Humble Hustle & Scaling My Agency - Progress Thread

[BlackMagician]

G'day All!

Apologize to everyone who was following my progress thread and expecting an update from me. Sorry by not updating on the status. (Deep bow)

You all have been a guiding lighthouse for me.

I am going to summarize about what i have done in last 5 months and where i am right now.

Jan-Feb 2020:
I planned to leave my job in April and focus on business. For that, i needed some footing, emergency funds, and consistent 3-4 clients.

So comes the hustle of finding clients and getting the work done.

I will save your time by not mentioning what i did in this 2 months. I floated on the plank of wood in the middle of the sea, looking for opportunities/work. Till the end of Feb, i had 2 good clients who were paying me as much as i am getting in my 9-5 job, which is 30k INR.

But as you already guessed, i was not getting any traction or success with the way i was working. Looking for website designing clients, pitching them, closing the deal, working my best to deliver the website every time. The same process every-time. It was taking a lot of my time and not much progress.

I even tried to pitch Social Media management services for monthly recurring revenue as mentioned in my earlier posts. But that also didn't yield any results.

I become frustrated and stopped updating here because of no success despite doing everything i can do.

But i didn't stop. I knew there was a problem in the way i was working. After wracking my brain, i found that i was not giving enough value to the client. What was the value here? Sales. business. Revenue.
Even though i pitched them about website can increase the sales and all while cracking the deal, the website i create didn't bring much results or at-least not as much as client expected.

Even social media management service didn't work because all i was doing is to post some content on their profiles, groups etc and use push method to get customers for them.

I figured that i need to do things which generate money for them. Get sales.

After finding the problem, i started looking other ways to generate revenue for clients because i was not loving website development business.

I started learning facebook ads. How to put $1 and get $2, $3, from facebook ads.

And just as i started, an opportunity knocked on my door.

Mar-June 2020:
I was constantly learning facebook ads. What Customer Persona is, how to find Audiences, how to run ads, campaign structures etc.
29th Feb, someone posted in one of the facebook group that they are looking for freelancer to work with them on facebook ads on performance based. The guy mentioned that he will teach as well as give clients.

I was skeptical at first but still went ahead and contacted the person.

We communicated on call and i told him my aspirations, how i work etc.
We got impressed and selected me from those 80+ people commented. Later i found that he is the owner of one the fastest growing Performance Marketing business in India.

So my journey begin.
We started on 1st March. The guy taught me many things about facebook ads, about delivering values and results.

After 10 days, he gave me 1 client to work on. Whatever client spends on ads, his company gets 15% of the ad spent. Of that 15%, I get 30% of the amount.

I was very excited because all his client spends at-least more than 10lakhs (1 million) INR per month. So i will earn good amount.

I worked very hard. Everything i had, i put into it. Working late nights, almost all the time i get after 9-5 job. I pushed my limit to give massive results to them.

And so my friend, i gave result. In the first month, March, i gave client 2 ROAS.
I earned 40k INR from that one client. That's more than my job.

That's how i learned how to give results. That's when i learned what you all meant when you said that provide massive value to your clients.

I was hooked. I liked that feeling.

So i again gave my all, worked hard in April. April was the month i was planning to leave my job. But due to corona shit, i was given WFH and my notice period extended to May end.

But it was good for me. Working from home for my job, I got more time to work on that project. So i put around 8-10 hours daily on the client campaigns.

Ya, i again gave massive results. This time, client spent on ads more than last month. Even better results was given by me. So i earned 60k INR that month.

That's double the money from my job. I felt bliss.
Because, i knew that now i am doing something good. I was doing things which gives output as much as i input. Not like job where i was dead meat. Working on same things every day.

Now, i was solving problems for client almost everyday. Problem on website? Find solution. Results dropped? Find solutions. New things to sell? Find how to sell for client.

Now i really became a Problem Solver as Sir @MustImprove says.

The guy who taught me and gave project also became impressed by the work I did.

He gave me 1 more project in May. This project was Ecommerce. I needed to run facebook ads for ecommerce.

Hence, the same process again. I learn, i execute, refine, test new things, improve winners and then again execute.

This way, May passed, and i finally left my JOB.
Yes everyone.

I left my job which i dreaded everyday.

That day, i won't forgot.

Anyways, at the end of the May, both of the clients i was working, got good results and i earned 80k INR. That's almost 3 times my job.

I gave my best. 1st Client got 2-3 ROAS on what they spent. Second ecommerce client got 4 ROAS. It was because they are very unique in their niche.

The business i am working with, the Performance Marketing business, they were also winning good because of the results i provided for Clients.

June came, and i got one more client. This client is very big. They are very big e-commerce client in India.

This month, first client now gave us a budget of 80 lakhs (8 millions) INR ad spend and expecting the same results like last time. If i am able to give similar results than at the end of the month, i will earn around 2.5lakhs (250k) INR from this client!!!!.

That will be 8x times compare to my job.

I am very happy right now. The work is very exciting. Communicating with clients, finding problems, solving them daily, reporting results, discussing growth plans. It's like never ending journey. I am really liking this journey. Enjoying it.

This is all thanks to TFF. This forum is everything for me. The mindset shift i got after being here on this forum, getting guidance from beautiful and helpful people. All the good feelings i am having right now, is all because of you all.

I just don't have words to thank everyone.
I would like to thank some special ones who have helped me and guided me.
@ZCP @MJ DeMarco @LightHouse @Roz @Roli @Andy Black @Rabby @MustImprove thank you all of you for guiding me on every step. Your advice were gems for me. Not Gold but Gems.
@ZCP sir, I don't know how i can give back this gratitude of yours. Your words just pierced through the fogs.
@Rabby @Roz You are like those partners who are selflessly giving everything to help me. Thank you.
@LightHouse You might not remember me, we had a call when you were providing free 15min discovery call to find out my current problems. Your advice helped me a lot to come out from depression.
@Andy Black you know you are awesome? No words for you. Just blessings.

@Madame Peccato @PizzaOnTheRoof @Jeff Noel @Kyle T and every else who have read my progress and supported me, i sincerely thank you every one.

This is it for now. Even though you guys know, right now i am not doing business, i am just working on partnership based. The guy give me clients, i then i handle everything from client on-boarding, client communications and execution, this is still not CENTS.

But i have plans. I am working toward my CENTS business slowly, along with the thing i am doing. I will update what i will do going forward and my journey from now. I will try to update constantly, like every week about what i am doing.

Sayonara!

 

[Rabby]

Well I'm a little late for "immediate feedback," but I do have something that will help you with cold calls and maybe face to face networking.

It's actually a magic trick! White magic though. Ready?

If you get stuck and don't know what to say to someone, or they don't remember your letter, or previous call, or whatever, just try to make a very small promise. "Sorry if I caught you at a bad time. I'll try you again tomorrow morning at 10am Ok?" Something like that. The key is, you absolutely must call them tomorrow at 10am. That's when you go from "some guy who called me during a meeting" or "some guy who I met at a mixer" to "the guy who makes really specific promises and then actually keeps them."

The thing is, once you're the guy who keeps really specific promises, the offers you make are 100x more believable. Of course, you need to deliver on those too, but how many sales would you have if people believed you when you said "I'll make you a web site that generates leads in the first month." Or whatever your service is.

Variations on this strategy work for all sorts of unexpected hurdles too. Customer calls you with a complicated problem you can't answer right then... "let me call you back in 15 minutes and let you know." In 15 minutes you either call them with the answer, or you call them to let them know you need more time to research. The important thing is that you make a specific promise, and keep it. It builds trust, and it's amazing how much people appreciate it.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Life is becoming awesome. There is no travel of 2 hrs to a dead job. There is no Monday to Friday. No Sat & Sun. I work all 7 days. I work in the morning. In the nights. Staying home, spending so much quality time with family. Getting emails from clients about good results and appreciations makes all the work paid off.

Life has become so much better that I can't even describe.
Feeling a little emotional. From being in mediocre and depressed to the current myself is a difference between heaven and earth.

Thanks, TFF. Thanks, TMF , UnScripted . Thanks, @MJ DeMarco @ZCP @Rabby and all the GOLD/Notable Threads.

Thank you sir for the report.

The work is long and sometimes hard, but it is YOUR work. It is YOUR life. It is YOUR future. It is YOUR time. You are writing YOUR destiny ... I can feel the liberation in your report and it warms my soul.

Congrats.

And this is why I continue to write...

 

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[BlackMagician]

So i just made a cold call to client who i emailed yesterday.

That call was horrible.

Here it is:
Call@09987029481(09987029481)_20180905192637.mp3

First cold call ever done. Feeling good now.

Lessons learned after hearing the recording:

• Be Bold and Confident with little enthusiasm
• Speak clear
• If you feel that the person could be busy, change your first question to "do you have a minute to talk"...

Please give your thoughts seniors.

 

[BlackMagician]

Hi Seniors & Mentors,

A simple hustle to learn, grow and achieve freedom.

To keep it short and not take much time of the reader, here is small intro and what i am doing currently:

In morning, I look for local clients to contact. I am targeting specific niches. Crafting a personal email for each of them (5-6/day) and sending.
Then i go to Job. At job, i try to find time and learn something new.

and then DO nothing.
I am action faking right now. I think stuck somewhere in DOD.

and then, their is this Fear of cold calling. I am thinking to cold call those whom i have emailed, but fear got me good until today.

Hence, starting this thread so that i take more real actions.

Ok Enough about me.

I will be posting whatever i do. 1-2 per week. Not more than that or i will action fake on TFF

P.S- My job timing is 10:30 to 8:30 + 2 hours travel. But the job is a dead job. No pressure, much free time (which i used to procrastinate before joining TFF).

 

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[BlackMagician]

Life is becoming awesome. There is no travel of 2 hrs to a dead job. There is no Monday to Friday. No Sat & Sun. I work all 7 days. I work in the morning. In the nights. Staying home, spending so much quality time with family. Getting emails from clients about good results and appreciations makes all the work paid off.

Life has become so much better that I can't even describe.
Feeling a little emotional. From being in mediocre and depressed to the current myself is a difference between heaven and earth.

Thanks, TFF. Thanks, TMF , UnScripted . Thanks, @MJ DeMarco @ZCP @Rabby and all the GOLD/Notable Threads.

 

[BlackMagician]

Can someone please kick-my-a$$. Really please.
I have been procrastinating the whole month of October. Did nothing.

In September, I emailed around 100 businesses and didn't received a single response, maybe that is the reason i have procrastinated this month.

I am active on the forum, reading others hustle, and now feeling guilty of doing nothing.
I have reading @Crazy GG cold call thread and his/her persistence will. I want to be take action like him. I will. I am starting again, and will take actions now.

So for now a short summary of what i have done till today:

I have completed 1 event website and delivered good results as the owner was very happy and have earned back the investment he did.

Completed 2 graphic design related work (flyer/banner) for my previous employer. I charged him 50$ for that, and he received $7K order through that.

Lessons learned:
As @Andyblack says, HELP someone. I have helped the owner with setting up his social accounts, designed a carry bag for free, and now he is giving a website project plus all his digital marketing task to me. But it will be after 2 months, not now.

From now, i am back, and will strive again to help more people and solve problems through webdesign and digital marketing.

Thanks.

 

[BlackMagician]

G'day All,

I am back with lots of battle scars, tons of failures and going back to square one after my last post.

The journey has been hellish, mentally, physically and emotionally.

In Sept 22, I posted about my agency progress, doing okiesh with everything in life.

Then I fell ill in Sept 22. Got admitted in hospital for a 15 days and found that i had Tuberculosis (T.B).
After few days, and couple of more test, doctors found, i also have HIV.

From there everything crashed. I never had intimate relationship with anyone before my marriage and my wife is HIV negative but i got HIV positive. I don't know how. Well that sucks.

Every damn thing just crashed hard.

I was not prepared for anything like this. Anyhow, because of strong mental capacity, the HIV thing, didn't have much impact on my mind and emotions, but physically, i was destroyed, due to both T.B and HIV.

So a long hustle of medication started to cure T.B asap, which dramatically reduced my ability to function properly.

I always had high fever
I was not able to sleep long
Constant body ache, weakness, dizziness
Only 3-4 hours of mental energy to function

Hence i took the decision on pausing the agency altogether, telling my clients goodbye becoz it became difficult to function in my day to day activities.

Also, due to no preparation and zero savings, I also had to earn food for my big family (8).

Hence i started looking for job in agencies and found 1 after a month.

Due to health, i had to take this and started working in the agency, remotely, with minimal input from my end.
The agency owner was a friend connection so he helped me initially with work load.

i scraped by someone how in those 9 months, financially.

Simultaneously, due to no savings, I was constantly in pressure to earn my bread, which also made my family very restless (parents) because its only me in my family that earns. My family was very supportive and worry constantly about my health and my work.

At the same time, my family and my wife started having issues between them and the relationship started getting sour.

I somehow managed (we live in joint family here in India)

4 months back, i had a cute and lovely baby boy. My first child.

Almost everything was going wrong. I also stopped doing any spiritual work i used to do.

It's been 11 months now since then.

I have recovered my health. T.B is cured. HIV medication is going (there is NO cure).

2 months back, i again took decision of leaving the job and start working on my agency again.

Right now i have 2 clients in hand that pays the bill.

Relationship between my family and wife is still sour but i am handling things somehow.

Mentally and physically i am ok but still fog/stress/depress and weak body.

I will give a detailed update on my status on BIZ and what i am doing/going to do to grow again in next post.

Right now, i just wanted to say HI to all of you once again that i am back

Posting here about all of these to unload my mind a little and start using the forum for positive feedback loop and accountability from you guys.

You guys have been a morale support for me and I am thankful for that. Kindly be responsive on this thread that i will revive and again strive to achieve my goals/dreams.

Just wish me luck and give your blessings.
@Kak @Andy Black @MJ DeMarco @BizyDad @Rabby @Bekit @ZCP @MattL
Tagging all of you who were following this thread so that you can share your inputs on this.
It could be possible that my current mindset is wrong so you can point me. I am open to all feedbacks, criticism and support.


Until next time
Thanks
Sayonara
BM

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Then I fell ill in Sept 22. Got admitted in hospital for a 15 days and found that i had Tuberculosis (T.B).
After few days, and couple of more test, doctors found, i also have HIV.

From there everything crashed. I never had intimate relationship with anyone before my marriage and my wife is HIV negative but i got HIV positive. I don't know how. Well that sucks.

Sorry to hear buddy.

If:
1. You never had sexual relations with anyone, of any kind, until getting married AND
2. You never did IV drugs or used dirty needles on yourself AND
3. Never had and never did any blood transfusions

Then I highly encourage you to take the HIV test again. False positives do exist, and HIV is hard to acquire. It's less than 1% chance to acquire it if you have sex with a well-known HIV positive person without protection. Even receiving anal sex from an HIV positive person only has about a 1% chance of transmission.

 

[Antifragile]

Thats some insane POV to think.
Now that you have mentioned those questions, i would like to answer them here, because i feel this forum as my family. I know sharing personal details is scary thing on internet, but lets see.

1. Yes i am supporting my parents, siblings, wife and myself. I am 28yrs old, big brother to my siblings. My father is retired already. My siblings are in colleges or school. I only have 1 brother who just crossed 15yr age. Others are my sister who are in colleges. My self-esteem will not allow me to make my sisters(eldest is 23, other is 19) work to pay bills. My wife is housewife and in true sense, a great wife.
2. Frankly, my father should be the person who can lighten the load but he is little aggresive and aged. No emotional support from him. NO i am not bad mouthing him. Just his personality. He is retired so can't work.
3. I can take a side job. Frankly, I think i can do better just taking 2 more clients. Work doesn't feel a big issue to me right now. If i can just crack 2 deals (which i am already in process) the financial burden should lighten drastically. But to answer your question, i can take a job in another agency to pay bills.
4. I can do random work, but i am skilled enough to do high paying work, like media buying, copywriting, scaling brands etc, which i am already doing. Being a part of this forum since more than 4 years now, my mindset is just like you guys.
   1. Doing freelancing as media buyer, creative strategist.
   2. Consulting smaller ecom brands on scaling
   3. Designing websites
   4. Lead generations for agencies (Just like I am doing for myself right now)
   5. Creating my own offer, launching it to the mass. Very big process and execution, and doesn't fit in my current situation. But very lucrative and high paid, low hours.
5. The family is not self dependent. My father hasn't created any assets/source for income (slowlane with no plan). Thanks to @MJ DeMarco books that i know what went wrong with my father decisions and what i should do for myself. So if I am not there, it will be a disaster for my family. In worst-case, my father might need to do odd jobs, my sisters need to take low paying jobs, and live a stressful life. I have started training my brother with what i learned, so that he can start earning/doing/building asap, but that will still take 1-2 years.

Thats what i can think about right now. My best and quickest shot is to close the current 2 trialed clients at ₹50k/client (which is more than enough for my family per month). As soon as i get them, financial thing will be resolved.

Again, thanks for lighting the torch for me. Let me know what you think.

I admire you for how you and your wife support your whole family. You seem like a great person.

There is also likely a lot of cultural pressure…

What is ”normal” in India, would be strange in North America and vice versa.

You can’t help anyone if you are dead​

Decades ago I was a lifeguard. To this day I remember our training, the first rule of saving lives is to make sure you don’t put yourself in harm‘s way. Like yesterday I remember someone explaining that a drowning person can kill you while climbing onto you at sea. We were taught how to get out of those situations… and as scary it’ll sound now, one method was to let them drown. What does that mean? If the person is full on panic, kicking and trying to climb on you, use your legs to kick them to free yourself. That means they will likely gulp water, that’s OK. Grab them as soon as it’s safe, get them to shore and perform CPR.

Why am I sharing this? Because with TB, HIV and a huge family to support, I feel you are killing yourself, yet you are supposedly the “lifeguard” of this family. Remember, you can’t help any of them if you are dead or permanently disabled in some way that prevents you from work.

Who are we responsible for in life?​

The script of life is everywhere you go. Religious people are scripted in religious dogma. Atheists are scripted in thinking they are “scientists“. Israelis are scripted in hating Palestinians and vice versa. The world today is scripted to hate Russia, back in 2001 it was Muslims and Osama… over 80% of North Americans are overweight, obese and so on because of the script on how to live life (junk food, watching 7 hours of TV and complaining of no energy to exercise). I embellish a little for effect, but trying to stay close to the truth.

It seems to be that in India, in your family, there is a script that YOU are responsible for your dad, mom, sisters and your brother.

This could be contentious… but my personal opinion is that there must be a hierarchy to who you support and when. I share this because my wife and I support a lot of people in our family today. But hear me out… when I was 28 I didn’t. I didn’t have a successful business, I had a job. I couldn’t pay for my parents and I didn’t. Only now, over a decade later that we pay for both sets of parents, support cousins etc. If we didn’t, they don‘t have an option B.

In my mind, the priority order is:

1. Your child first. Without you around, what future will your child have? You and your wife decided to have a child, now that’s YOUR collective responsibility. By extension, it’s your father’s and mother’s responsibility to take care of your sibling.
2. Your parents are probably 2nd. And likely more so when they get older and become incapable of supporting themselves. But it sounds like your dad is maybe in his 50s? That’s so young. If he’s not disabled or ill, how is he “retired” with no money?
3. Your extended family, siblings and so forth…
4. Friends
5. Strangers

Side note: You see how you are a stranger to me, you are at the bottom of my list. Remember that as you read these posts from me and others.

My advice and ideas are like shoes in a shoe store​

What I am sharing are just thoughts. You and I are not family. FLF isn’t your family either, but just a cool and helpful community of regular people. Try to help but remember, I am a random stranger on the internet! So treat my thoughts and advice as the way you buy shoes. Try a pair, walk around and if they aren’t fitting - change them!


More Questions to ask yourself:

• If what you are doing today costs you your health permanently, when your child needs you most you can’t help… how will you feel about decisions you are making today?
• Is moving out with you wife and child an option?
• When running a business, what is the most important thing you must have to succeed? (My answer is… clarity of mind. That only comes from reducing stress. I sincerely believe i made the most money when I was most calm and clear in my head. Under extreme stress, I think we make poor decisions. Success is simply a by-product of good decisions).

Hope this is helpful… It’s a very hard conversation to have, even on the internet between strangers.

 

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[BlackMagician]

Checking in on how you are doing.

Thanks for this.

I have been active on the forum, just didn't updated the thread because I want to update when substantial things have been done.

FAMILY:
I boldly took action and told my family that I will take decisions regarding my wife/son. That dramatically decreased my stress.
Also mended the relationship between wife and family substantially.

After discussing with other elders in my contacts, i understood few points about handling situations like these.

Health:
I started having Unani herbs/meds to improve my health. Can feel clear mind, increasing energy. I will start workout after a week or so.

Agency:
Cracked 1 deal today. Remember I was doing trial work for them? They liked my work. 2 clients in hand now. For next month, I will be earning around ₹80k so the financial crisis will be solved.

1 more deal in the pipeline, doing the same trial run for them, I am confident to crack this too in next 15 days.

Another major update is about an old connection. So this guy runs 8 figure babycare brand, and I have worked for his brand in 2020 while working in the agency ( you might need to go back 3-4 pages of this thread to find that out).

As I started creating my own personal brand on LinkedIn, this guy approached me. We communicated in call, relished those 2020 growth days and how i scaled their brand 3x in those times.

He told me that he is looking for someone who can scale his Personal care segment. His babycare segment is already doing ₹3CR+ per month on website and ₹10CR+ on marketplaces.

He wanted me to do an audit on his current Business performance from DTC.

Today I presented that. Showed exactly where they can improve the results in babycare ads.

The guy is convinced and I might get this brand to scale his personal care segment.

If I crack this deal, I will be doing 10x of what I was doing last year before I fall sick.

Let's see. In touch with them and adding values everyday in his business already.

Showed him 3 critical problems in ads, WhatsApp marketing and website conversion.

Remember this thread title? "Adding value".

Personal Brand Building:
I have been consistently posting on LinkedIn, sharing valueable content and making myself an authority in Personal care niche here in India.
Multiple founders now know me and they are interacting with my content on daily basis. Getting queries from few of them, to whom I am saying NO if they are not my ICP.

Trying to make this personal brand a successful organic lead-gen machine.
In the meantime, creating team to execute on client tasks.

Already approached couple of ads designers media buyers. Just trying to find 1 media buyer who can perform well then I can grow this fast.

If I crack 1 more deal this month ( I am confident) next month, I will start saving cash so that I can hire good talent and grow this fast.

That's all from my end. Thanks for following up and watching my performance from side. To all of you who are struggling, just keep going. Ask for help and advice and relentlessly execute.

Until next time
Sayonara
BM

 

[BlackMagician]

Clients: 2
Leads: 2

G'Day hustlers,

After many struggle to provide value, fights with laziness, some depressed procrastination in the last two months, i have achieved some good results(in my eyes).

Completed an Interior firm website project which i got from networking. As a form of value addition and over deliver, i implemented email system for them, created social accounts and gave hand-to-hand training on managing online business.

Tomorrow i will be handing over the website to them and complete the project. The project was of 25k (INR). The client is very happy and have referred a construction firm.

***
In the last month i became a member of business group and doing good with creating relationship with them. The group member are sort of non techy SME firms. Due to helping them in tech related stuffs, i have become admin of group(not just the attendee) and manage the activities there.
Next month, they have asked to give a small session on business growth through social media. I am very excited about that.


***

About failure: There are many. The fishing client is not responding, and whenever i contact him, he vaguely response. I think i made a blunder in the recent meeting when i said i am working as a job and doing the business simultaneously, or maybe i messed up by not providing enough value. I don't know what was the reason.

Another failure comes from myself. I have been lazy, wasting time on reading novels and doing shits... feeling down and can someone please kick me/punch me for this? (if you are in Mumbai)

Anyways, i learned a lot and failed a lot in these two months. Nothing much to show.

Well as new year is coming, in the next post i will post my resolution and commitments and will achieve them all.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

@Black_Dragon43 can probably help with the agency business side

More than happy to help brother. I can give @BlackMagician free access to our Discord community + Learning Platform, so he has all the support her needs to get back up on his feet in terms of business growth. And more than happy to share my strategy for LinkedIn growth with him for free. If you're interested @BlackMagician just shoot me a DM

 

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[BlackMagician]

G'day All,

Here is the update on biz:

After i left the temporary job 2 months ago, I took 1 client to pay the bills.

Started building my LinkedIn personal brand (i had done similar on Facebook last year, so I knew what to do.
In the first month of creating content, building network and giving out tons of value on LinkedIn, I got 4 brands who wants to work with me in the pipeline.

Right now, i am doing 15 days trial for 2 of the brands, and if I gave good results, they will onboard with me. I know i shouldn't have done the free thing, but these brands i know personally and they are doing good. They are spending close to ₹1 M/ month on ads so if i cracked these 2 clients, i will get my revenue from ₹40k (right now) to ₹150k instantly, hence doing upfront work for them.

I have already built a great repo with them so they are already in bag, just need to prove with results.

Apart from them, 3 more brands are in pipeline, to who i can crack the deals with proper case studies. Possibly end of this month.

The reason i got 6 brands in pipeline in just 1 month of content on Linkedin is because:
1) My offer is good. I am focusing on 1 NICHE only with great case studies
2) I am adding tons of value upfront on my profile (literally giving the exact ads/videos/copy/strategies working for similar brands for free)

Current Challenges as asked by @Antifragile :
1) Discipline and Consistency: Due to huge gap in execution, I need to rebuild myself for discipline and consistent execution. Thats why restarted the thread to stay disciplined as you guys makes me accountable.

2) Creating Ads: As i am not from Design background and dont have team, i am not able to make high performing ads (I know what to make, but no skill in making). Most of the current clients/future clients will need my agency to create ads.
Due to no funds/cash, couldn't hire someone to do this. Also very low pool to get great designer. Difficult to find who can follow the market needs. I don't know what to do. Right now, i am managing this through mobile apps that are easy to design ads. Any suggestions or feedback is welcomed here.

3) Fear: Right now, I have zero savings. Whatever i get from this 1 client, i am putting food on the table. Its 2nd month now and i need to get 2 more clients atleast to stabilize my mind, energy and remove fear.
I can resolve this problem. Not a big thing. Just need to be consistent with what I am doing. Please pitch in if you think I am being overconfident here and can give another perspective of yours.

4) Health: I am still on medication. Will visit the final test thing tomorrow and see if I am cured of T.B. If that is removed, than I will start building my immunity and physical fitness. Been 1 year i did any sort of workout.

5) Relationship with Wife and family: As i mentioned in previous post, my wife and family relation is little sour. Not too bad but still has an impact on my emotions. I got in touch with my elder (a great person) yesterday, and summarized him all the family issues. he gave great wisdom to tackle them and making the relationship great again. I have started executing on that and already seeing positive outcome today.

That's all on problems and challenges.

Future plans:
1) Need to reach 3 clients and ₹100k (1 lakhs rupees) revenue asap (next month max)
2) Will keep posting and creating content on linkedin and fill the pipeline with 10 leads atleast.
3) As i get some cash at hand, hire someone to create ads so that i can focus on building the agency.
4) FOCUS is were i HAVE to put my all. Do help me here. Don't want to consume any content now. I have been consuming great contents from great people since 3 years now. I just want to execute now.


Thanks for everyone above who encouraged me and is supporting my journey. I will be sure to meet all of you one day as soon as i build my biz and thank you directly.

Special thanks to @Black_Dragon43 who gave me resources worth $1000 dollars for free in DM. I will give back in some way brother. You are great.

@Antifragile @Bekit Here is the update. Do add your feedback on my improvement.
I want you guys to help me the way you did to Eric of Cheesecake. I promise, i will achieve what he missed in that thread.

Thanks again.
Sayonara
BM

 

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[ZCP]

you don't need someone to kick your a$$
you need a stronger why

what is your 'why'?

raise your rates

start building a business and a system where YOU sell and close the deal and your team does the work and handles the admin

land a bunch of business and create the 'system'

then scale

get to it!

 

[ZCP]

#2 is pretty good. the others look like action faking.

what three things would radically change your course and get you moving in large steps toward your goals?

order:
what is your why?
goals?
what massive actions are needed to make them happen?
who do you need to be to complete those actions?
what does that person do each day?
what are the first three things they would do?
do them.

 

[BlackMagician]

Hey there. How are things working out for you?

G'day all!

It's a long due update from my side.

Blunder! Blunder! Blunder!

Things were going good for all my FB ads clients at the end of July. We were crushing good numbers for them. Baby Product client even doubled the ad spent budget from ₹1.5M to ₹2.8M for August. They were happy. I was happy.

Then...

On 28th July, I tried to scale the FB account by 40%. I literally increased the current adspent by 40% and next day, the Baby Product client account crashed from 2.7ROAS to 1.2 ROAS.

Everything messed up. I tried decreasing budget but account didn't recover. Next 7 days account didn't cross 1.5 ROAS.

Client panicked. I panicked. BM Marketing CEO became gloomy.

I tried to find a problem. I tried solving them. Long hours in getting the account stable. Continuous calls, meetings with client.

Till 15th August, I was not able to recover the account as it was despite taking help from other members of BM Marketing.

The client was very good. He showed patience. Told me that things get bad some times and its on us to stay calm and focus and solve the problem. I really liked his attitude. Obviously, because the client is a veteran in the business and has already sold 1 business in ₹4 billion.

Anyways, I asked client for time till 25 Aug. He agreed. I again put everything i can along with other team members to stabilize the account and bring it back.

Sad to say...

I was not able to.

I lost the client.
It struck me very badly. I became emotionally down. Took me 4 days to settle my emotions and to get back on track.

But i learned some lessons.

There is no need to stay down. Bad times will come. We should always stay focus & keep moving forward.
-------------------------

Right now, I have 3 clients and can take more clients but I want to upgrade myself and systemize the process.
Right now I am trying to manage 3 people who can execute the work on these clients and I plan and strategize on scaling process.

Mindset is to systemize the scaling process on the current clients and only after that will take more clients to scale.

-------------------------
This August month, despite losing 1 client, I earned ₹160K.
------------------------


On Beauty Niche Business:

So I accepted the offer of partnership.

After i got the gist of this beauty business, I got to know few important things. Name of the brand has already finalized and we are in the process of creating Brand Image/Communication.

As soon as I join, it struck me really hard that they are not thinking from CENTS' point of view. I mean this business has the CENTS potential but the mindset if different.

They haven't found any need/problem in the beauty market which they can solve. They are going the traditional way of doing branding, creating products, selling in the market, take feedback, and improving.

That mindset is also good I will say. Nevertheless, I suggested and pointed out that we need to find a problem in the market before introducing/creating any product.

They liked the idea and now we are working on finding market gaps.
We do weekly calls to understand what has been done and where we stand. Each of us has different responsibilities. I am helping in Brand Communication right now and later will focus on Performance Marketing.

As per the timeline, it might take 5-6 months to launch any product in the market. I know it is very slow and the process seems little off to me as well, which I DID point out to the team.

Can't expect big change though. So this beauty business might take some time to show any results.

I might create a separate progress thread for this beauty business as we start getting traction.

That's all for now.
Thank for all the supports.

P.S: Never increase the budget of Facebook ads more than 15-20% in one go. Increase slowly by 15%, check the impact for 2 days then increase.

 

[BlackMagician]

G'day all,
Phew.. That was a long meeting with the client. Client? Yup, I cracked the deal! Yay! Just left the warehouse of laundry business. A long 3 hours discussion on business, growth, strategies and long term goals and we closed the deal.

I will say what a person. Age would be around 45/50, he has clearly laid his business growth plans to open 12+ laundry outlet in our city and service all over mumbai.

They are unsexy laundry cleaning business with all the necessary equipments. They are not local retail laundry. Most of the local retail laundry services outsource the work from them. Now they are going to deal with customers directly and will start with online Marketing.

As for Starter, 15k/month for social media marketing and 30k for website designing.

That's 2 recurring clients per months as of now.
25k per month. OMG! That's the amount i earn from my job! Wohhh. He He He.
And 3 website design project.

As soon as i reach home, will send a good cracked email with invoice and the points we discussed.

Its so hot here. Outside because of sun, inside because of excitement.

That's all for now. Will update later.

 

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[BlackMagician]

Well, its here. My 1st anniversary as Entrepreneur.

I joined this forum in 2018, when i didn't knew a single thing about business/value or money.

It took me 1.5yrs to leave job, upskill myself, upgrade my mindset and go into the world.

In 2020, I started doing freelancing for other agency and took my income from ₹30k (a delivery guy earns this much here in india) to 5x of that in 1 year.

In 2021 June, I left that agency contract and started my first journey towards entrepreneurship.

July 2022, I started this biz. Year #1 has been...well painfully beautiful.

I had to struggle and fight with myself this year. I had to break through a few limiting barriers (mentally).

There are some pretty big highs and lows in entrepreneurship.

I can now recover from the "hits" almost every time.

The world of business doesn't care how many steps were easy but it will stop you when you haven't learned enough to advance.

but

I am enjoying the process. Even though i can't see my goals from where i stand but i know i will reach.

I am earning 3-4x my salary from last job. Enough to live comfortably.

I no longer trade 5 days for 2 days. I now work 7 days for 0 days. 3-5 hours per day....that's it. Sometimes more, but i decide.

Well i still trade time for money but we all are here for FASTLANE right?

Spends 3-4 hours with family. Couldn't do that before.

Even though its been only 1 year but my journey taught me that it takes time. A year of no results, no immediate gratifications, no money in bank, no support, family pushing to get job and you don't see your path.

A year full of failures and battle scars.

This proves that there is no short cut in this game.

I still don't know where i will reach but i am happy with my journey. I will reach my goals.
For me, a year was worth it.

Is it for you?

 

[BlackMagician]

Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that. It’s a very tough thing to handle especially since you know you didn’t do anything wrong on your end.

HIV is no longer the death sentence it used to be, now with the right drugs you can live a long, fulfilled life. Try to look on the bright side — you have your family, you have your skills and you still have you. There’s a lot going for you.

I think you have the potential to inspire a lot of us — and you’re already doing it — through your bravery and how you handle this situation. So thank you for that!

Thanks for the support Black dragon. We are from same universe. Black magician and black dragon .

I am still on medication for TB and likely this month, it will be cured. HIV med will be a lifelong thing. This was the longest I was sick. 10 months almost.

I am just uplifting my mind as of now and trying to focus on getting couple of clients so that i can be back on track and then start growing the agency.

I have also started creating my personal brand on LinkedIn by sharing tons of value most agencies don't share, through which I have started getting leads. 3 leads are in pipeline.
I will create a proper post about biz update today.

 

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[BlackMagician]

After pushing myslef for cold email/cold calling, i come to know that its very difficult for me, and i am good in networking directly. So i am doing direct communication.

I have good amount of network with businesses and people, so i will be taking this approach.

Last sunday, a meeting was schedule with a local fish business client through my network.
They client wants to go online and have shopping android app. He wants to do FB marketing to increase the app installation and sales via apps.

We started discussing everything on Lunch, I gave him some tips to improve his app for sales oriented. This step impressed him. To better help him, i talked with his developer (client is not techy) and explained him on the changes and improvements.

I also advice him to create a standee banner infront of his office so that his current customers will know that they can order fish online. I promise him to create a banner for him for upfront free.

After that, we discussed everything on marketing the app. Deal was finally closed on
₹10k/Month.

This is my first deal on digital marketing and recurring sales. I am quite happy.

Through this meeting and previous experience i assume that i am quite comfortable to talk face to face and have Listening skill.

Lessons Learned:

Ask questions. Ask right questions at right time to our clients. I need to learn this better. If we ask them right questions, they get attracted to us and try to explain in more detail which creates interest. I notice that when i ask questions, they tend to loose interest. When i tracked back, those questions were not meant to be asked at that time, even though the question was important.

Right question at right time shows that we know and understand what they are talking about. This is very essential skill.

Will keep posting as i progress, though my speed is like snail infront of @Crazy GG leopard.
I read your posts. Yup. as soon as you post.

 

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[BlackMagician]

G'Day All,

Small Update:

After getting in touch with the local networking group and becoming the admin, i have started getting many odd jobs. Received 10+ graphics and logo design work. All on small scale.

• Got this from Business group. Closed a deal with Makeupartist on 15k INR for Social media management.
• God knows from where but i got call from hotel business guy who need website. After many calls, we closed the deal. To close this deal, i did an extensive research on there pain point and the ways to solve that. They want to implement Direct Booking from there website and save money which they pay to OTA(Online travel Agency). Website designing of 20k is in process and after that will manage there SMM for 10k.
  
  This client is loosing so much money by not having much online presence. They were No 1 hotel in there location some years back but there competitors pushed them behind by doing proper marketing and advertising. This proves that Marketing and Advertising is other half of the business.
  
  I have many calls with them and the basic strategy have been laid out. I hope to pull it through and help them achieve there goals which is to get direct booking.
  
  They have also verbally confirmed the deal for there other Hotel which is in redevelopment.

• Helped a lady in catering business in graphics designs and simple business ideas to speedup her food delivery last week. A kind gesture for her. She looks very nice person so i helped her. Now she revealed that her husband have Construction & Interior designing business and they are looking for someone trustworthy to design website and manage online activity. Talk about kindness effect @Andy Black .

That's all for the positive part. Thinking of others ways to fill the pipeline.

The problem i am facing right now is having a proper system.

• For SEO Audit or website traffic analysis i waste time on free tools but the results are not satisfactory.
• Graphic design tasks go wary. I explain something else, my graphic guy do something else. He is very good in it. Just i am not good in graphics and not able to explain.
• Proper system for tasks and project is not there. Right now i am only using simple sheet and messages to communicate. In this the execution process lacks somewhere. I think i need to create a proper collaboration system similar to Laser Focus productivity by @LightHouse . In that thread, @Kyle T mentioned Clickup.com tool. I think i will use that. If you guys have any tips for this, do guide me.

Overall, things are working slowly as i am learning business process, learning sales, communication, and trying to find business need to solve.

Inspired by Fox and others, i am also putting a challenge for this year in the next post to push myself to achieve them.

*Note - All the money amount i mentioned are in Indian rupee. So 20k is $282.32. I know I am charging way low compare to others. But at start phase i think i should build better client proof to whom i have helped drastically and skills to help them better in future. What do you all think, hustlers?

 

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[BlackMagician]

This is off topic, not related to my progress.

I was thinking of why many website design business in my city try to get clients abroad(US, UK etc). So many business have crappy websites and little online presence and they have loads of money to pay.

People say that business here don't pay much. Abroad clients pay way better. But i Second this.

After little observation i come to this theory. Please point it out if i am wrong somewhere.

An average US family of four need $4,045(source). An Average Indian family of four need ₹40,000.
A ten times.

An average website design studio in US charge for website around 1k-5k (source: fox group)
An average website design studio in my city charge for website around 20k-50k(source: me)

So what's the difference here? why do other try to get the clients abroad? Why not just help businesses here?

Is it because of currency difference? Well according to the expense of living, that's the same amount of earning.

Instead of spamming(i know we got a bad rep there) business/people there, why not try to help people here? we can get the almost same amount of money if we do business here.

Recently i checked an Oil rig business who's turnover is above ₹1000cr, but have a crappy website. So many elevator companies doing google adwords with crappy website and loosing money. So many 3star - 4star - 5star hotels have no online presence and no direct booking to increase there sales %.

I just feel that the same opportunity is available here. Before spamming other countries, why not help people here?

Sorry if my analyse is wrong or my words seems naive.
Do point out my mistake and your own thoughts.

 

[BlackMagician]

Holy cow!!! What is this? GOLD Thread!

Love Love. So much Love. I am so happy. Finally. A GOLD Thread. Damn it. I am too much happy.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Can't express it. I am crying here.

@Andy Black @Vigilante @AllenCrawley

GOLD/NOTABLE thread?

Dude went from soul suffocating 9 - 5 to making 8x more than his salary thanks to TMF and FLF.

I don't deserve Gold @Roz. It's you all who deserve all this. Seriously man. Thank you!

This is amazing. Thank you for documenting your journey, including your ups and downs and sitting on a plank in the ocean (is that the most humorous way of describing the desert of desolation?).

Thank you for sharing how you feel now so we can share in your win and so you can inspire others to do the same.

Thanks @Roz for tagging us. Yes, this deserves GOLD (update). This is exactly why @MJ DeMarco wrote his books and created the forum. It’s exactly why @Vigilante @AllenCrawley @Fox and @ZCP and many many other forum members spend so much time in here helping out. (I'll tag a few other people you've tagged before just to ensure they read your update... @Rabby @LightHouse @MustImprove @Roli @Madame Peccato @PizzaOnTheRoof @Jeff Noel @Kyle T)

Seeing someone get to their freedom date and escape their 9-5 is beautiful. Then going on to each 8x their salary?!? Well done

What’s your main goal for the next 12 months @BlackMagician?

What is your main threat?

What is your main opportunity?

I am on cloud nine. Last year, i decided upon myself that i will earn a GOLD thread on my progress. For others, GOLD Thread and getting bestowed with INSIDERS will be a small things, but for me, it's very huge. It means i am being recognized. I am doing the right thing.
Getting this GOLD is worth all my efforts of last 2 years.

I was not this happy when i left job and earned twice the job.

Thanks man.

I am sorting out things in my mind and will surely post what is my plans further.

The best thing about all this however is that you've achieved happiness by taking action, which is a far, far bigger achievement than making all the money in the world.

Thanks @Simon Angel . God speed to you in your journey. The Founder asked me that i am interested in handling Google ads of some clients. Even though i want to, I want to first master Facebook very well.

Because it's not about ads. So much things go behind any campaign to make it successful. Just blindly running the ads will suck up the money.
I will learn more in next 3-4 months and will plan the next steps.

Crazy progress my man, and the best part is that you're just getting started!

Crazy love to you @Madame Peccato. Thanks for all the encouragement. Yes, this is just a start. It's a long journey.

@BlackMagician proud of you!

next steps?

some suggestions:
- keep it going and begin to improve the process so it can scale
- read 'richest man in babylon' book to setup your future and create your wealth plan to take advantage of this opportunity
- begin to help and teach others to keep the chain going!

Bless you sir @ZCP . Massive respect to you. Massive love to you. You being proud makes me feel blessed. You are the only person on the Internet whom i call SIR.

So many things going on every day. I haven't sorted out things in my mind right now socan't give a concrete details, but I am helping the Founder of BM Marketing in systemizing his agency. I am able to add value in his agency.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to do that actually.
Right now, i can handle 4 clients easily. Will optimize my work and try to do the work in less time.
Will read the book. I started this book some months ago, but only read 1 chapter and forgot to continue. Will pick it up. I have some ideas on my future steps which i will constantly post on this thread.

- begin to help and teach others to keep the chain going!

This is very important. keeping the chain going is the most important. I am starting the get the glimps of why this is so important.
I will share whatever i have learned here on this forum, to others whom i know personally, and whoever i can share.

Thank you Sir.

 

[Bekit]

Thankyou @Bekit

Shall I leak a little secret?
I have been following your posts and threads from the day you posted your introduction. Because you and I joined this forum around similar time. I joined in July 2018, you in August 2018. So I felt a closeness with you.
Your mindset and way of writing made me interested.
But later, I felt envious. In very little time, you got so many recognition here. You received praise. So read most of your posts. All of them are full of value, emotions, and selfless giving mindset. I loved it. I thought to be like you, progressing massively just like you.

The day you were honored with INSIDERS from members, I decided 2 things. To improve & progress myself so much that my Progress thread receives GOLD.
And to give value on this forum and get bestowed by INSIDERS. Just like you. I remember the post which got you an INSIDERS. We both can buy INSIDERS but getting bestowed is a whole another level of feeling.

So you commenting on my thread, recognizing my efforts and congratulating me.... IS VERY AWESOME TO ME.

Thank you for encouraging me with your own efforts and growth throughout these 2 years we were part of this forum.


You can find similarities. I was pretty much holding myself by reading the progress thread of a bunch of people who joined at the same time with me. Though many has stopped updating their progress thread.

Yes i will continue to post what i am doing as frequently as possible. I am learning so many things that i am not able to keep them sorted in my brain. Will try to share what i am learning as much as possible in this thread.
Apart from these, as i have mentioned previously, i am striving toward a Fastlane business which i have in my mind. So taking the current progress as a foundation i will start working on that in next 4-5 months and keep updating here on this thread.

That's awesome. Thanks for leaking the little secret. I had no idea!

Now the tables are turned and I'm over here feeling left in the dust like, "WAIT! I want to 8x MY income!!! Have I gotten complacent?"



There's an old proverb that says, "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17)

I think this is great.

I sharpened you and made you resolve to get a gold thread.

Now you're sharpening me and making me resolve to make big, dramatic action in my income.

High-five to that!

 

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[Andy Black]

Just a few small hints:

1. Don’t be envious, be inspired.
2. Don’t have goals to get Gold threads or external recognition - you can’t invoice for those. Cultivate your internal locus of control.

Good that you’re spurring each other on. Watch how @Kak and @Vigilante egg each other on to higher heights in their radio show threads.

I chatter with @Lex DeVille about projects we’re working on. We compare notes and are both trying to hit milestones in the next week or so.

There’s no envy, just peers supporting and pushing each other.

 

[BlackMagician]

G'day All!

How are you all? I am back with all the pending updates.

Why didn't I update even though I was active on the forum? Well, many roller coaster rides, ups and down and I didn't fill the details here.

Soooo, what was the last update?

Right now, I have 3 clients and can take more clients but I want to upgrade myself and systemize the process.
Right now I am trying to manage 3 people who can execute the work on these clients and I plan and strategize on scaling process.

Mindset is to systemize the scaling process on the current clients and only after that will take more clients to scale.

Man, last update was in August. I might need to write a 300 page-long book for the update i think

.

I will start with a small summary of what I have already posted as a recap and give the bigger update from August 2020 to till date.

Recap:
After hustling into the web design niche, I stumbled to FB performance marketing niche and partnered with a local agency (BM Marketing) on a percentage basis where I give results to clients, clients pay to the agency and I get my share. A win-win-win situation described by @Andy Black .

I left my soul sucking job in May 2020, earned 4x my salary in June 2020, and 8x in the next 2 months.

In the middle of all this, the BM Marketing agency CEO, who was scaling his agency very fast and smoothly, wanted to start a beauty niche business and asked me to join on 5% SHARES. I accepted.

I was handling 4 clients, giving good ROAS to clients, and worked sparingly in the beauty niche.

Recap over.

 

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[BlackMagician]

I am just going to write whatever comes in my mind. So expect boring paragraphs, little emotions and just facts pasted on your face. Pardon me.

August:
As mentioned in the last update, I lost 1 big client this month and was depressed for a few days, but licked my wound and got on track.

Pushed myself hard in this month, scaled “Client 1 - Online Education”, to ₹3.9M revenue and ₹2.5M Ad spent in August. This was their best month in terms of revenue.

Their model is to break even on the frontend, and be profitable on the backend. But we made them profitable on the frontend itself.

In the meantime, new people joined the BM agency and I became the go to guy to teach them basics of performance marketing.

September:
This month, I took 1 more client. This new client solves skin problems in a new way. The product quality, packaging, voice, branding, everything were top notch. They were new in the market but wanted to become an established brand in India.

I took the client and gave them 6x ROAS in the first month. I won’t say this is because of my skills. They smell full of Productrocracy from a product point of view.
Just a small marketing contribution from us helped the brand get awesome results.

As mentioned previously, i shifted my focus from executing the ads myself to creating plans and strategies for clients, finding problems to solve, new opportunities to tap, Communicating with clients, understanding the inner workings of big and small companies helped me learn few major points of leaderships, importance of Control and how to manage sudden situations.


October/November:
The BM Marketing Agency officially gave me the position of Campaign Manager. In these months, all clients were just going OK because of Q4. So we focused on making systems and structures for internal use.

As I was new to systems and structures, I learned a lot and helped on a few places to create training systems for new joiners, structure for Weekly/Monthly reports for clients, Better client communication process, Client Onboarding processes.

December:
Again lost 2 clients. I was not able to give them the results they expected.

Scaled Client 1 - Online Education to ₹12M revenue. Trend, admission season and our marketing efforts played a role in achieving this result. Highest revenue generated for any client in 1 month. No client of the BM Marketing agency has generated this much revenue in a single month. I was pumped up.

But...

Mid of December, suddenly the BM Marketing guy told me that he is changing the model from Percentage basis to fix amount, starting 2021. So I will get a fixed amount of 80k INR instead of 150k-200k INR I was getting and I have to manage 6 clients along with the team as a campaign manager.

I was shocked. I mean, this was very sudden. He said that they are not being profitable and the current percentage model is not scalable in the long run for the agency. Hmm. I can understand that. It’s true somehow. You can’t keep paying a percentage to every new guy who joins. You need to create different teams and departments for better delivery.

I can understand that.

Well, I supported and he started making process and structure to reshuffle the whole working process of the agency.

Starting Jan 2021, I worked as usual but with limited earning and low drive. He started to restrict a few things, and made a similar concept of how any other marketing agency out there does.

Ah man, This won’t work, I thought.
I want to give my best to him but managing 6 clients is not possible.
It's messing up my non-work part of life.

Anyhow, I still worked on it. I have a good relationship with him as he is a nice guy and has helped me a lot and taught me so many advanced skills. But the current working process is not what i like. That’s the script I escaped last year. I don’t want to get stuck inside that again.

After many calls, back-forth emails, my internal struggles, I decided to leave the Agency last month, April, and rekindle my flame to get my own clients and business.

So here I am, starting again from scratch(or not?) to get clients, provide value, give results, and build my own agency.

I have been hit by COVID, 20 days back, and I am still in the recovering phase.
Body is weak and on bed rest. Hope to recover in the next 10 days and start the process of execution.

I know I just messed up a few topics, a few months, and different thoughts in the above post and it might not make sense.

Pardon this soul i’m still on bed rest, my fingers and nerves are having a breakdown while i am typing this. Haha.

I will recover in no time and will try to update you all frequently.
I promise this time, I will keep updating this thread.

If you guys have anything to ask, let me know. I will try to give a better summary.

Until I recover, I have planned to do 2 things.

1. To share most of my learnings on process, discipline, executions, mindset, Leadership in this thread itself.
2. TFF has given me so many things. I will provide value too.
   I am already writing a thread on How to Scale Ecommerce Business using Performance Marketing.
   Whatever ads, process, methods I learned and still use, I will share with TFF as my thanks for giving me so many things. This will not be basic stuff like setting up a campaign.
   
   
   I don’t know if i should post in public forums or INSIDERS forum.

So yeah, that's it for today. Hope the update was not confusing.
I am pumped up for what's coming up next in life.

Paraphrasing the words of @Kung Fu Steve
"I have my battle scars, few successes, warrior spirit and belt full of skills to use in my next steps."


Sayonara,
BlackMagician

 

[BlackMagician]

G'day All!

How are you all? I am back with all the pending updates.

I have recovered from COVID now and back to good health.

My Agency:
This month, I started my agency from scratch, registered name, build LP.
But as we all know, no sales means no business.
I have few web design projects and 6 months cash of survival.

What am I doing:
My target niche is Ecommerce clients where I help them get more traffic, leads and sales through Performance Marketing leading to good revenue.

To acquire clients, i am taking multi modular outreach, which is to record loom videos and giving massive values to ecommerce brands that improves results.

I have collected 20 leads today and recorded my first video and sent to the prospect. I am sure it will help the prospect get value from the video.

That single video took 3 hours of mine just to write and record the video. Though I will optimize the process and do it faster.

I am going to record 5 videos and send it every day + follow ups.

This is the script I used:
----------------------------
Hey [First name],
[Your name] here from [X company] and I’ve just taken the liberty of putting together this short video for you.

I was taking a look at your [Website / Social Media Program / Google Adwords etc.] and while I noticed that [say something nice that they’re doing right], I also noticed that you were [diagnose problem #1] which is hurting your business because [explain why it’s hurting their business].

All you need to do in order to fix this and [achieve desired outcome, e.g. increase conversions by X%] is simply [insert solution].
Some other things I noticed are that you’re [diagnose problem #2] and [diagnose problem #3], which you can easily remedy by doing [insert easy solutions].

Now what I do is I specialize in [their specific niche] and I’ve worked with clients ranging from [name-drop a few clients they might know] to achieve massive results.

I’ve gone ahead and put together a [free offer, e.g. a comprehensive 23-point checklist / audit / blueprint] for you to improve your profitability, and I’d love to schedule 15-20 minutes of your time to walk you through it, free of charge.

So go ahead just shoot me a reply and I look forward to chatting with you soon. Thanks

---------------------------------

I know its a value and number game. So I am going to put all my expertise and skills and efforts into getting clients and fulfilling their goals because I have a fire burning behind me in the form of money.


Expect a frequent update from me. I will share most of the resources and steps i am using here so that it help others.

Thanks for reading.
Feedbacks welcome!


Sayonara,
BM

 

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[BlackMagician]

G'day All,

I forgot to tell all of you one good news about my life.

I Married.
1st week of June was wedding ceremony. TFF is my another family so it's obvious that I share the good news with my fellow entrepreneurs. Kindly give your blessings

Marriage life is going good. It's just that its little difficult to balance after marriage life and my work. Well, everyone goes from this phase. Just that I am hustling right now that's why its little difficult.

But! I am actually quite enjoying the thrill. Now I have someone I think about whenever I procrastinate. The fire inside me has become bigger!!!

haha. ok, small talk over.

If you haven't done so already, follow up to their message with a question after every time they reply. Get them talking. For example, "What are you hoping to accomplish with the rebrand?" Or "are you looking to continue running Facebook ads during the rebrand process?" Or "What are your main traffic sources for leads at the moment?"

As long as you keep asking questions, and they keep answering, they are engaged and building trust with you. If they start ignoring your questions, that's different....but see if you can get them talking.

You've got this!

Yup. I am following up with everyone of them. Until I hear NO from them, I will follow up. As i said, it seem i use to close the conversation myself. Thanks for the pointers. Never learned that. I am now using questions to keep the conversation going.

@BlackMagician get them on the phone and work to provide them value (not just land them as a customer). find something you can do for them. ask them what they would pay for 'x' and then just get started.

nice job. 1/5 = 20% response. that is great.

You asked to get them on phone? heh. Here it is!



So this brand has a crappy website. I recorded a video as per the script I shared above and showed them 4-5 points which will drastically improve there customer acquisition. I followed up with them 3rd time today and they responded.
This shows the follow-up power.

Tip: Follow up on different channels. I msg them on FB, no reply. Chat, no reply. Instagram msg, got reply.

now make 95 more pitches and close 10 deals!!

I will.
95 videos.
5 Videos Per Day
20*5 = 100.
20days to send 95 videos, or less than that.

You won't believe, but I have been feeling down today thinking that this video approach takes too much time and is not producing results, but got the above response and felt thrilled. I know this is not something big to be thrilled but i needed some kind of market echo at this stage.

"That's great to hear! Let's talk about your project then... how is Tuesday at 1pm?" Then when you get them on the phone, have a package deal, offer, idea, etc ready to sign them up for

I am still thinking on how should i present my offer but lets see. I will present and learn, then optimize accordingly.

---------
I will schedule a call with the prospect i got a reply from tomorrow and lets see where it goes.

Apart from that, I have been creating my online presence on Instagram, FB, LinkedIn.

I took advice of @Andy Black and joined few groups of my market. I am trying to help people there with my expertise. Goal is to help at-least 5 people per day.

I am also following @EarlOfChina steps on LinkedIn(started today) and building connection and sending videos to founders.
So as now, my daily work looks like this:

• Record 5 videos and give massive value to the brands. Send it.
• Build Connections on LinkedIn. Engage with them and help them with small talks.
• Help 5 people in groups using my expertise of Advertising and scaling business.
• Follow ups with prospects.

I have been trying to follow 80/20 rules and primarily focusing on activities which generate sales.

Let me know anything else I should be doing at this stage.

Goals Update:
Clients: 0
Revenue: 0
June Goal: 80k

 

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