Starting a Digital Marketing Agency

[23Infinity]

Off topic but reading your thread got me wondering what payment service do you use for receiving money from your clients?

As teenagers, we can't use a Stripe or Paypal merchant account to do so, but there's also Interac that offers payments reception regardless of the age within Canada (I'm also Canadian).

Just curious about the payment method you are using.

I wouldn't worry too much about this as long as you get/show results for client. Keep in mind the 2-3% cut due to fees with paypal/credit card/stripe payments is a pain in the a$$ that both you and the client will hate (cause one of you will need to bear it). I found e-transfer and cheques to be the best, especially if you are collecting ad-spend from the client (since this isn't money in your pocket).

I remember I did a seemingly sketch thing with one of my first clients, basically had him send a photo of the cheque's front/back via email, saved the photos to my phone and and deposited it into my bank account with the bank app that let's you do mobile cheque deposits via uploading cheque photos. It felt kinda wrong lol but I had zero problems with the bank doing it - the client ended up paying this way for more than a year (they didn't want to pay by credit card due to fees and had some issue with sending e-transfers so only wanted to pay by cheque). However, the slight benefit with the credit card payment is that you can put them on auto-renew (stops your client from having to think every month if he wants to renew or not - but this shouldn't be a problem if you are getting results).

Btw @perchboy , if you set up things up right, you can get a a lot of credit card points or cashback via the client's ad spend (unfortunately not as good points deals as the US credit cards but still good enough) - once your campaign is set up, running well and the client renews. This applies more so if the client has a higher ad spend. I have collected enough credit card points / cashback equivalents for 1-2 round trip flights to Asia, over the past years.

It's a completely different topic not related to running a digital marketing agency but relates to churning credit cards; i.e. credit card offer spend $3000 within 4 months and get 35,000 points -> spend the client's ad spend on this card, get the points, find another card with such an offer, repeat.

Nowadays, I personally just prefer cashback as I have too many points and not as much time as I like to travel and use them (one can choose to still get Amazon & other gift cards with points though). Rogers World Elite (1.5%) and the Amex Simply Cashback (2%) are my favorites atm.

 

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[perchboy]

I couldn’t get profitable enough with the pest control company.

Getting leads for $40 for the window sales guy. (Avg ticket $400 but who knows his closing rate its 0% so far.)
Had to go on a hiatus with him because he says a $100 adspend cost is giving him a "financial pounding"

This is much harder than I thought. Finding clients is easy, but getting results is hard.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't neglect the back end of your business. My philosophy has always been to put 100% focus on the front end. More leads, more bookings, more quick money; poor value but high perceived value. I thought this business would be easy since I can find clients easily but I didn't factor in providing real value to the clients which would set me up for long term contracts. If I was able to get results for these businesses, it would have been a big success. That was the only ingredient missing.

2. Focus on 1 thing. I have severe shiny object syndrome. Starting something new always gives me a rush. I need to focus on one thing if i want it to become big. I took time to think about the life I want and I know exactly what I need to do in the coming years, months, weeks, and days to get that life.

I'm glad of the overall progress I've made so far. When I was doing web design last autumn, I believed it was impossible for me to find any clients for any business. I doubted I could even make $1 without a job! This time I found clients this time with ease thanks to my experience! Act, assess, adjust. Those 3 words will bring you success in any endeavor

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

I couldn’t get profitable enough with the pest control company.

Getting leads for $40 for the window sales guy. (Avg ticket $400 but who knows his closing rate its 0% so far.)
Had to go on a hiatus with him because he says a $100 adspend cost is giving him a "financial pounding"

This is much harder than I thought. Finding clients is easy, but getting results is hard.

Love this thread. You're definitely demonstrating how easy it is to get up and rolling.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't neglect the back end of your business. My philosophy has always been to put 100% focus on the front end. More leads, more bookings, more quick money; poor value but high perceived value. I thought this business would be easy since I can find clients easily but I didn't factor in providing real value to the clients which would set me up for long term contracts. If I was able to get results for these businesses, it would have been a big success. That was the only ingredient missing.

If you have to sell, your marketing isn't good enough yet... and if you have to market your product isn't good enough yet. Get a few results for a few people with your hunger and your motivation? You'll easily crush it.

Advice you didn't ask for: write down everything you do step-by-step so that when you hire someone to do it for you, you can hand them a book that tells them EXACTLY what to do while you go get more business. The beginning of your "SOPs"

2. Focus on 1 thing. I have severe shiny object syndrome. Starting something new always gives me a rush. I need to focus on one thing if i want it to become big. I took time to think about the life I want and I know exactly what I need to do in the coming years, months, weeks, and days to get that life.

I'm glad of the overall progress I've made so far. When I was doing web design last autumn, I believed it was impossible for me to find any clients for any business. I doubted I could even make $1 without a job! This time I found clients this time with ease thanks to my experience! Act, assess, adjust. Those 3 words will bring you success in any endeavor

I had a lot of major success early on in my career using Google Adpsend credits on someone's account as a way to generate them "free leads" for the first month. Then they were hooked. Most businesses get the offer of "$250 ads credit" or even $500.

Still a viable option if they've never run ads before OR if they quit, Google will start sending them those credits to get them reactivated as a customer.

More advice you didn't ask for: the easiest laydown client beside pest control is massage envy or similar massage places. Specifically because they have close to a 100% close rate so anybody you get to call WILL book a massage and pay. And the franchise owners often all know each other/refer each other.

 

[Reymodn]

hey guys

first: what must I do I got leads and they want to speak with me but my English speaking sucks?

second: I can't use {Paypal} or {Stripe} it all blocked for me so do you think the business owners have a problem with sending money to a wallet like {Trustwallet}?

 

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[perchboy]

hey guys

first: what must I do I got leads and they want to speak with me but my English speaking sucks?

Cold calls, cold emails, ringless voicemails, Facebook Outreach, SMS outreach, Instagram Outreach, LinkedIn outreach.

Find a scrapping software or just manually build a list of your ideal prospects and start hammering through. It’s a numbers game but you also need to make sure you have a decent offer and professionalism.

second: I can't use {Paypal} or {Stripe} it all blocked for me so do you think the business owners have a problem with sending money to a wallet like {Trustwallet}?

As long as you have a payment gateway that people can put their card info to pay it should be fine. Might wanna ask @Nightwolf what he uses.