Marketing Agency - (Not a Tai Lopez Wannabe) Finally Going on My Own

[HackVenture]

Have you heard of Justin Brooke? I highly recommend his free Daily Edge newsletter, I've learnt alot from him even though I've been doing digital marketing for a long time.

I dislike the idea of having anything to do with clients anymore but if I were to start an agency today, I would likely buy Justin's program and base my business off his teachings.

Do check him out if you haven't already.

 

[Smith11B]

Quick update - 1st TWO CLIENTS!!

Grabbed a client through upwork at $40/hr (in your face the guys who say upwork is for cheapo's only.)

In their defense, I have a pretty great profile, with references, portfolio examples, top 30% tests and a small amount of positive feedback.

The second client came from a facebook group.

My email campaign got a few responses since my last post, however they were people who really wanted to hire me as in house due to my credentials. I'm passed that so I passed.

Here are the numbers.

Client 1: $100 landing page rewrite with more to come in the future if it's good. Which it will be because I know what I'm doing.

Client 2: This one is a non profit. Code for Kicks. They're a coding camp for at risk youths that teaches them skills to have a future in technology. In order to incentive these kids to go through the program the reward is a free pair of expensive sneakers, provided by donation. SUPER cool client and one I can relate to so I think it will be a great relationship. This one is $40 an hour. I may give an few hours away as a donation because I really like the cause.


Personally I think it will only take me about an hour or 2 to complete the project, but I know they have more work to me.

I'll estimate my earnings at around $200 all together. Nothing crazy, but it's a start.

 

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[BradyH]

Actually starting to get some feedback from clients and it's good stuff. Had a guy tell us we're changing his life and saving his future last night. Pretty awesome stuff.

This thread is great, I'm tagging along. I can't shoot for the moon yet because I don't have your 99 percentile expertise, but I know 100x more than the average business owner, so I know I can help. Your thread is inspiring. Keep it up!

 

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[rogue synthetic]

Great thread here. It's both motivating and jealousy-inducing at the same time ;-)

Adding to the watch list for sure.

 

[Lord Business]

Great attitude! Let us know, how the sales are going. Also - I think as for your marketing skills, which I assume are in the top 1%, I'd love to read your experiences and philosophy on marketing 2018. Obv I don't mean you should give anything away for free (unless you'd want to)

 

[Andy Black]

I don’t cold call.

Start with people you already know?

 

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[Smith11B]

You probably know I like helping local service businesses generate more sales using AdWords.

There's reasons for this:

1. With local lead gen you're often competing against mom 'n' pop trying to run digital marketing campaigns.
2. Nail it for a particular vertical, and you can scale by going to other locations.
3. Get one client in a location and they can refer other business owners in that location.
4. You can easily become "The Facebook Guy" in your location. Much harder to become "The Facebook Guy" online.

Can you help local service businesses generate more sales using Facebook?

Are there people you already know locally who might be interested in getting Facebook campaigns run for them?

Getting a client paying you even "just" $250/mth to manage their campaigns could show you how easy it could be.

Can you give a quick workshop in front of local business owners? Can you stand up and do your thing in front of people who'll think you're from another planet, and who don't want to learn how to do this stuff themselves?



EDIT:

In a way the amount of content I have is doing folks a disservice. Where do they start?!? Ha.

I'm wondering if this call might help:

• AndyTalks to Nico about Graphic Design & Selling Services

I can do all of these things. Never been afraid of public speaking. Thats brilliant. Im sure I could put together a small marketing event and help teach but grab clients that way.

Never thought of doing it for that price, but I suppose to start its worth it.

I've ran ads for plenty of local businesses at the smaller of the two agencies.

I will listen and take notes on this call.

And ha. No doubt.

 

[Lord Business]

I could probably write a book on marketing now, but to keep it short what I spent most of my time doing was turning cold traffic into high ticket sales. The local based stuff is pretty straightforward, you don't need extremely great copy or any of that. Eccommerce I shy'd away from because it is labor intensive. (100's of products, retargeting, dynamic ads, etc.)

So it depends what's your business my man? what are you selling? I'll give you what I would do if you were a client.
could this just be a mindset thing? Idk.

Great thread! My field is lifestyle healthcare and coaching. Kind of like Virta Health Our focus is on content marketing, but it takes a lot of time to get traction, although, when we do, I think it will be worth it. We have an unique service no-one has yet in my country (Finland) but that is also a problem - no-one knows that it could be done like that. Reaching people is easy, educating people and getting them to pay a large sum of money is another thing. Any thoughts?

As for your "struggles" - I'm not in a place to advise, but your mindset is epic and people like you always find a way! Keep grinding!

 

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[Lord Business]

Yea definitely, you face a conundrum a ton of marketers try to avoid. (or if they don't they have a hard time with it.)

It is always easier and less expensive to market a product people understand and feel they need than to educate the market on the need and then sell it. Especially if you product is intangible, a service, or a result.

It's definitely not impossible though.

Most marketers don't make this distinction and so they try to market the normal way, just getting eyes on a product or service with some good copy, pushing the benefits etc. It's a 1 step thing because they are trying to get people to the sales department or sales page etc. This usually ends up not so good in a way. It will work for most products that people understand, but not for brand new things people need to know about.

If your product is brand new, then your first step in marketing is indoctrination. It's similar to education, but you aren't just informing them, you are getting them to believe a certain way. (Sort of like our school system. Kidding but not kidding.)

Guru's do this through webinars and value videos, new products do this through infomercials and video. This is why marketers are pushing video so hard, not just for personal branding, but you can literraly get people to believe in what you want through a good video. (The same through a good sales page but takes more skill in writing.)


If I were you, I would be pushing hard on demonstrating not just what the product is, but why a person should come around to your belief that it solves a problem.

Getting this right is easier said then done as usual but it's something I would focus on. I know this isn't very actionable. but It's tough to really give you a specific strategy without knowing more about where you are right now, what your resources are etc.

Thanks for the insight! Pretty much what we've been doing in our inexperienced ways. We've started blogs, webinars, newsletter. Best results thus far are google adwords and facebook ads - getting clicks, but ofcourse 80% leave immediately. But of those 20% that stay longer, 15% subscribe to the newsletter at least. We also have an "Free consultation" button, where customer service calls and while consulting, tries to sell the service - best conversion thus far, but the amounts are low. We'll see how the conversion rates turn out in those and on the website traffic. Any idea what we should aim for?

 

[Lord Business]

Man I appreciate all of you guys insights. Going to post an update today.

@Lord Business When going to cold traffic, via facebook in particular. here is what we like to see, specifically for viewing a strategy call.

Also, newsletters are a waste of time IMO. But I'm not one to completely shut down anything you're doing that's working. Test test. In my experience People don't read them and in most cases they aren't waiting to be updated on your product unless it's some sort of kickstarter campaign.

Anyway back to the metrics.

We test things in stages. (also note that the costs will be higher with adwords but adwords also has a higher intent, as people don't usually go to facebook with their credit card in hand like they do google.)

@Andy Black is the adwords pro if you want more info that he hasn't already written up in this forum lol.

For facebook to cold never before seen traffic it should look like this.

Ad Clicks $2: If your ad clicks are above $3 on facebook you know your ad sucks. The first thing to change is the image, it has the most effect. The second is the Headline, the third is the copy itself. Test one thing at a time. (one change per ad) Not all three or you won't know which one worked.

Website/landing page conversions 20%: If you are sending them to a home page, I would stop. I would send them to a page that is specific on what they clicked the ad for and what to do next to get it. This can be an informational video, a sales page, whatever but you don't want them click around to other things, you want them to get the information or product that you targeted them for. If your conversions are below 15% start testing again. Start with the headline, then the button placement, and then the copy. (On the Landing Page not the Ad)

People who book a call 4-5%: Of those 20% who opt in, 5% of them should book a strategy call. If you are seeing less than that, tweak your copy.

We start with a budget of $10 per ad we test. It we usually test 4 ads at a time, 2 images and 2 copy variations on those images.

This math is why Guru's are all preaching high ticket. It goes like this.

$1000>> 500 clicks >> 100 Optins >> 5 Call's >> 1 Sale at $1997+ or 2x or more ROI depending on price.

The numbers get even more ridiculous when you include re-targeting and running traffic to look alike audiences. Plus you have 100 emails for followup which usually ends up in another 2 sales. This is how you spend a crap ton of money on facebook.

For anything below $1000 you can sell it straight from a webinar or value video without a call.

This has worked in B2B and B2C

Thanks! As for newsletter - our target market is 55+ people and we have found, that they open and thoroughly read every newsletter 5x more likely than younger people. But we'll keep experimenting.
Cheers to you.
Also - reppoints transferred

 

[Tom.V]

For all that have followed this thread, I would be hesitant about doing business and/or working with @Smith11B at this time.

We started a business partnership - no contracts in the beginning of March with regards to a digital marketing agency.

In the initial stages, we agreed on a 20%/20% split of the funds and then would funnel about 60% back into the business for marketing purposes.

My role was to find prospective opportunities and set up appointments to gain new business. Mark would help with the appointments as well and was on the backend of the creation side of things - consulting, landing page creation, advertisement, etc.

In our first two months of working with one another, I brought in about $5000 dollars worth of business and I believe @Smith11B brought in about $1000-$2000 dollars.

@Smith11B definitely knows his stuff when it comes to marketing. However the customer service side of things was less than ideal as he was late for appointments, work was delivered late and at times the quality of work was not at an ideal standard.

We also had set up a guarantee for clients that if we could not get the results for the client based on their initial payment that they could request a full refund.

Things went a little weird once I requested my first payment from him after two months. Together we had decided to take a bigger portion of the funds as we were starting up and agreed to a 30% portion for me, 60% for him and 10% back into the business.

@Smith11B said that we would get the payment sorted out and then messaged me a few days later stating that he had spent the majority of the funds due to financial hardship. At that point, there would not be enough funds to cover if a refund was required from one of the clients brought on.

To this date, I still have not been paid and the clients I have talked to have complained of slow work and missed deadlines.

We are no longer working with one another as I cannot trust and guarantee the services provided.

I didn't want to write this post, but I do want the Fastlane Forum community members who have thought about entering into a business relationship with @Smith11B to know about these issues that have come up prior to getting involved and/or making payments.

Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately I have been in a partnership in a different business where things took a very similar path as yours. I took a large financial hit and acquired substantial debt from that misstep, hopfully you made it out in better shape than I did!

 

[Jfinley]

For all that have followed this thread, I would be hesitant about doing business and/or working with @Smith11B at this time.

We started a business partnership - no contracts in the beginning of March with regards to a digital marketing agency.

In the initial stages, we agreed on a 20%/20% split of the funds and then would funnel about 60% back into the business for marketing purposes.

My role was to find prospective opportunities and set up appointments to gain new business. Mark would help with the appointments as well and was on the backend of the creation side of things - consulting, landing page creation, advertisement, etc.

In our first two months of working with one another, I brought in about $5000 dollars worth of business and I believe @Smith11B brought in about $1000-$2000 dollars.

@Smith11B definitely knows his stuff when it comes to marketing. However the customer service side of things was less than ideal as he was late for appointments, work was delivered late and at times the quality of work was not at an ideal standard.

We also had set up a guarantee for clients that if we could not get the results for the client based on their initial payment that they could request a full refund.

Things went a little weird once I requested my first payment from him after two months. Together we had decided to take a bigger portion of the funds as we were starting up and agreed to a 30% portion for me, 60% for him and 10% back into the business.

@Smith11B said that we would get the payment sorted out and then messaged me a few days later stating that he had spent the majority of the funds due to financial hardship. At that point, there would not be enough funds to cover if a refund was required from one of the clients brought on.

To this date, I still have not been paid and the clients I have talked to have complained of slow work and missed deadlines.

We are no longer working with one another as I cannot trust and guarantee the services provided.

I didn't want to write this post, but I do want the Fastlane Forum community members who have thought about entering into a business relationship with @Smith11B to know about these issues that have come up prior to getting involved and/or making payments.

Partnerships are tough especially when the skills and expertise are not equal. Yes, a partnership should compliment each other, but in this type of business you'd be better having your own company and partnering with him on projects

NEVER give up control to a point where you don't control your own cashflow or the ability to directly impact your bottom line.

He sounds like a solid guy.

You should set new expectations, start your own company and continue to transform lives and businesses.

You can learn marketing, but customer service is something that is just part of you. You either have it or you don't. Those who don't pay those who do.

Simple philosophy

 

[TinyTim]

For all that have followed this thread, I would be hesitant about doing business and/or working with @Smith11B at this time.

We started a business partnership - no contracts in the beginning of March with regards to a digital marketing agency.

In the initial stages, we agreed on a 20%/20% split of the funds and then would funnel about 60% back into the business for marketing purposes.

My role was to find prospective opportunities and set up appointments to gain new business. Mark would help with the appointments as well and was on the backend of the creation side of things - consulting, landing page creation, advertisement, etc.

In our first two months of working with one another, I brought in about $5000 dollars worth of business and I believe @Smith11B brought in about $1000-$2000 dollars.

@Smith11B definitely knows his stuff when it comes to marketing. However the customer service side of things was less than ideal as he was late for appointments, work was delivered late and at times the quality of work was not at an ideal standard.

We also had set up a guarantee for clients that if we could not get the results for the client based on their initial payment that they could request a full refund.

Things went a little weird once I requested my first payment from him after two months. Together we had decided to take a bigger portion of the funds as we were starting up and agreed to a 30% portion for me, 60% for him and 10% back into the business.

@Smith11B said that we would get the payment sorted out and then messaged me a few days later stating that he had spent the majority of the funds due to financial hardship. At that point, there would not be enough funds to cover if a refund was required from one of the clients brought on.

To this date, I still have not been paid and the clients I have talked to have complained of slow work and missed deadlines.

We are no longer working with one another as I cannot trust and guarantee the services provided.

I didn't want to write this post, but I do want the Fastlane Forum community members who have thought about entering into a business relationship with @Smith11B to know about these issues that have come up prior to getting involved and/or making payments.

Just read through the whole thread. I let out a massive "noooooooo" when I started reading your partnership post. These things very rarely workout and should not be taken lightly.

 

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