with everyone I knew.

Simply put, I hustled.

Hitting $5K in under 90 days is totally doable. I have students in my course that have done much more in less time.

WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY?

Before I give you a checklist, I have to answer, what is an online marketing agency?

There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.

In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which is all of them.

This includes services like SEO, social media management, reputation management, website design, and more.

You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.

As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.

There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.

*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!

QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

The benefits primarily include:

• You can get started for less than $300
• Extremely low overhead
• Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
• Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it's up to you
• Work online
• Flexible schedule

THE 5 S's OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY

Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S's.

1. Setup
2. Sales
3. Systems
4. Staffing
5. Scaling-Up

I'm going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.

The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I'll be paying attention to this thread. I won't hold anything back.

Just ask.

***

SETUP
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.

• Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
• Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
• Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com or Lynda.com to get an overview of the online marketing world. Strongly consider also going to QuickSprout.com/University
• Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
• Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
• List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
• Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
• Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
• Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
• Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
• Identify and write out your USP.
• Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
• Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
• Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
• Pick your colors. These can literally be your favorite colors. Don’t stress on this one.
• Get a logo done (use 99designs.com, Upwork.com, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
• Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
  o What is your company name?
  o What is your company tagline?
  o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
  o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
  o What is your USP?
  o How much do you charge?
  o What is your monthly revenue goal?
  o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
  o How do you get new clients?
  o How will you fulfill your services? Who makes up your production team?
  o Who are the other key players of your team? List their names and titles.
  
  
• Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
• Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
• Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com. Set up your website (use Wordpress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click Wordpress install.
• Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are bonus).
• Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.

SALES
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.

• Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
• Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
• Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
• Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
• Use online directories like Manta.com to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
• Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
• Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
• Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
• Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.

SYSTEMS
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.

• Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
• Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just gmail to make it easy and route your Name@Company.com email through it)
• Set up your account in Asana.com – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
• Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
• Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks

STAFFING
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.

• Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
• List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
• Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
• Hire your first employee or contractor – generally this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
• Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com.
• As soon as revenue and need justifies it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.

SCALING-UP
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.

• Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
• Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any "high maintenance" clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
• Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
• Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
• As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
• Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.

***

That's it! Just sell. There's plenty of businesses out there. I don't mean to downplay it at all but really, I'm nobody special. I'm not like most of the successful hustlers in this forum. I'm a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.

You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.

If you have any questions, just ask!

-Sean

Wow. Thank you. I’m going to pass this to my son who is getting a marketing degree right now. Thank you