Many ideas but not enough time?

[Keivo]

Hello friends!

Haven't posted in here much but decided today is the day. For the past 8 months or so I have been trying to set up some sort of business while working full time. And the business I have been trying to set up? Digital marketing biz. I know I know, another digital marketer but I have gotten some opportunities from the slowlane job I am working currently. My boss has allowed me try and market the business and online store, I have created google ads, analytics, set up a few ads, there is so much work to do (set up email marketing, social media marketing, ui/ux). I am just wondering if it is worth it to do solo. On top of it I asked a car rental biz owner if he would be intrested in marketing and he was more than happy to accept my offer to do some marketing for his business. Now I am sitting here with pretty much 2 clients and no time to do the work. My idea was to start offering marketing services for smaller businesses for more affordable price, create website, add the 2 jobs I will be doing in the portfolio and then go from there.
But questions started to rise.
Is it sustainable? Now I understand why digital marketing companies charge a decent amount, because there is so much work to do in order to create ads that convert. I can always outsource the work but that means paying people a good amount and that will cut deep into the profits if my whole idea was to offer affordable services for small businesses.

My second idea was to start a offline business. Namely bubble tea business. In the capital city there are a few bubble tea shops that are doing pretty well but there is only one hotel bar that sells it where I live and it is the second largest city in my country. I think the opportunity is there but that means dropping the digital marketing biz to start working on it.

Any advice on my situation would be greatly appreciated!

 

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[CryptoCurt]

Hello friends!

Haven't posted in here much but decided today is the day. For the past 8 months or so I have been trying to set up some sort of business while working full time. And the business I have been trying to set up? Digital marketing biz. I know I know, another digital marketer but I have gotten some opportunities from the slowlane job I am working currently. My boss has allowed me try and market the business and online store, I have created google ads, analytics, set up a few ads, there is so much work to do (set up email marketing, social media marketing, ui/ux). I am just wondering if it is worth it to do solo. On top of it I asked a car rental biz owner if he would be intrested in marketing and he was more than happy to accept my offer to do some marketing for his business. Now I am sitting here with pretty much 2 clients and no time to do the work. My idea was to start offering marketing services for smaller businesses for more affordable price, create website, add the 2 jobs I will be doing in the portfolio and then go from there.
But questions started to rise.
Is it sustainable? Now I understand why digital marketing companies charge a decent amount, because there is so much work to do in order to create ads that convert. I can always outsource the work but that means paying people a good amount and that will cut deep into the profits if my whole idea was to offer affordable services for small businesses.

My second idea was to start a offline business. Namely bubble tea business. In the capital city there are a few bubble tea shops that are doing pretty well but there is only one hotel bar that sells it where I live and it is the second largest city in my country. I think the opportunity is there but that means dropping the digital marketing biz to start working on it.

Any advice on my situation would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Keivo,
the way to get this into a scalable business seems to me like:
1) do the first 20-30 jobs yourself to get experience
2) document everything in a manner, that you can use as basis for a script for your future employees
3) create video-documentation that also can be put on youtube, if you want additional income from that side
4) raise prices to the point where you still get enough projects and you can pay your team
5) scale it as far as this makes sense to you

 

[Keivo]

Hi Keivo,
the way to get this into a scalable business seems to me like:
1) do the first 20-30 jobs yourself to get experience
2) document everything in a manner, that you can use as basis for a script for your future employees
3) create video-documentation that also can be put on youtube, if you want additional income from that side
4) raise prices to the point where you still get enough projects and you can pay your team
5) scale it as far as this makes sense to you

Much appreciated for the answer

 

[timbers1]

Hello friends!

Haven't posted in here much but decided today is the day. For the past 8 months or so I have been trying to set up some sort of business while working full time. And the business I have been trying to set up? Digital marketing biz. I know I know, another digital marketer but I have gotten some opportunities from the slowlane job I am working currently. My boss has allowed me try and market the business and online store, I have created google ads, analytics, set up a few ads, there is so much work to do (set up email marketing, social media marketing, ui/ux). I am just wondering if it is worth it to do solo. On top of it I asked a car rental biz owner if he would be intrested in marketing and he was more than happy to accept my offer to do some marketing for his business. Now I am sitting here with pretty much 2 clients and no time to do the work. My idea was to start offering marketing services for smaller businesses for more affordable price, create website, add the 2 jobs I will be doing in the portfolio and then go from there.
But questions started to rise.
Is it sustainable? Now I understand why digital marketing companies charge a decent amount, because there is so much work to do in order to create ads that convert. I can always outsource the work but that means paying people a good amount and that will cut deep into the profits if my whole idea was to offer affordable services for small businesses.

My second idea was to start a offline business. Namely bubble tea business. In the capital city there are a few bubble tea shops that are doing pretty well but there is only one hotel bar that sells it where I live and it is the second largest city in my country. I think the opportunity is there but that means dropping the digital marketing biz to start working on it.

Any advice on my situation would be greatly appreciated!

I have been running an SEO consultancy for the last 6-7 years. I have a partner, but it's just the two of us. We have about 12 years experience (each) in the field. I say this just to give you context on where I'm coming from.

Making money from small businesses is hard depending on your area. We work with midsize to large with business and do minimal enterprise-level work (usually 20mil rev a year on the bottom to billions).

You are already discovering why there aren't a lot of (good) digital marketers helping small businesses. Because everything is getting more intertwined, you need everything to be working well to get optimal success in one area. This is hard for a small business to achieve as the time required can be intensive, and they usually don't have much money to invest. So, couple of thoughts:

1) Find a niche and build a service (essentially a product) that you can repeat over and over again. As an example, there is a guy near me that figured out a good process to drive leads for real estate agents using a combination of email marketing and FB ads. The process is repeatable, but can also be customized a bit without too much trouble to fit slightly different client needs. He serves multiple realtors that hit different parts of the market.

This is a great concept as even paying 3-5k a month (again, depends on your area), might be cheap for a successful realtor. If they can generate 5-10 deals a year off your work, they've more then likely covered the cost of paying you, AND they've built a new connection and given themselves a chance for future work and referrals (important in that industry).

2) You could become the marketing guy for 3-5 small businesses and put them on retainer. Handle all the different things you need to get done, and build up your case studies so you can show other businesses what you've been able to achieve with your work. Show them both what you did (without too much detail), and what results you saw.

If you want to build beyond this level, find another person that is capable of doing the dynamic work you're doing (crossing many digital disciplines), and use your case studies to book more business they can do. Standard stuff.

3) You could also keep your day job, bank money while you handle the other projects outside of work, and when you've saved enough to live for 6 mo to 1 year, give it a real shot. Quite the day job and start looking for more work.

4) You could also really focusing on one channel or discipline. For instance, if you are most interested in social media, offer that as a service. For small businesses, from my experience, you really want to develop expertise in a channel that can drive quick, tangible results. Email marketing can be good, as can things like PPC advertising or handling sales and marketing on Amazon. Anything that allows you to track costs and report back revenue (and ideally profit after you are included as part of the expenses), is great.

Small businesses obviously have limited cash. They need to make sure it's being put to good use. Whether it's right or wrong, that often means they look for things they can see quick tangible results from.

5) Finally, you could use your digital marketing skills to help make your other business idea a success. Either way I'd save money so you are really prepared to give it a shot and see if you can make something work.

 

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