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Documenting My Digital Marketing Agency Journey: Road to $5k/mo

Marketing, social media, advertising

Zyanwc

Contributor
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Jun 5, 2020
13
23
Las Vegas
From the Beginning
So I've had a facebook ad agency for just over a year now. I started it (like most people) because as a 17 y/o it seemed like it would be a really easy way to make money. It then turned into a passion and race for mastery because by learning and getting good at online marketing and advertising I could apply my skills virtually in any other entrepreneurial venture I go on. Being honest I hit the ground running last year, after about 5 weeks I'd gotten 3 clients at $1500/mo (boy did I think I was something). I was grateful, I found my ability and love to create and manifest ideas in my head into something tangible and did it in 5 weeks! I finally found what I wanted to do with my life, I've always feared having a job after seen that road goes no where in my family's lives and experiencing the mind-numbing daily chores of work through earlier jobs and corporate internships, so I know entrepreneurship is the way out for me. Then due to made systems building, poor communication, the college application process, and 8+ AP exams all rearing their ugly heads almost simultaneously... I lost all 3 clients in the span of a month one by one. That feeling of having everything and losing it hit me pretty hard.

I'd hit the bottom just as quick as I'd hit what I thought at the time was the top, but I got a taste of that entrepreneurial life, that sense of accomplishment and man was it good. The confidence, the control, the flexibility, the creativity, the long hours that honestly never felt that long because it was enjoyable and challenging. I HAD to do it again and I knew for sure I could! The next semester I started college, I was paying and for now still am paying a ridiculous amount of money to go to school at a rate I know my family can't afford to pay off and is way too expensive just for me to be "networking". So my plan is to get to a point where I can dropout and assist my parents with the few loans that did incur along the way.

I did numerous methods of outreach throughout the semester, I would send 15 emails a day everyday and by November I was doing 20 cold calls a day too. No results, but that's partially my fault for getting frustrated and hopping niches a lot. By winter break I was in no position to dropout only had some free resume building jobs to stay fresh, but I'm pretty stubborn and honestly by that point I'd talked so much crap about dropping out and spent way too much time falling in love with this business, learning, reaching out and developing the business instead of doing my homework or going to parties to give up not to mention the great upside and starting place it offers. The main thing driving me is simply that I did it before, so there's absolutely nothing stopping me from doing it again. If anything it should be better easier because I've improved in literally every way since those first 3 clients.

Around February I accidentally stumbled across the viability of partnerships and have since worked on setting them up to help with long term viability for the pipeline. Companies that target my same industry, but don't compete with me like accountants and others services that work with and are seeking the same clients as I am. For me it's a great referral source and for them they get a portion of the first months income from that company as a kickback so it's essentially free money using a client they already have. During the same time I went back to the basics and did some free work to rebuild my portfolio since I knew my skills were much better than it was in my earlier days. I also got a door-to-door salesman job almost 10 hours a day in Arizona heat to get over my anxiety to no and learn more on sales, while still bringing in some money so I could at least stop eating ramen (I saw what it was doing to my roommate's body... yikes).

March hit and so did COVID putting everything on hold as I had to relocated and figure out school along with life. By May I started getting serious again and got to a point where I could prioritize business again, all of my leads I'd finally built up prior to COVID vanished after the economy stopped. But in the meantime I've finally built a website, registered the business, built out my systems, created a funnel, made drafts for an email campaign, created and launched the company's facebook ads, and signed 6 company referral partners.

So again...starting over...for the 3rd time...

The Present
That brings us to know, just today I joined the forum and I'm both amazed and inspired by the threats I've read of success and it's got me hungry again. One of challenges I've faced in all of this was that I've been alone in high school I went to a place that sends kids to Ivy's and everyone is set on being a doctor or engineer or a PHD in whatever and my family has never been onboard with entrepreneurship (or at least not until I get a "safe, secure, high paying job" with my degree). Not realizing I have no interest in the Slowlane. If I'm gonna try in life I wanna go all the way and more time I spend around and learning about entrepreneurs' stories, fastlaners, and millionaires the more I see 100k/yr is not exactly an amazing salary especially when raises are rare and I work too many hours and don't get enough vacation time to enjoy that salary. I'm an ambitious dreamer, I'm young so I have the time to get a lot out of life. I've set my sights on 40 billion dollars by the time I hit the grave. That target number is because in my mind that's a very big number (I want to challenge that belief), I want to create and fail a lot of times in my life (I'm sure 40 billion comes with plenty of failures along the way), and I want to leave a legacy and take advantage of my passion and mindset. I want to be the last of my bloodline to HAVE to work for a living (hard task I know), but people everyday have to put aside their hobbies and even talents because they don't make money or don't make enough money and that's a terrible Slowlaner way to live life. Be a painter, be a dancer, be an entrepreneur, whatever as long as it means you'll enjoy your life and never have to sell your time for money is what I want for my loved ones.

This Threads Purpose

Goal rants aside, I'm making this thread to document my journey as an entrepreneur and hold myself accountable along the way, while having the support, help, and inspiration of people like me.

So starting June 7th I'm going to restart the process of building my client base. Here I'm open to help on what you guys think I should do to approach this places, tools, tactics, templates, general advice because before it was just me so I'm more than happy to listen to ideas. I want to continue with LinkedIn outreach (how I got my first 3 clients), probably gonna stop cold emailing cause the return just isn't there for me after send well over a thousand unless someone can teach me a better way, and I'm going to start cold calling again maybe 10-20 a day. After all the adjusting from COVID I've got no savings so my ad campaigns are useless right now so I have to resort to organic methods. I'm going to work my a$$ to get the results I need regardless!

I'll be posting 3-4 times a week with updates if for nothing else to make sure I keep doing outreach and try and improve my process everyday. My goal would be to make 5k/mo (about 2-3 clients) by the end of summer to be able to dropout and sustain myself so I can dive even further into this and eventually all my other entrepreneurial plans.

Let me know what you guys think and I hope this is at least a somewhat entertaining journey for you guys as it progresses.

I gained the courage to do this documentation journey all thanks to @Simon Angel , thank you man! I'll see you at the top!
 
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Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
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May 20, 2014
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From the Beginning
So I've had a facebook ad agency for just over a year now. I started it (like most people) because as a 17 y/o it seemed like it would be a really easy way to make money. It then turned into a passion and race for mastery because by learning and getting good at online marketing and advertising I could apply my skills virtually in any other entrepreneurial venture I go on. Being honest I hit the ground running last year, after about 5 weeks I'd gotten 3 clients at $1500/mo (boy did I think I was something). I was grateful, I found my ability and love to create and manifest ideas in my head into something tangible and did it in 5 weeks! I finally found what I wanted to do with my life, I've always feared having a job after seen that road goes no where in my family's lives and experiencing the mind-numbing daily chores of work through earlier jobs and corporate internships, so I know entrepreneurship is the way out for me. Then due to made systems building, poor communication, the college application process, and 8+ AP exams all rearing their ugly heads almost simultaneously... I lost all 3 clients in the span of a month one by one. That feeling of having everything and losing it hit me pretty hard.

I'd hit the bottom just as quick as I'd hit what I thought at the time was the top, but I got a taste of that entrepreneurial life, that sense of accomplishment and man was it good. The confidence, the control, the flexibility, the creativity, the long hours that honestly never felt that long because it was enjoyable and challenging. I HAD to do it again and I knew for sure I could! The next semester I started college, I was paying and for now still am paying a ridiculous amount of money to go to school at a rate I know my family can't afford to pay off and is way too expensive just for me to be "networking". So my plan is to get to a point where I can dropout and assist my parents with the few loans that did incur along the way.

I did numerous methods of outreach throughout the semester, I would send 15 emails a day everyday and by November I was doing 20 cold calls a day too. No results, but that's partially my fault for getting frustrated and hopping niches a lot. By winter break I was in no position to dropout only had some free resume building jobs to stay fresh, but I'm pretty stubborn and honestly by that point I'd talked so much crap about dropping out and spent way too much time falling in love with this business, learning, reaching out and developing the business instead of doing my homework or going to parties to give up not to mention the great upside and starting place it offers. The main thing driving me is simply that I did it before, so there's absolutely nothing stopping me from doing it again. If anything it should be better easier because I've improved in literally every way since those first 3 clients.

Around February I accidentally stumbled across the viability of partnerships and have since worked on setting them up to help with long term viability for the pipeline. Companies that target my same industry, but don't compete with me like accountants and others services that work with and are seeking the same clients as I am. For me it's a great referral source and for them they get a portion of the first months income from that company as a kickback so it's essentially free money using a client they already have. During the same time I went back to the basics and did some free work to rebuild my portfolio since I knew my skills were much better than it was in my earlier days. I also got a door-to-door salesman job almost 10 hours a day in Arizona heat to get over my anxiety to no and learn more on sales, while still bringing in some money so I could at least stop eating ramen (I saw what it was doing to my roommate's body... yikes).

March hit and so did COVID putting everything on hold as I had to relocated and figure out school along with life. By May I started getting serious again and got to a point where I could prioritize business again, all of my leads I'd finally built up prior to COVID vanished after the economy stopped. But in the meantime I've finally built a website, registered the business, built out my systems, created a funnel, made drafts for an email campaign, created and launched the company's facebook ads, and signed 6 company referral partners.

So again...starting over...for the 3rd time...

The Present
That brings us to know, just today I joined the forum and I'm both amazed and inspired by the threats I've read of success and it's got me hungry again. One of challenges I've faced in all of this was that I've been alone in high school I went to a place that sends kids to Ivy's and everyone is set on being a doctor or engineer or a PHD in whatever and my family has never been onboard with entrepreneurship (or at least not until I get a "safe, secure, high paying job" with my degree). Not realizing I have no interest in the Slowlane. If I'm gonna try in life I wanna go all the way and more time I spend around and learning about entrepreneurs' stories, fastlaners, and millionaires the more I see 100k/yr is not exactly an amazing salary especially when raises are rare and I work too many hours and don't get enough vacation time to enjoy that salary. I'm an ambitious dreamer, I'm young so I have the time to get a lot out of life. I've set my sights on 40 billion dollars by the time I hit the grave. That target number is because in my mind that's a very big number (I want to challenge that belief), I want to create and fail a lot of times in my life (I'm sure 40 billion comes with plenty of failures along the way), and I want to leave a legacy and take advantage of my passion and mindset. I want to be the last of my bloodline to HAVE to work for a living (hard task I know), but people everyday have to put aside their hobbies and even talents because they don't make money or don't make enough money and that's a terrible Slowlaner way to live life. Be a painter, be a dancer, be an entrepreneur, whatever as long as it means you'll enjoy your life and never have to sell your time for money is what I want for my loved ones.

This Threads Purpose

Goal rants aside, I'm making this thread to document my journey as an entrepreneur and hold myself accountable along the way, while having the support, help, and inspiration of people like me.

So starting June 7th I'm going to restart the process of building my client base. Here I'm open to help on what you guys think I should do to approach this places, tools, tactics, templates, general advice because before it was just me so I'm more than happy to listen to ideas. I want to continue with LinkedIn outreach (how I got my first 3 clients), probably gonna stop cold emailing cause the return just isn't there for me after send well over a thousand unless someone can teach me a better way, and I'm going to start cold calling again maybe 10-20 a day. After all the adjusting from COVID I've got no savings so my ad campaigns are useless right now so I have to resort to organic methods. I'm going to work my a$$ to get the results I need regardless!

I'll be posting 3-4 times a week with updates if for nothing else to make sure I keep doing outreach and try and improve my process everyday. My goal would be to make 5k/mo (about 2-3 clients) by the end of summer to be able to dropout and sustain myself so I can dive even further into this and eventually all my other entrepreneurial plans.

Let me know what you guys think and I hope this is at least a somewhat entertaining journey for you guys as it progresses.

I gained the courage to do this documentation journey all thanks to @Simon Angel , thank you man! I'll see you at the top!
Welcome. Nice intro. You’ve some great learnings already.

“Who already has your customers.” (Jay Abraham)

Keep building relationships with businesses and people who already have your customers.


These threads might help:
> GOLD! - CHECKLIST: How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency & Hit $5K in Less than 90 Days
> HOT TOPIC - Andy's Inbound/Sales Braindump
> AndyTalks with Sonny about getting his 1st digital marketing client
 

JonathanMiz

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Apr 4, 2020
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Thanks for sharing!
Where did you learn about pricing, marketing, and closing clients?
Are you planning to cold DM people on LinkedIn?
Good luck, I have no doubt that you can do it!
 

juresesko

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Apr 10, 2020
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Maybe you can check The Psychology of Selling.
You said you have problems with responses to your e-mails.

Another thing... While there was quaratine there weren't orders for marketing. I can tell you that after the pandemic is gone, marketing will go crazy just as it did in our country.
 
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Zyanwc

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
177%
Jun 5, 2020
13
23
Las Vegas
Welcome. Nice intro. You’ve some great learnings already.

“Who already has your customers.” (Jay Abraham)

Keep building relationships with businesses and people who already have your customers.


These threads might help:
> GOLD! - CHECKLIST: How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency & Hit $5K in Less than 90 Days
> HOT TOPIC - Andy's Inbound/Sales Braindump
> AndyTalks with Sonny about getting his 1st digital marketing client
Thank you so much Andy, though it’s only been a day I’ve seen your name on a lot of threads and can definitely tell your big contributor to this forum!
 

Zyanwc

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
177%
Jun 5, 2020
13
23
Las Vegas
Thanks for sharing!
Where did you learn about pricing, marketing, and closing clients?
Are you planning to cold DM people on LinkedIn?
Good luck, I have no doubt that you can do it!
Thanks for the support! I learned about pricing from various videos and courses (they all have their way of making it so it got so the point i came up with my own too as far as it was within a reasonable range compared to the market pricing).
Yes I will be doing cold outreach (it’s what worked in the beginning), but I’m thinking of switching it up and rather than pitching them the offer ask if they know someone who could use my services.
 

Zyanwc

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
177%
Jun 5, 2020
13
23
Las Vegas
Maybe you can check The Psychology of Selling.
You said you have problems with responses to your e-mails.

Another thing... While there was quaratine there weren't orders for marketing. I can tell you that after the pandemic is gone, marketing will go crazy just as it did in our country.
That’s music to my ears, makes me feel like long-term I’ll win! Now I’m gonna be a bit greedy and try and win in the short and long term.
 
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