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- Mar 23, 2023
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This post is a continuation of my introduction post. I've received a lot of questions and a few emails asking me to detail the process of quitting my 9-5 and scaling my digital marketing agency to six figures. I want to be fully transparent and say that I am figuring this out as I go. What works for me may or may not work for you. I'm just detailing my journey towards financial freedom.
HOW IT BEGAN
Like many of you, my journey started out of necessity. My anxiety and depression was getting out of hand. My relationship with my wife and kids was suffering, and I knew I couldn't continue living this way. I began searching for something to pull me out of this routine. I realize a lot of my time was spent watching Netflix, scrolling on Tik-Tok, etc and knew that I should be spending my time better. That's when I decided I'd replace this time with reading. I spent probably a six months to a year of reading before I came across MJ's book, The Millionaire Fastlane . That paired with the psychology book, Influence by Robert Cialdini changed my life and kick-started my journey.
BACKGROUND TO THE PROCESS
My adult career was spent in digital marketing with ten years in the megachurch world. That was incredibly stressful and I felt as if I was manipulating people. I knew I needed out and I assumed the quickest way out was to repurpose my creative skills and sell them to the marketplace. I noticed many services were moving to a subscription based model and I thought I'd try that route.
THE PROCESS
At that time, I was making 60,000 at my church job. That was the number I needed to replace.
Step 1 was building out my portfolio and creating a website. Wordpress is the industry standard, but requires a lot of upkeep. For a simple marketing site, I decided to use squarespace. I built the website, showcased my portfolio from my career, and listed out my prices. At a mid-tiered 1500 a month, I knew I needed 3.33 clients to make my salary. THREE CLIENTS! That's when this seemed a lot easier than I had originally anticipated. Ask yourself this, with your skill-set, can you find a handful of people to pay you a monthly retainer to do the same thing? Absolutely you can!
Step 2. I attended every stupid networking event I could. Most of them were terrible, but I was planting seeds. Any instance that I could talk about my business, I did it! I threw all insecurities and self-doubt out the window and just faked confidence along the way. I was completely outside my comfort zone, but I persisted. It was all about networking and pitching my services to anyone who would listen. I posted on social media regularly, I added every business owner I could find, I tracked down their business emails and cold-emailed them, I was annoyingly persistent. And guess what happened? I got my first client. Then my second. Then my third. That was my 60k salary and I quit my job immediately and reclaimed about 50 hours a week.
Step 3: Now with an additional 50 hours a week in my pocket, it was time to scale. Something funny happened though when I quit my 9-5. People immediately began to take me seriously. If I had escaped the rat-race, people were now interested in how I did it. I gained my largest client (another 60k a year) after they heard that I had quit my job to start my own agency. It was as if they were waiting for me to quit to sign on. As if me putting suddenly added credibility to what I was doing. A few others followed after that putting me between 150-200k in just a years time. All of this change inspired by MJ's book!
Step 4: This is where I'm currently at in my process. My goal now is to continue to scaled and focus on marketing my business. I recently scrubbed a lot of my old social media advertising and am rebuilding with a strategy this time. I'm creating weekly video content for social, launching a new podcast in my community that interviews local business owners and entrepreneurs, and other marketing efforts to establish my company as the leading authority for marketing and creative services in my local area. While local isn't my end-game, it's low-hanging fruit while I continue to scale. Any additional clients I bring on, I intend on using that money to hire other employees and regain more of my time.
Once that time is reclaimed, my goal is a money-tree. I'd love to find an additional means to wealth that can pay me aside from my time, much like MJ suggest.
I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into my journey. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
HOW IT BEGAN
Like many of you, my journey started out of necessity. My anxiety and depression was getting out of hand. My relationship with my wife and kids was suffering, and I knew I couldn't continue living this way. I began searching for something to pull me out of this routine. I realize a lot of my time was spent watching Netflix, scrolling on Tik-Tok, etc and knew that I should be spending my time better. That's when I decided I'd replace this time with reading. I spent probably a six months to a year of reading before I came across MJ's book, The Millionaire Fastlane . That paired with the psychology book, Influence by Robert Cialdini changed my life and kick-started my journey.
BACKGROUND TO THE PROCESS
My adult career was spent in digital marketing with ten years in the megachurch world. That was incredibly stressful and I felt as if I was manipulating people. I knew I needed out and I assumed the quickest way out was to repurpose my creative skills and sell them to the marketplace. I noticed many services were moving to a subscription based model and I thought I'd try that route.
THE PROCESS
At that time, I was making 60,000 at my church job. That was the number I needed to replace.
Step 1 was building out my portfolio and creating a website. Wordpress is the industry standard, but requires a lot of upkeep. For a simple marketing site, I decided to use squarespace. I built the website, showcased my portfolio from my career, and listed out my prices. At a mid-tiered 1500 a month, I knew I needed 3.33 clients to make my salary. THREE CLIENTS! That's when this seemed a lot easier than I had originally anticipated. Ask yourself this, with your skill-set, can you find a handful of people to pay you a monthly retainer to do the same thing? Absolutely you can!
Step 2. I attended every stupid networking event I could. Most of them were terrible, but I was planting seeds. Any instance that I could talk about my business, I did it! I threw all insecurities and self-doubt out the window and just faked confidence along the way. I was completely outside my comfort zone, but I persisted. It was all about networking and pitching my services to anyone who would listen. I posted on social media regularly, I added every business owner I could find, I tracked down their business emails and cold-emailed them, I was annoyingly persistent. And guess what happened? I got my first client. Then my second. Then my third. That was my 60k salary and I quit my job immediately and reclaimed about 50 hours a week.
Step 3: Now with an additional 50 hours a week in my pocket, it was time to scale. Something funny happened though when I quit my 9-5. People immediately began to take me seriously. If I had escaped the rat-race, people were now interested in how I did it. I gained my largest client (another 60k a year) after they heard that I had quit my job to start my own agency. It was as if they were waiting for me to quit to sign on. As if me putting suddenly added credibility to what I was doing. A few others followed after that putting me between 150-200k in just a years time. All of this change inspired by MJ's book!
Step 4: This is where I'm currently at in my process. My goal now is to continue to scaled and focus on marketing my business. I recently scrubbed a lot of my old social media advertising and am rebuilding with a strategy this time. I'm creating weekly video content for social, launching a new podcast in my community that interviews local business owners and entrepreneurs, and other marketing efforts to establish my company as the leading authority for marketing and creative services in my local area. While local isn't my end-game, it's low-hanging fruit while I continue to scale. Any additional clients I bring on, I intend on using that money to hire other employees and regain more of my time.
Once that time is reclaimed, my goal is a money-tree. I'd love to find an additional means to wealth that can pay me aside from my time, much like MJ suggest.
I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into my journey. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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