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EdoardoZangi

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Hey there, my name is Edoardo, 25 years old, and I'm currently reading TMF .

I come from a poor-ish working class background, no College/University degree and a lot of jumping around minimum wage BS jobs in the hospitality field. Toxic and frustrated supervisors/managers, no real financial future, long hours on my feet (often at night) and the dreading "corporate dance" led me to the idea of pursuing entrepreneurship in my free time.

Around 2 years ago I was "made redundant" and fired overnight because of the lockdown and a petty broke employer, my bank account close to £0 and bills to pay. I finally decided to take responsibility for my future.

I proceeded to create my very first business with no previous experience whatsoever. I basically record and mix music for local (and sometimes even remote) artists in the rap niche. This is something I've always been passionate about, although probably not the best business idea.. But I didn't know better at the time.

Thanks to the growth of this side hustle (~£10k/year revenue) I managed to claim back a big chunk of my time, and go from full-time employment (50+ hours/week) to 20 hours/week. More so, I acquired invaluable experience and skills in marketing, sales, ads, social media, customer service, web design, branding, etc.

Although I'm now in a much better place (both mentally and physically), I also recently came to the realisation that my business model is almost unscalable, due to the nature of the brand and the competition that keeps driving the price down. On a macro scale the demand for professional audio services in the industry is shrinking, and the cheaper DIY solutions are growing.

I'm now looking to start another online business that can scale and reach a semi-passive state (or at least not a direct trade of money for time) whilst generating enough income to join the Fastlane and finally quit any job for good. I've been contemplating the idea of an e-commerce store.

Anyway, thanks for having me and I hope to provide value and make some good connections here!
 
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Andy Black

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On a macro scale the demand for professional audio services in the industry is shrinking, and the cheaper DIY solutions are growing.
Cool. So more people coming into the market? What opportunities does that bring to someone who's already in the market?

I also recently came to the realisation that my business model is almost unscalable, due to the nature of the brand and the competition that keeps driving the price down.
List all the reasons it's not scalable.

You've now laid out your steps to make it scalable.

E.g. I can't scale because I only get paid once when I make a tune.

Becomes: How do I get paid more than once when I make a tune?

E.g. I can't scale because I'm the only person doing the work and I can only work 7 hours a day.

Becomes: How do I get more done in my 7 hours a day (using SOPs or tech for instance), and/or how do I get 70 or 700 hours a day (hiring people for instance ... maybe some of those new entrants into the market you noted above)?


I bring this up because you may well jump ship and find you "can't scale" a different business. Is it the business that can't scale, or is it that you've not figured out how to scale a business yet? Is there someone somewhere who could scale your current business? If so, what would they do?
 
G

Guest931Xfjyx

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I'm not successful in entrepreneurship yet, so don't put much weight on my words.

But understand that you already have a successful business with paying customers. Take what you said you've learned in marketing and make your outreach 10X what it presently is.

It's not that you can't scale, it's that you think you can't scale.
 

EdoardoZangi

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Cool. So more people coming into the market? What opportunities does that bring to someone who's already in the market?


List all the reasons it's not scalable.

You've now laid out your steps to make it scalable.

E.g. I can't scale because I only get paid once when I make a tune.

Becomes: How do I get paid more than once when I make a tune?

E.g. I can't scale because I'm the only person doing the work and I can only work 7 hours a day.

Becomes: How do I get more done in my 7 hours a day (using SOPs or tech for instance), and/or how do I get 70 or 700 hours a day (hiring people for instance ... maybe some of those new entrants into the market you noted above)?


I bring this up because you may well jump ship and find you "can't scale" a different business. Is it the business that can't scale, or is it that you've not figured out how to scale a business yet? Is there someone somewhere who could scale your current business? If so, what would they do?
Hey, thanks for the message. I really needed a fresh perspective on this. I won't pretend to have proof to back up any of my claims. They are speculations purely based on personal experience and subject to my own biases and limiting beliefs.

I would say my SOPs in terms of fulfilment and delivery are not an issue, my systems are quite on point compared to businesses of similar size. Arguably my biggest struggle is lead generation.

In detail, some of the causes of my mental rut are:
  • My organic reach is currently too small to generate a constant flow of good qualified leads, and therefore sales.
  • 95% of my business happens locally through referrals/word of mouth (therefore in person), and my goal is to move most of my revenue online to achieve location & time freedom.
  • The nature of my service is not recurring, leading to months where I make £2k and months where I make £100 in sales.
  • My positioning in the market is attracting mostly self-funding amateurs with typically very low budgets.
  • My paid website traffic is not converting at all.

Ultimately I am responsible to tweak these variables, not trying to make excuses here. My social media content strategy for example could (and should) be better, or at the very least more consistent.

I can see one way to scale my business would be something approximating an agency where I'm in control of the demand and can set up a system to automatically delegate the fulfilment & delivery to other audio engineers.

I know it's possible, just not sure what the way forward is yet.

I'm not successful in entrepreneurship yet, so don't put much weight on my words.

But understand that you already have a successful business with paying customers. Take what you said you've learned in marketing and make your outreach 10X what it presently is.

It's not that you can't scale, it's that you think you can't scale.
Thanks for this message too. I can definitely see that increasing my reach is an urgent priority to start closing more remote clients.
 
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Andy Black

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Hey, thanks for the message. I really needed a fresh perspective on this. I won't pretend to have proof to back up any of my claims. They are speculations purely based on personal experience and subject to my own biases and limiting beliefs.

I would say my SOPs in terms of fulfilment and delivery are not an issue, my systems are quite on point compared to businesses of similar size. Arguably my biggest struggle is lead generation.

In detail, some of the causes of my mental rut are:
  • My organic reach is currently too small to generate a constant flow of good qualified leads, and therefore sales.
  • 95% of my business happens locally through referrals/word of mouth (therefore in person), and my goal is to move most of my revenue online to achieve location & time freedom.
  • The nature of my service is not recurring, leading to months where I make £2k and months where I make £100 in sales.
  • My positioning in the market is attracting mostly self-funding amateurs with typically very low budgets.
  • My paid website traffic is not converting at all.

Ultimately I am responsible to tweak these variables, not trying to make excuses here. My social media content strategy for example could (and should) be better, or at the very least more consistent.

I can see one way to scale my business would be something approximating an agency where I'm in control of the demand and can set up a system to automatically delegate the fulfilment & delivery to other audio engineers.

I know it's possible, just not sure what the way forward is yet.


Thanks for this message too. I can definitely see that increasing my reach is an urgent priority to start closing more remote clients.
Curious what @BigRomeDawg and other agency owners suggest.

What's the one thing you know you need to do that you haven't done yet?
 

EdoardoZangi

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Curious what @BigRomeDawg and other agency owners suggest.

What's the one thing you know you need to do that you haven't done yet?
From the top of my mind, these are all potential paths:
  • Improving my social media video content production (both quality & quantity) to increase my reach.
  • Improving my overall positioning (i.e. my studio, although it looks nice & tidy to the average Joe, is still situated in my rented flat's living room) so that I can charge more per project.
  • Coming up with a cold outreach system to easily find and contact interested prospects efficiently without it being spam/bot-like.
  • Establishing actual trust and a sense of online community around my brand.
Appreciate your help!
 

Andy Black

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From the top of my mind, these are all potential paths:
  • Improving my social media video content production (both quality & quantity) to increase my reach.
  • Improving my overall positioning (i.e. my studio, although it looks nice & tidy to the average Joe, is still situated in my rented flat's living room) so that I can charge more per project.
  • Coming up with a cold outreach system to easily find and contact interested prospects efficiently without it being spam/bot-like.
  • Establishing actual trust and a sense of online community around my brand.
Appreciate your help!
Is there anything you can implement this week that will help you get a new client this week?

Is there anything you can test this week to see if there's a recurring offer people might buy?
 
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EdoardoZangi

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Is there anything you can implement this week that will help you get a new client this week?

Is there anything you can test this week to see if there's a recurring offer people might buy?
I see where you're going with this.

If I had to find a brand new client this week I would come up with as many niche-relevant TikTok/IG Reel/YT Short scripts as possible, film, edit and post on the 3 platforms. I would also aim to cold email/DM a number of people per day who match my customer avatar with a clear and direct offer.

If this produced results and I had the consistent revenue to support it, I would then delegate these tasks to someone else to free up my time and put my 100% focus on service fulfilment.



The biggest excuse I told myself is that I tried this "routine" in the past, it didn't produce enough results to justify the time invested to come up with video ideas & actual filming, so I eventually stopped.

My old content rarely got any traction. Most of my (hundreds of) short form videos stagnated at ~200 views and ~7 likes. Looking back, I think I got discouraged because I wasn't good at it and it was taking up a lot of my mental bandwidth.


@EdoardoZangi how are you currently acquiring customers?
Referrals/word of mouth and Instagram. Almost all of them are local, which is not what I had in mind when I first started this journey.

My website's been up the whole time and getting cold traffic through Google ads. I have a freebie to download and email marketing in place (313 active subscribers at the moment), but I'm still not getting any remote leads whatsoever never mind converting them.
 
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BigRomeDawg

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Referrals/word of mouth and Instagram. Almost all of them are local, which is not what I had in mind when I first started this journey.
What are your inputs for referrals and Instagram? e.g. how many times per day do you ask for referrals / post on Instagram / send DM's.. etc. Can you 5-10x your input on those? ..More of what's already working
 
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EdoardoZangi

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What are your inputs for referrals and Instagram? e.g. how many times per day do you ask for referrals / post on Instagram / send DM's.. etc. Can you 5-10x your input on those? ..More of what's already working
I have a referral incentive/offer "Refer a friend and get 1 free song mixed" in place, not much is happening on this front.

I systematically ask for a Google review after every single project, people are generally more willing to help here. (5 stars avg. which is good for brand credibility)

I'll admit my flaws: I am guilty of not being consistent on IG and social media in general, and only sending cold DMs sporadically.

I can definitely make a commitment to a frequent posting schedule here, but as mentioned my content ideas usually don't tend to gather much attention. I feel like I'm a bit lost in terms of what to actually post about to attract an interested audience, my shooting/editing style and the way I speak (cadence and accent, I'm not a native English speaker) probably looks a bit amateurish as well.
 
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Andy Black

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It seems you're trying a few different channels/strategies: creating and posting short video content, cold email outreach, and Google Ads. Each one of those is a whole skillset in itself. Not saying you can't make all of them work, but I'd think it's harder to make all of them work at once.

If you had to pick one then what would it be?

I believe @BigRomeDawg offers a short consult about short video strategies. Go check out his marketplace offer.

I'd be happy to have a chat about Google Ads if you want as well.

You're already making sales. It seems to me that increasing this and making it more consistent is your current obstacle. And that could include dialing in your offer, as well as your channel and avatar.

I like the line from Ready, Fire, Aim that Alex Hormozi also quotes... to focus on one channel, one avatar, one offer.
 

EdoardoZangi

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It seems you're trying a few different channels/strategies: creating and posting short video content, cold email outreach, and Google Ads. Each one of those is a whole skillset in itself. Not saying you can't make all of them work, but I'd think it's harder to make all of them work at once.

If you had to pick one then what would it be?

I believe @BigRomeDawg offers a short consult about short video strategies. Go check out his marketplace offer.

I'd be happy to have a chat about Google Ads if you want as well.

You're already making sales. It seems to me that increasing this and making it more consistent is your current obstacle. And that could include dialing in your offer, as well as your channel and avatar.

I like the line from Ready, Fire, Aim that Alex Hormozi also quotes... to focus on one channel, one avatar, one offer.
Yes, we're approaching the core of the problem here. I am mentally spread too thin, trying a whole bunch of lead gen methods whilst also providing the services I get hired for.

I've already booked my consultation with @BigRomeDawg and looking forward to it.

I would love to have that chat with you about Google ads too.

And to answer your question, if I had it entirely my way, I recognise I'm not a natural at content creation and being in the spotlight. I'm not what you would call "the life of the party" if that makes sense.
I would pick something more 'technical' and data-oriented. I think it would suit my personality type.
 
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Andy Black

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Yes, we're approaching the core of the problem here. I am mentally spread too thin, trying a whole bunch of lead gen methods whilst also providing the services I get hired for.

I've already booked my consultation with @BigRomeDawg and looking forward to it.

I would love to have that chat with you about Google ads too.

And to answer your question, if I had it entirely my way, I recognise I'm not a natural at content creation and being in the spotlight. I'm not what you would call "the life of the party" if that makes sense.
I would pick something more 'technical' and data-oriented. I think it would suit my personality type.
I'm not life of the party either. I prefer chatting to people one-to-one, which I think lends itself to video anyway.

I'll PM you my Calendly.
 

EdoardoZangi

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I'm just going to update this post as I progress and figure more things out.

Had the Zoom chat with @Andy Black this morning and it was life-changing to say the least. The call was very pleasant, friendly and informal. He really challenged my beliefs and gave me invaluable tips to improve my current strategies around lead generation, and in particular social media content creation.

Key takeaways:
  • Genuine, 'on the spot' videos might get more traction than over-scripted content.
  • Rather than coming up with content ideas, document the actual real work you do as if you had to teach to a person sitting next to you.
  • Find a good hook to start the videos with. Make it interesting with a story.
We also had a look at my Google Ads and found out that I was doing it all wrong. Keywords, target audience, location.. I was just wasting money. I've already implemented his advice and I'm sure I'll get much better results soon.

I also re-designed the landing page to make it make sense with the new ads.
 

Andy Black

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I'm just going to update this post as I progress and figure more things out.

Had the Zoom chat with @Andy Black this morning and it was life-changing to say the least. The call was very pleasant, friendly and informal. He really challenged my beliefs and gave me invaluable tips to improve my current strategies around lead generation, and in particular social media content creation.

Key takeaways:
  • Genuine, 'on the spot' videos might get more traction than over-scripted content.
  • Rather than coming up with content ideas, document the actual real work you do as if you had to teach to a person sitting next to you.
  • Find a good hook to start the videos with. Make it interesting with a story.
We also had a look at my Google Ads and found out that I was doing it all wrong. Keywords, target audience, location.. I was just wasting money. I've already implemented his advice and I'm sure I'll get much better results soon.

I also re-designed the landing page to make it make sense with the new ads.
Nice talking to you.

Shame we didn't record it for you.

Some more notes off the top of my head:
 
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EdoardoZangi

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Nice talking to you.

Shame we didn't record it for you.

Some more notes off the top of my head:
Oh man, I forgot to mention all the most important things. Thanks for the recap.


Anyway, just finished the Zoom call with @BigRomeDawg. Another memorable lesson!

We discussed how being introverted is actually not a barrier to content creation, the importance of being consistent and "trusting the process", not having insecurities about language or the actual content quality (again, I'm not a native English speaker).

We also had a look at my website's homepage and made an observation about frictionless instant buy buttons vs longer and more detailed contact forms, and figured what was probably the best option in my specific case.

Today's been revealing and I would like to thank the both of you again. A lot of learning was done today, loving this community so far!
 

Andy Black

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A few other things I remembered just now:
  • Don't tell the same people different things. Tell different people the same thing.
  • Posting daily helps you get better, but when you've a good piece of content then consider putting ad spend behind it.
  • I'd personally prefer to run ads.
  • Check our Laurel Portie's YouTube channel or podcast.

Ha. I should have recorded it and got Roman to slice it up.
 

EdoardoZangi

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New update:

I had laser eye surgery so took a week off of the business to rest and heal.

When I came back I turned the new Google ads on, and now people are actually clicking for the right keywords.
I noticed CTR is significantly higher. I imagine that's a good thing, right?


I also applied the advice of turning my everyday work into a story:

Yesterday I posted a "Day in the life" voiceover kinda TikTok/Reel/Short that (so far) generated 4 cold website enquiries in less than 24 hours!

Best thing is I could use the same format everyday (as a sort of mini-series) instead of having to scramble to come up with new content.
 
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EdoardoZangi

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New update:

Since last time I simplified my landing page, launched a new Meta ad campaign (Instagram stories & feed only) specifically for remote work, and kept playing around with the preexisting Google ad campaign & social media organic content creation.

Results: I went from 0 leads/month to a whopping 11 cold enquiries in 3 weeks! I consider this a win in and of itself.
Also got a few more calls for local (in-person) business as a nice side-effect.

Having a lead flow, despite minimal, did wonders for my mindset. I now recognise I was operating out of total scarcity and fear.

The new issue is that, out of those 11 leads, I didn't manage to properly talk to (never-mind convert) any of them. In fact, half of them barely responded to my emails.

My new assumptions are:
  1. Some of those leads are not qualified.
  2. The contact form needs to be changed to a more direct "book a discovery call" system.
  3. I'm probably saying something wrong, or in the wrong way, in my first email.
These are not mutually exclusive, it could be a combination of all three and more.


Moving forward I'll try to improve my lead qualification/onboarding systems and report back.
Nevertheless, I'm glad I managed to "move" the bottleneck one step further though! Small, consistent improvements.
 
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