Marketing company, but I'm a pure middleman

[Pink Sheep]

Is this a viable business strategy to get out of my 9-5 job?

Hire sales people on comission to sell marketing to local medium-large businesses.

When they get a sell, foreward details to a high quality freelancer.

Pocket the margins.

When i get enough monthly work to afford a manager i will hire a VA to foreward the orders for me, and do follow-up.

Anything i should be concerned with in this plan? To me it seems like an easy way to get out of my time-stealing job.

 

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[100ToOne]

Is this a viable business strategy to get out of my 9-5 job?

Hire sales people on comission to sell marketing to local medium-large businesses.

When they get a sell, foreward details to a high quality freelancer.

Pocket the margins.

When i get enough monthly work to afford a manager i will hire a VA to foreward the orders for me, and do follow-up.

Anything i should be concerned with in this plan? To me it seems like an easy way to get out of my time-stealing job.

Yes why not? you can do it if you really want to. I'm just here to say:

"Anything i should be concerned with in this plan? To me it seems like an easy way to get out of my time-stealing job."

Forget the word easy and do it. Nothing is easy.

 

[Remiremi]

If it's easy it's meant to take your money.

 

[Pink Sheep]

Of course i dont expect it to be easy, I mean relative to other options.

Since the focus is on me saying easy, and not the business idea itself ill take it as a thumbs up.

Yes why not? you can do it if you really want to. I'm just here to say:

"Anything i should be concerned with in this plan? To me it seems like an easy way to get out of my time-stealing job."

Forget the word easy and do it. Nothing is easy.

 

[mdivljina]

It's totally viable and it's a model I'm striving towards too. But how do you plan on selling the service to medium to large businesses? What'd be your sales system? The sales people won't cut it, in my opinion, because you've got no equity behind you, no name and no previous track record. But I definitely will be watching you and how you progress. I'm rooting for you!

 

[MHP368]

Thats Thats bas how tons of digital marketing agencys operate right now

They even have an entire industry just doing white label for all the actual work

 

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[Tom.V]

 

[Raoul Duke]

 

[Xeon]

They even have an entire industry just doing white label for all the actual work

Genius business model. Didn't think of that. Selling the shovels!

 

[GoodluckChuck]

Where do you add value?

If you find an average sales person that can sell average projects to average clients and then find average marketers to produce average results, there won't be any room for margin.

It's a competitive industry and if you want to do this model you'll have to target high end clients. this requires a network and a reputation.

The model you describe sounds like the 15 spam emails I get each day asking for partnerships and hires.

I wouldn't tell you not to try because you could make it work if you tried hard enough, but it won't be easy or quick which sounds like what you're looking for.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

You need to at least know enough to know if your 'freelancer' is doing a good job.

Frankly, I don't think the world needs another no-value-add company, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

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[Xeon]

There's an old thread here by DamienPros, I think his ex-business is similar to yours, but instead of selling marketing, he sells copywriting, e.g. hire and manage VAs to do the job while he gets the work, repeat and profit.

 

[Pink Sheep]

There are many ways to add value in this equation. I can always send my sales on the street in stead of cold emails. I can send them daily reports and suggest tailored content, videos etc.
Any business, even marketing, is about marketing yourself more expensive than you should be to increase margins. Thats at least my view on it.

Where do you add value?

If you find an average sales person that can sell average projects to average clients and then find average marketers to produce average results, there won't be any room for margin.

It's a competitive industry and if you want to do this model you'll have to target high end clients. this requires a network and a reputation.

The model you describe sounds like the 15 spam emails I get each day asking for partnerships and hires.

I wouldn't tell you not to try because you could make it work if you tried hard enough, but it won't be easy or quick which sounds like what you're looking for.

 

[Andy Black]

Start.

Get some interested prospects. Find out what they need. Get the work done. Get paid.


Personally I want to speak to the business owners AND do the work.

Why?

• I get better and better at selling to the business owners.
• I get better and better at delivering.
• I spot patterns of businesses where it works best (and not at all).
• I spot patterns of what works best (and not at all).
• I can then evolve who I serve and the offering until it niches down.

We’ve found tools and strategies that we’re applying that are more than the sum of their parts.

We’ve found ways of acquiring clients (the same that @Tom.V uses I suspect).


We’ve seen opportunities for paid email newsletters, website plugins, training courses, etc.

We’ve seen ways to scale, but need to sort our backend or we’ll end up drinking from a firehose.


This has all come from engaging the market in hand to hand combat, and doing our best to deliver the best service and results we can.


Eventually we’ll settle on our offering, and how to sell our offering.


It’s me, the business owner, who’s doing the sales, because I learn what sells and how to sell it. Eventually that knowledge will be encapsulated and scaled.

It’s me, the business owner who decides what services we will and won’t provide. I don’t want us to be a full-service agency. That’s not my vision.


A line I like is “You can’t outsource passion and insight.”

Just food for thought.

 

[Andy Black]

Some more thoughts:

I worked for a company that bought a million visitors from Google a day. The “value” they added was to have cr*p copy and relevant ads on the landing pages.

€120k spend a day resulted in €150k revenue a day.

€0.12 Cost-Per-Click (CPC).
€0.15 Earning-Per-Click (EPC).

€0.03 Life-Time-Value (LTV)

3 cents LTV per visitor?!?

That’s because of how little value that business model adds.


Business is simple: Add value. Get paid.

What value will you add?



BTW... if your head is turned by those big numbers then you’re missing the point.

That company had a lot of employees, a lot of processes, and some good technology. They built up to those numbers over time.


Can you add value if you “do nothing?”

I’d like to get there... but I’m doing a lot of work to build that machine.

 

[MakeItHappen]

Of course i dont expect it to be easy, I mean relative to other options.

Imo, that's a bad way to think about it.

The harder something is the more lucrative 99% of the time.
That's why it's part of CENTS.

Also, to be honest the execution of your idea doesn't sound easy to me.

Where to you find the salespeople?
What can you offer them that other digital agencies can't?
Everything else being equal you have to pay the salespeople more that the competition or it's only a question till they will leave.
Where do you find good freelancers to do the work?
What if your customer hates what the freelancer did and complains about it?
What if the freelancer works to slow and the customer blames you for it?
What if... what if... what if...

I don't want to discourage you. Just don't expect it to be easy, expect it to be worthwhile if you put in the effort.

Good luck!

 

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[Timmy C]

The word business and easy just don't seem to go together.

 

[Process]

A good salesman will know you can’t sell and take the whole thing out from under you when the times right.

Money chasing < offering attractive value

 

[Johnny boy]

Lost of comments about things that could go wrong.

Who cares?

In my opinion it's a terrible model that will just be a headache and make you work harder and make a 34 cent profit over a month at the end of it.

Here's what you will learn in the process:

1. How to hire people
2. How to communicate with employees (or contractors)
3. How to sell
4. Marketing (in order to be able to sell it)
5. The best ways to reach business owners
6. What really matters when running a business
7. Probably how to build websites
8. Perhaps how to file taxes as a business
9. a whole bunch of other stuff.


3 years down the road after this business idea has flopped and the next one has too, I know you'll eventually escape your job, have an awesome life and be free to live on your own terms as a successful business person.

Just don't quit and be happy that you started now. The things you learn in the next year will build the foundation for your future success. My failed ideas paved the way for me to grow now and I'm glad I failed fast and failed often, risking all of my chips and starting over again and again.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Yeah, it's a viable model, but your "business plan" is missing a lot of steps.

Your plans is basically the same as me saying this:

1. Find a product that I can buy for cheap.
2. Sell it for more money.
3. Reinvest money in more product.
4. Repeat until I'm a billionaire.

The formula works, but it's only a tiny look at the work involved.

 

[ZCP]

How many have you sold?
Where are your customers?
What do they think they need?

What is an MVP you could test / sell this week?

Get to work and report back!

 

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[Zcott]

I think OP just put a simplified version of what could have been a long wall of text post.

It's a business model that works. Yeah, it's competitive and loads of people do it, doesn't mean you can't find your place there though. There are thousands of coffee shops in each city yet more continue to open up and some stick around.

 

[pickeringmt]

The formula works, but it's only a tiny look at the work involved.

Exactly - If you don't know how you are going to actually help these businesses you have no offer, which means you have no way to train salespeople.

This plan is so generic that it works in theory, but nobody is going to buy from you if your offer is, "hey, do you need digital marketing? I sell it! Tell me what you need and I will do it"

I get paid to do this for clients because I tell them what they need, what it will do, and how I can do it. If a client already has these answers, they will already be pursuing a solution on their own.

 

[babyballer]

No, it is not a viable business since there's no customer, there's no strategy at all., there's no moving part. This is just hypothetical high level business idea which is idealistic in nature. I suggest you work hard in your job and be productive for your employer. At the same time, during your down time, you develop your business and once it hits 2x of your salary AND you have recurring income from it AND you have 6 months savings, then you quit.

Is this a viable business strategy to get out of my 9-5 job?

Hire sales people on comission to sell marketing to local medium-large businesses.

When they get a sell, foreward details to a high quality freelancer.

Pocket the margins.

When i get enough monthly work to afford a manager i will hire a VA to foreward the orders for me, and do follow-up.

Anything i should be concerned with in this plan? To me it seems like an easy way to get out of my time-stealing job.

 

[Pink Sheep]

The mindsets of people here are super interesting! Most of you are dismissing the idea because i havent even started yet. Whats the point in asking if you are dismissing it before starting?

About no value added - just because i was plain in my post doesnt mean i dont know how to give a value proposition. I know how to grow interest in a brand, and i know i need to train my employees in selling the right thing. I will also consult with my marketing team about their suggestions as they will have more experience than me in marketing. You dont have to be a chef to know if the food is good, but you may need one to make a new recipe.

About finding freelancers - this is literally the easiest. I can find thousands of people looking for this kind of job. I expect it will be a challenge because of comissioned pay and since its just starting.

Some are also dismissing because its not fastlane enough/too low margins.
This is my step one to changing lanes. I need to free up my working hours by quitting my dayjob, and this is my way of attempting to do so. After then its just a matter of a few failures before im speeding away. At least thats the plan for now!

 

[AdamMaxum]

I don't know why posts like this get so many replies...

 

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[Fastlane Liam]

Go try it, best way I find

 

[Matt Hunt]

I think some of the replies are because of the words in your title, "but I do nothing." I don't think you mean that literally. I'm sure you're smart enough to know that you aren't literally going to do nothing and build a successful business.

I'm starting a similar venture, except I'm going to be the sales guy. And while I plan to hire out the actual marketing work, I'm going to be learning it myself in the meantime. You need to know if your freelancers are doing a good job or not. And you're going to have to give them some direction. From there, you can create detailed systems for your freelancers to follow. I suppose you could THEN hire salespeople with a system in place for them to follow, and THEN pretty much do nothing. But you still won't really be doing nothing, as you still need to oversee the whole operation and hold your employees accountable.

The value you add as the business owner is in overseeing the whole operation, the vision, the values, etc. You need to be aware of what your clients need, how you can provide that to them, and at a great value to them. You need to seek out ways to provide even more value to your clients, and then how to execute those things. You need to make sure your salespeople under-promise, and your marketing people over-deliver.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I think some of the replies are because of the words in your title, "but I do nothing." I don't think you mean that literally.

Agreed, I changed it.