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Digital Marketing Agency, the new Podcasting?

babyballer

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The Abundant Man

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...and this is what it means to work 'on' the business, instead of 'in' the business.
Exactly, as Sean Marshall has said previously, "there's a difference between a business owner and a business doer. You need to switch from the employee mindset to a business owner"
 

The-J

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I'm talking about selling to the idiots who are trying to slap together agencies after watching Tai Lopez videos.

I did just that. I sold white label stuff to people who wanted to start agencies.

Here's what I found:

1) The money came pretty quickly. I used Upwork to find those people, and they're not hard to find by any means. Another thing you could do is partner with a guru who will sell your services for you. Most gurus would rather not run the agency (in fact, many gurus used to run an agency and decided 'F*ck it'). So they'd be happy to take a cut from you while they sell their courses.

2) The agency owners knew very little about digital marketing. They couldn't talk at length about how relevant targeting or the way individual platforms worked. That's not a bad thing, but as a CEO you should know at least the bare minimum about what your strategic partners are doing for you.

3) Agencies were bad at choosing clients. They chose clients with insane expectations because the agency owner or salesman themselves didn't know what to expect. When I would tell them 'hey that's super unlikely' they'd brush it off.

4) Agencies didn't want to 'optimize', they wanted to sell. They cared more about selling the clients rather than helping them achieve success. They just assumed they were selling a better shovel, when in reality they're selling professional services.

Agencies who want to really make it work build an in-house team of people they trust that operate on all levels: strategic and tactical, sales and delivery, maintenance and optimization.

Not all agencies who outsource think like this. But many do, especially those that are run by people who are just in it to make a buck.
 

LuckyPup

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It's like a when a song blows up on the radio. Most bands jump on the band wagon & copy the style when they actually should be trying to create a new sound. Once a song hits the radio, it's actually on its way down & out.
As the Great Gretzky said, "Skate to where the puck is going, not where the puck is."
 

MattR82

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I read the first page but can't do more than that. Too depressing lol.

I learnt how to build websites, have started a little on social media management etc, went through some good courses like Fox and wordpress elevation but have decided the agency thing is just not for me. I have 1 great client that loves what I do and I'm just going to focus on doing the best I can for them and learn as much as I can on a live project so that I can transfer over those skills to my own projects at some point (which is not an agency). For all the good courses out there, there's a bunch of crap too. I feel glad to be out of it and just focus on learning stuff rather than getting as many clients as I can if I'm honest. Will take on max 3 clients and that's it. Actually, they are pretty much waiting on me to have the capacity to work with them in the next few months (referred by the client I'm with now).

For a while there I completely forgot why I got into this in the first place - get paid to learn skills just long enough to help fund a fastlane project of my own to use said skills on.

Honestly - F*ck agency lol. I love learning about marketing though.
 

The Abundant Man

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I read the first page but can't do more than that. Too depressing lol.

I learnt how to build websites, have started a little on social media management etc, went through some good courses like Fox and wordpress elevation but have decided the agency thing is just not for me. I have 1 great client that loves what I do and I'm just going to focus on doing the best I can for them and learn as much as I can on a live project so that I can transfer over those skills to my own projects at some point (which is not an agency). For all the good courses out there, there's a bunch of crap too. I feel glad to be out of it and just focus on learning stuff rather than getting as many clients as I can if I'm honest. Will take on max 3 clients and that's it. Actually, they are pretty much waiting on me to have the capacity to work with them in the next few months (referred by the client I'm with now).

For a while there I completely forgot why I got into this in the first place - get paid to learn skills just long enough to help fund a fastlane project of my own to use said skills on.

Honestly - F*ck agency lol. I love learning about marketing though.
What's your fastlane project? How are these "skills" going to transfer to your fastlane?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
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MattR82

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What's your fastlane project? How are these "skills" going to transfer to your fastlane?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
You don't think learning how to build your own website and market it yourself without paying someone else thousands is a skill?
 

The Abundant Man

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You don't think learning how to build your own website and market it yourself without paying someone else thousands is a skill?
So you're fastlane is to make a website and market it?

I'm mostly confused by your previous post because you seemed to hate on digital marketing for no reason yet that's what you're trying to do

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MattR82

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So you're fastlane is to make a website and market it?

I'm mostly confused by your previous post because you seemed to hate on digital marketing for no reason yet that's what you're trying to do

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
No, I'm not a big fan of the agency model is what I meant. Having a bad day so probably seemed more negative than I usually am.

I don't see what's so hard to understand about learning web design and digital marketing being a huge help to fastlane endeavours though.
 
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Eric Flathers

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Just went through exact scenario a couple of days ago, I posted on a facebook copywriting group looking to hire a technical copywriter. BIG MISTAKE.

The next morning I found my email flooded by "experts". So far, I've got 34 prospects but honestly, the competition is crap. Most of the guys are like this
View attachment 23742
Only 3 of them had ever done this kind of work before. I honestly prefer overpaying for a job done right rather than wasting a week or two for some crappy work done for free.

Yeah these people are everywhere on the web and sadly you can't post in most of these FB groups as they are trolled by people who can do anything just give me a chance.

I don't spend much time in groups but I like this one as there are less spamming folks and more honest people trying to help each other.
 

Andy Black

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Yeah these people are everywhere on the web and sadly you can't post in most of these FB groups as they are trolled by people who can do anything just give me a chance.

I don't spend much time in groups but I like this one as there are less spamming folks and more honest people trying to help each other.
Those folks are honest mostly. They’re just lost.
 

Sanj Modha

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Who's running it well though?

I'm not talking about social media managers or someone who gets you followers on Instagram. You can train a monkey to do that now.

I'm talking about results: SHOW ME THE MONEY.

I've niched out into Facebook and Instagram with chatbots for e-commerce because I've cracked the code. And, its not that easy either.

I'm currently in talks with a business who paid a famous agency (they're huge on LinkedIn) $10,000/month for 3 months and spent $75,000 on ads returning only $65,000 in revenue.

They totally screwed this guy who has a solid brand and product. They even sent him fake Insta followers which is just ridiculous.
 
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Kyle T

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So I sent a single video today using the LinkedIn strategy from Crushing B2B sales with LinkedIn.

I sent a video where I spent 4 minutes providing VALUE in the form of tips for a guy's website. The person messaged me back and within 10-minutes we were on the phone. We talked for 45 minutes and I focused on learning about his business. During the convo, I qualified him and scheduled a sales to call for Monday.

So why am I putting it in this thread? The guy told me that he has been messaged by over 50 people in the last month regarding his website!!!

Yes, the market is saturated but it doesn't mean that you can't be successful.

He ignored all of the others because:
  1. They didn't provide enough value.
  2. They didn't cut through the noise
  3. They weren't focused on helping.
This is a first-hand example of what we have discussed in this thread.
 
Last edited:

Andy Black

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So I sent a single video today using the LinkedIn strategy from Crushing B2B sales with LinkedIn.

I sent a video where I spent 4 minutes providing VALUE in the form of tips for a guy's website. The person messaged me back and within 10-minutes we were on the phone. We talked for 45 minutes and I focused on learning about his business. During the convo, I qualified him and scheduled a sales to call for Monday.

So why am I putting it in this thread? The guy told me that he has been messaged by over 50 people in the last month regarding his website!!!

Yes, the market is saturated but it doesn't mean that you can't be successful.

He ignored all of the others because:
  1. They didn't provide enough value.
  2. They didn't cut through the noise
  3. They weren't focused on helping.
This is a first-hand example of what we have discussed in this thread.
/drops mic
 

Ernman

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It's a timely thread, as a few of my recent jobs (even one I'm even working on now) involves providing copywriting and helping to build these digital marketing agencies' websites. Typically cookie cutter brands, has that "agency" feel, and more. Like hey, if you can't do this stuff yourself how are you going to provide it for others, especially with the guarantees on ROI you're claiming?

That's alright with me though, I'll keep selling them the shovels.
Love the pic Dark Water
 
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MattR82

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I feel like if you can master the skills of digital marketing, which many people fail to take the time to do, you can use this to your advantage by promoting your own product/business. I was thinking about a digital marketing business but realized it might be hard to scale considering it takes time to manage accounts.
Yeah but you do get to learn a hell of a lot that's going to help you with any other ventures. It's nice to know that you don't need to pay someone 5k for a website and a bunch of money every month in seo and PPC because you can do a good chunk of it yourself to help you validate an idea.
 

MHP368

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processes are replicated and become more efficient

Maybe thats part of it? we're at that sweet spot where tons of freelancers exist with the skillset and enough time has passed for folks to have figured out how to systematize the whole business from contact through execution / results.

I imagine in not too long lots of the smaller "bits and pieces" that make up the offerings will be automated (SaaS as some mentioned in this thread)

we have AI writing snippets that would pass the turing test and AI that makes photorealistic human faces out of thin air , of course then you'll need a human expert to cleanup after the software but thats one person vs a team...

What if it doesn’t take time to manage accounts?

Or if it does, what if it doesn’t take *your* time?

So I've actually got the scoop on some of these "start your own agency" courses and that was something I thought was odd , they lay it out that the plan is to outsource the grunt work but how realistic is that if you're truly specializing and niching down , try finding say...a "b2b industrial manufacturing marketing expert" or to take an example of a more common niche and to see how difficult that might be "I'm looking for an SEO specialist with a deep understanding of the owner operated restaurant business in the united states" , a salesperson can be trained to pitch anything , but can you really expect some guy from the phillipines making 4 dollars an hour...even if they understand the technical side of facebook ads, to be able to produce for a market on the other side of the world?

Seems like you'd need a well trained specialist hand holding the entire outsourced crew for each service you offer for quite a while before they'd be ok to go it alone and in that time youve burned all the clients and wasted everyones time and money.

I think that it is a gold rush, But at the same time the vast majority of people who buy guru courses dont do anything with them. They watch them, feel good about action faking (and feel like they are moving somewhere) then move on to the next shiny object.

Itd be interesting to add all the gurus to one twitter feed and just track whats being spammed as the next new thing over time

I'm not talking about social media managers or someone who gets you followers on Instagram. You can train a monkey to do that now.

I'm talking about results: SHOW ME THE MONEY.

That could be someones USP (but theyd need the cash upfront to keep things moving) , "We'll increase business at least x% in the first 90 days or your money back"

The numbers still look great for someone who can actual deliver for the clientele and figure out a way to scale it without sacrificing that value.
 

Andy Black

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So I've actually got the scoop on some of these "start your own agency" courses and that was something I thought was odd , they lay it out that the plan is to outsource the grunt work but how realistic is that if you're truly specializing and niching down , try finding say...a "b2b industrial manufacturing marketing expert" or to take an example of a more common niche and to see how difficult that might be "I'm looking for an SEO specialist with a deep understanding of the owner operated restaurant business in the united states" , a salesperson can be trained to pitch anything , but can you really expect some guy from the phillipines making 4 dollars an hour...even if they understand the technical side of facebook ads, to be able to produce for a market on the other side of the world?

Seems like you'd need a well trained specialist hand holding the entire outsourced crew for each service you offer for quite a while before they'd be ok to go it alone and in that time youve burned all the clients and wasted everyones time and money.
I’ve no intention of outsourcing the technical work I do. I’d rather encapsulate my knowledge into processes and technology and scale that way.

I even had a chat with a prospect this week who has been through three agencies. He said he thinks he needs a smaller agency.

My reply was that it could be that he needs to be speaking to the person actually doing the Google Ads campaigns, rather than a dedicated account manager and having the insights fall between the cracks.

There’s room for good specialists who also speak to, sell to, and interact with the clients.
 
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BlackMagician

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I’ve no intention of outsourcing the technical work I do. I’d rather encapsulate my knowledge into processes and technology and scale that way.

I even had a chat with a prospect this week who has been through three agencies. He said he thinks he needs a smaller agency.

My reply was that it could be that he needs to be speaking to the person actually doing the Google Ads campaigns, rather than a dedicated account manager and having the insights fall between the cracks.

There’s room for good specialists who also speak to, sell to, and interact with the clients.

After Interacting with clients, I Found that they need someone who can deliver results, who can take their hands on the process and explain them what is going behind the scene in website design and digital marketing.
They are looking for someone who understand their thoughts, their Market and give them what they need. And clients don't know what they need most of the time.
 

21elnegocio

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I run a digital marketing agency.

Seems like everyone is doing it now...

Two, three years ago everyone was talking about starting a podcast.

Now it seems the rage is "digital marketing agencies".

Is this what happens any time a guru promotes these businesses as a great business to start?

Suddenly they're on every street corner?

IMO, If some top-tier guru/influencer is selling you a course on "how to start a [blank] business" it's probably not a business you want to start.


You have a point here, me myself was thinking of starting an agency. I still am, but the reason I am considering it is because my real estate agent team requires leads so instead of paying someone I was thinking hiring out people to run me FB ads, Yelp, landing pages etc


This wouldn't only help me but I can start landing gigs for other businesses, maybe within real estate agents industry since I am in it and know it very well. Possibly do an all in one, provide lead gen, photography, videography, crm system, training, cold callers for their leads. Real estate agents do not like calling at all I know from experience.


The million dollar question is, if its worth the time and energy. Last thing one wants to do is to go all in, to find out 5 years later it was not a business that was scalable, and had an exit strategy like selling it for a good chunk.



What is a good business to start in your opinion @MJ DeMarco something these gurus are still not on or fairly new ?
 

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You have a point here, me myself was thinking of starting an agency. I still am, but the reason I am considering it is because my real estate agent team requires leads so instead of paying someone I was thinking hiring out people to run me FB ads, Yelp, landing pages etc


This wouldn't only help me but I can start landing gigs for other businesses, maybe within real estate agents industry since I am in it and know it very well. Possibly do an all in one, provide lead gen, photography, videography, crm system, training, cold callers for their leads. Real estate agents do not like calling at all I know from experience.


The million dollar question is, if its worth the time and energy. Last thing one wants to do is to go all in, to find out 5 years later it was not a business that was scalable, and had an exit strategy like selling it for a good chunk.



What is a good business to start in your opinion @MJ DeMarco something these gurus are still not on or fairly new ?


My opinion is first if this isn't something you are passionate about and are willing and excited to go all-in on then it's not the right play. That being said the real estate market is changing. The days of agents and the way they do business will be disrupted by companies like Redfin. As more tech plays come into the market they expand their reach agents will get cut out of there 3% and (6% both buyer and seller agent) commissions. People don't want to pay 10k in agent fees for a 300k house if they can get a one-stop service like Redfin is trying to do for a fixed fee.

Coming from the TV world I did look into the doing video tours of houses for real estate agents, besides taking great photos I was going to offer a gimble (steady-cam video) walkthrough and even considered adding drone footage for larger estates. Then I met a real estate agent on a plane and talked about my service idea, she liked it but when she said the average house in her area which was about 200K (the median home price in the US), that listing agents would pay about $200 for the service. Even when I told her about the VO for the walkthrough and some other perks the agent would get to help sell the house she said most agents she knew wouldn't pay more then a couple of hundred dollars as it just wasn't worth the expense. So unless your plan is to offer your services to high priced listings or commercial real estate it might not be worth the effort.

This is just the info I got when I was thinking of starting something similar. I realize your idea has more to it but I just wanted to let you know what I found out when doing my research.

Good luck.
 
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Fox

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Thanks @Fox . I am really trying to deliver value and am learning the ins and outs of digital marketing and people talking about how impractical it is was daunting me to be honest. So it was nice to hear you supporting those who do it right.

A little bump on this thread for @Maxboost.

@Isaac Oh is now over 10k a month with web design a year later.
 
D

Deleted78083

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I met a girl that was traveling around because she was doing online marketing for a job. I think the word agency is a bit much tbh...what attract people in the job was what attracted me at the first place: no need to go to an office. Doesn't mean you don't have to work though (and frankly, working in Bali or working in Brussels is the same: you work), and it is impossible to automate
 

Sanj Modha

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I met a girl that was traveling around because she was doing online marketing for a job. I think the word agency is a bit much tbh...what attract people in the job was what attracted me at the first place: no need to go to an office. Doesn't mean you don't have to work though (and frankly, working in Bali or working in Brussels is the same: you work), and it is impossible to automate

Yep, nobody's going to do the work for you.

At least the good news is I can work from any location in the world as long as I have internet access and I usually do.

Next week, I'll be on a beach in Australia but still working.
 
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eliquid

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and it is impossible to automate

You can get close. Depends on your skill set and experience level and what output is expected.

While you still got to do the work, the nice benefit is if I am traveling.. after work and on the weekends I am in this new place and enjoying it. I typically travel to beach areas so that before work, after work, and the weekends/holidays I can enjoy the beach when not "working" during work hours.

But you can extend this even more.

I've had a VA ( even as a employee, that I paid myself ) handle a lot of my digital marketing work. That might cut my work hours during the day from 8 to 4. Now I can spend more time at the beach.

Layer on top of that some automation. For PPC that might be scripts in Google Ads. For social, that might be some social posting bot. Maybe it's automating reporting, etc.

That could bring the 4 hours down to 3 a day. Just another hour I can spend at the beach.

.
 

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