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    Marketplace Tuesday! (February 04, 2020) Entrepreneur

    February 04, 2020

    Marketplace Tuesday! (February 04, 2020) Entrepreneur

    Marketplace Tuesday! (February 04, 2020)

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 05:07 AM PST

    Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members.

    We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread.

    Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    I have made over $150 Dollars by doing what I love.

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:02 AM PST

    I'm 18 years old and I'm a graphic designer & Music producer. In January I generated $150 dollars in revenue by doing custom designs and selling beats. I feel good because If keep working really hard, this year is going to be great. I just wanted to share that w/ you guys.

    I know its not a lot of money, but I don't have any expenses or bills to pay so all the money is and will be for me to enjoy hehe.

    submitted by /u/ImpressiveBullfrog
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    The marketing genius of Lil Nas X

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:37 AM PST

    TLDR - Lil Nas X was a college dropout sleeping on his sister's couch with a negative balance in his Wells Fargo account. 5 months later he'd broke Mariah Carey's record for the most consecutive weeks at No. 1. This post tells the story:

    Part 1

    Most musicians think like failed startups. Too much time creating. Not enough time promoting.

    When Lil Nas X dropped out of college to pursue music he didn't create much. Instead, he lived on Twitter, made online friends and got popular posting memes. His account quickly grew to 30,000 followers.

    The plan was to use his following to promote his music. But it wasn't that simple. In Nas's words:

    I'd post a funny meme and get 2,000 retweets. Then I'd post a song and get 10.

    So Nas got creative. He stopped tweeting SoundCloud links and started writing a song he could promote through memes. In his words:

    It had to be short. It had to be catchy. It had to be funny.

    Old Town Road was the result. And on the 3rd December 2018 Nas paired it with a video of a dancing cowboy and shared it with his followers (see tweet).

    The video went viral. So Nas stuck to this formula: Short viral videos. To the tune of Old Town Road. With the full song linked underneath.

    As an unknown artist, it was the only way he could get the word out. And the views started piling up:

    Part 2

    Inspired by Old Town Road's success on Twitter it spread to TikTok, and then onto Billboard's country music charts. Yes, the country music charts. Nas listed it as a country song aware that the charts were less competitive.

    One week later Billboard removed it for "not being a country song". Ironically, this was the best thing that could have possibly happened. Billboard's decision turned Old Town Road into a national talking point and two weeks later it was No. 1.

    Nas wasn't stopping. He began lining up remixes with some of music's biggest stars.

    Billboard has a loophole whereby remix plays count towards the original song's chart placement. With every remix millions more streams poured in, and Old Town Road became impossible to budge.

    17 weeks later he'd broke Mariah Carey's record for the most consecutive weeks at No. 1.

    It's easy to forget quite what an extraordinary achievement this is. Five months earlier, Nas was a college dropout sleeping on his sister's couch with a negative balance in his Wells Fargo account.

    Part 3

    On my first day researching Old Town Road I read a quote from Nas:

    A lot of people like to say "a kid accidentally got lucky". No. This was no accident.

    The more I learned about Nas the more I believed him.

    A key moment in Old Town Road's rise was a video of a man standing on a galloping horse going viral on Twitter. The audio was set to Old Town Road. Different versions of the video were viewed millions of times.

    I wanted to know how the video spread, so I did some digging and found it first posted on the 24th December: (see tweet)

    I asked the Twitter user why he made the video. He told me that Nas sent it to him. But it doesn't end there.

    Aware that people watching the video would search for the full song, Nas changed the song title on YouTube and SoundCloud to include the lyric from the viral video — "I got the horses in the back".

    He also posted on the NameThatSong subreddit which ranked on Google. Now, anyone searching from the video had an easy route to the song.

    Things didn't happen to Nas. Things happened because of Nas

    Virality is not mystical. The story of Old Town Road is not magical.

    Look behind the curtain: Nas is sitting in his underpants, on his sister's couch, iPhone in hand, making the whole thing happen.

    No one knew him. No one wanted to check out his song. No one promoted anything for him.

    He made friends, made them laugh, and built an audience. Then he packaged his song in a way that fit into their life. The rest is history.

    A final quote from Nas to end:

    u can literally scroll down my account and see my promoting this fuckin song for months. each accomplishment it gets just makes all this shit feel so worth it. i can't stop taking about it.

    ***

    Thanks for reading. If enjoyed and are looking to improve your marketing I share more real world marketing examples over on MarketingExamples.com

    submitted by /u/harrydry
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    My Key Takeaways From "Never Split the Difference" - An Entrepreneur's Must Read

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:54 AM PST

    Negotiations don't just happen in board rooms over multi-million dollar proposals.

    Never Split The Difference explains that most interactions in life are some form of negotiation whether it be while talking to a spouse, child, friend, or colleague negotiations are constantly happening.

    How can we get better at negotiations and conflict resolution?

    Most of it comes down to empathy, controlling your internal state in order to understand others, and asking the right questions.

    Key ideas and takeaways:

    Tactical Empathy:

    - First you must empathize with your counterpart's situation. Really try to understand how they're feeling, what their motives are, and what they may want that they're not saying. Make them feel heard.

    Example: your wife may get after you because she doesn't fell like you show enough affection but all she may actually want is a kiss on the forehead right when you get home.

    Empathy Tip 1: Getting your counterpart to say "That's right":

    1. Listen to their cares and concerns
    2. Look for emotions behind their words
    3. Summarize their cares and concerns with "it seems like" or "it sounds like" This will show the other party that you are listening, you care how they feel, and you understand their situation.

    Empathy Tip 2:

    After and only after you empathize with their situation get them to empathize with yours.

    Empathy Tip 3: Make assumptions using the phrase "you seem ____". What this does is make the counterpart either agree that your assumption is right (de-fusing the situation) or make them explain how they really feel allowing you to find the underlying answer to their problem.

    Example: Let's say you're a representative for a large corporation looking to purchase a smaller firm. The smaller firm is hesitant to some terms. Due to a gut feeling you say "you seem nervous that this large corporation is going to come in and change the identity of the business you've worked so hard to build". This leaves them to either agree or offer an alternative feeling yielding you grounds to find a mutual solution either way.

    Calibrated Questions (to get them to see your side): These are open ended questions that begin with "how", "what", "who", "Where", or "why".

    Example: Your landlord wants to increase rent. First empathize with why they would want to raise rents then ask "how am I supposed to afford that?"

    Common Responses To This:

    1. They come up with a creative solution
    2. They lower their initial demand No this won't work every time nor every situation but the goal is to move the needle in a positive direction increasing the odds of a more ideal outcome even if only by a few percentage points.

    Calibrated Question Tip: Avoid questions that start with "can", "is", "are", "do", or "does". Compare the how question above with "Can we lower rent to X instead?" this question is MUCH easier to say "no" to.

    submitted by /u/mmaher13
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    How Actually Making $7.23 Did More for My Confidence Than Daydreaming About Making $1,000,000

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:25 AM PST

    My YouTube channel finally got monetized and we made our first bit of cash from advertising revenue.

    $7.23!

    Oof! About 45 minutes of minimum wage work in some states.

    How long have I been working on my channel? Since November 2018.

    But, guess what? I am pumped and re-focused.

    Here's what I want to tell you (if you haven't started something) that I absorbed over the last 15 months:

    Every small win feels as amazing as the elusive big wins because there aren't really big wins: I felt the same rush after I recorded my first video as I did when we reached 100 subscribers. I felt the same rush when we reached 1,000. There likely won't be a huge rush of excitement in your journey. Only small progressive hurdles over the course of months.

    Don't look for the "I just won the lottery" ecstasy and joy. Why? Because it helps you stay stable in the most ultimate bipolar journey a human can embark on in 2020. Let each small win pack onto your body like a suit of armor until one day, you're a fucking winner to the core.

    You don't need a million dollars to be happy: Sure, I need a lot more than $7.23 but damn, get your values aligned. As Peter Sage told me to my face, "you can't catch the rabbit of fulfillment by running on the track of achievement."Let your values fill you up, not some arbitrary number Grant Cardone told you about. The hundred or so encouraging comments on my YouTube videos mean a lot to me.

    Prepare for the long haul through the desert: If I could name one reason why I haven't reached my potential, it wouldn't be my depression, it wouldn't be my non-entrepreneurial upbringing, it wouldn't be my terrible financial mindset, it wouldn't be substance abuse in the past, it wouldn't be laziness, it wouldn't be fear. It would be simply not seeing something through past the flatline phase. Through the desert. Through the dip.

    Here's to the small wins, defining my own version of "success", and walking the desert when I wanted to quit everyday.

    Much love to my entrepreneurial brothers and sisters!

    Alex

    submitted by /u/alejandroclark
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    IAvisa, a new and accurate visa requirements website

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:21 AM PST

    'Never go on trips with anyone you do not love' said E. Hemingway, and he truly knew travelling!

    IAVisa story

    We, at IAVisa.com, have wanderlust in our blood! But just like you, we have found ourselves in situations with scarce and even no information about the visa required in the country of travel. And it happened each time we wanted to take a trip, so we decided to put all the visa requirement information together to make our lives and others' like ours easier.

    So, look no further than IAVisa for up-to-date and useful info about international visas, as well as many more travel tips and advice for each country.

    Who are we?

    We are a team of creative digital nomads, professionals with careers in software development, copywriting and SEO specialists and we have one thing in common: we live to travel. We decided to become digital nomads so that we can travel, work from and enjoy every corner of the world.

    The problem

    We soon realized that we need a visa to travel to most countries, so we started looking up information online. We found that some countries offer Visa on Arrival, but there are others which require you to go to the embassy to obtain a visa.

    We started by checking up and comparing visa requirements on official websites, where there were any, on travel blogs, started asking other digital nomads and found that the info available is either outdated or poor. The conclusion was obvious: there was not one single website where you could find everything you need to know about visas.

    Our next step? Create a visa info guru!

    IAVisa was born so that anyone could find all the details needed about travelling to a particular country, and we mean almost all the countries in the world. International visa info about every country in the world is here, not just the popular US Visa requirements.

    We took the time and put on the effort so that you don't have to. All we want you to think about, fellow traveller, is how to pack your favourite clothing, that's why we conveniently gathered everything you need to know about international visa requirements in one place.

    What we wanted to gather on IAVisa:

    • Visa-related info about each country in the world • Visa-related info served in an easy to understand manner, so anyone could access and use • Up-to-date visa information • The real coast of a visa • Must-know details about each country: currency, time zone, emergency numbers, top 10 attractions and many more • Tips & tricks about each country: what to watch for, what vaccines you need to take and so on

    The IAVisa solution

    • A user-friendly and intuitive website to find info about visas • Almost all countries in the world and their visa requirements under one roof • Visa types such as Visa on Arrival, visa-free countries, evisa, travel visa, business visa, medical visa, how not to get your visa refused, visa application etc. • Visa checklist for each country • Up-to-date information about visas • Constantly updated visa requirements • Easy way to find the country you are travelling to • Must-know information and tips & tricks for each country: popular destinations, off-the-beatentrack attractions, cuisine, what vaccines you need to take, how not to get scammed and many more

    How does IAVisa work?

    All you have to do is enter your citizenship, the country you are travelling to and click 'Let's go'!

    The type of visa you need is the first info you'll see, but you also have all the country's details at one click away. For travel tips, our blog section will provide you with hot tourist attractions, lesser-known or secluded destinations, what dishes to indulge in and so much more.

    Feel free to contact us if you want a travellers' advice. And meanwhile, start checking the visa requirements for your country of destination!

    submitted by /u/antonyperk
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    skysthelimit.org uses blockchain technology and algorithms to match (like dating sites) young entrepreneurs with business mentors and/or investors to help them get the funds their business

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:57 PM PST

    Skysthelimit.org, a non-profit supporting underrepresented young adult entrepreneurs, provides a similar digital experience to matchmaking apps, but is for entrepreneurs and business mentors. It uses the same artificial intelligence that social networking sites use, only its goal is not to, say, create addictive habits online to sell more ads, but instead to match entrepreneurs with a network of volunteer business mentors. Skysthelimit.org develops the social capital of first-time entrepreneurs to increase their chances of building successful businesses quicker.

    How's it work?

    "The way we match entrepreneurs with business advisors and mentors are not too dissimilar to how a dating app will look at your preferences, and use its algorithm to make a recommendation," said Mr. Ghirardelli. The platform encourages entrepreneurs and volunteers to start a conversation using in-app messaging.

    "We are building a digital experience that really mimics how people build relationships naturally," said Mr. Ghirardelli. "It's not too different from how we meet someone new in the professional world. There is some kind of intro email, then we have our first few meetings, and eventually we decide whether it is a good fit to keep collaborating together. Unlike in dating platforms, we guide our entrepreneurs and mentors to commit to each other to set expectations around their collaboration—whether they're working on creating a business plan or launching a digital marketing campaign for a young entrepreneur's new product line." These collaborations help a first-time entrepreneur develop social capital, vital business knowledge, connections, and confidence.

    "We can use data to help instantly create better, more positive outcomes for our community," said Mr. Cary. "We can A/B test new features rapidly, and analyze results in real-time. Like other tech platforms, we look at users' time on site, we're looking at satisfaction, surveys, and we can study all the points across the conversion funnel through our whole pathway to business ownership, and start to refine that process in an intentional way because we sit on a lot of data."

    He adds: "This is still relatively alien in the philanthropic space because the tools just haven't been used yet in a digitally native way by many nonprofits, and there are still few foundations who have started to invest long term in funding tech nonprofits."

    Who is selected?

    Skysthelimit.org has a unique startup grants program, powered by a custom Hyperledger blockchain, where the community of entrepreneurs, volunteers, and donors vote each month on eligible young entrepreneurs to select who wins these grants to help them launch their business.

    ​

    source site: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinoconnell/2020/02/03/how-a-blockchaincom-founder-is-fighting-poverty/#7803ce7d9f03

    submitted by /u/bumjae1
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    I’m about to start my own company, I’m scared, any advice?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:29 PM PST

    I create photo and video content. I have been working at a construction company for almost 2 years and last year I was promoted to the office. I took on a lot of new responsibilities and one of them happened to be social media management. I created really great content for this company. So great, that they are willing to sell me the video equipment they bought for me to use, introduce me to new clients, and allow me to continue doing this kind of work for them as a full time business owner if that is something I wish to do.

    The only problem is, I need to make at least $2,000 a month to keep my bills and expenses paid and I'm sort of guaranteed just this business so far and what they're willing to pay per month (estimated $750) isn't enough to pay taxes and keep me from going into debt. I have several thousand dollars in the bank but the risk of it not working out and me having to return to working for another company sounds horrible.

    I'm estimating that I need to make about $25,000 a year after taxes just to keep my family and I in the current condition we're in.

    Any advice or thoughts on this?

    submitted by /u/TheGameGuyy
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    Secure way to outsource existing codebase?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:05 PM PST

    Is there ANY way I can outsource maintenance of an existing codebase to a contractor without running the risk of them stealing it or hacking it?

    I guess the only way to reduce the risk is to get someone in country and do contracts... has anyone done this before?

    submitted by /u/adlabco
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    So you want to start a digital marketing agency...

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 08:06 AM PST

    Hey guys,

    My name is Haydon and I run a mildly successful digital marketing agency ($30K MRR). I thought I would try to give back some value to Reddit as it's helped me a lot in my own journey over the years. I don't have all the answers, but I hope this can help a few people. This is for everyone who is interested in starting a digital marketing agency.

    This is mainly from my viewpoint as Director of Paid Search

    If you have any questions for me or you want me to cover another topic, please comment below. Let's try to keep the conversation in this thread so everyone can benefit from the questions / answers.

    Are You Sure?

    The most important thing is making sure you really want to be in this business. The internet will tell you it's sexy. You can get rich quick. There isn't any work involved. Well, that's total bullshit. To be honest, this industry SUCKS! It's an insane amount of work, clients are mostly terrible, and every day you will have to deal with 10 different problems. You will regret starting this business and often you will want to quit. You will need to be sure this is the business for you to even survive.

    If you're passionate about helping small businesses and passionate about marketing / advertising, then you might seriously consider this career path. But if you don't love it, keep looking for the right business for you. This will take 5 - 10 years (or more) of your life. I didn't think about this when I was starting out because I thought I would fail. Looking back it's really important to start a business doing what you love because this will become most of your life. Don't do it for the money, do it for your passion. If you work hard and don't give up, you can be successful at anything you do.

    About My Journey

    When I graduated from University with a marketing degree, the only things that interested me were Google AdWords and Advertising (thanks Mad Men). I applied at a bunch of marketing agencies but no one would hire me.

    I ended up taking a job selling email marketing software over the phone. It was a terrible job but I learned how sales worked. I always told myself I would try to become an entrepreneur, but first I needed to invest in myself by learning the skills I would need to be a successful entrepreneur. I learned sales, how to work with business owners, how to talk to business owners, what they were looking for, what they needed help with, and how to pitch them my services (at the time email marketing software). Don't be afraid to spend a few years working and learning.

    I burnt out quickly at that job and I was basically at rock bottom. I personally felt terrible and was dealing with a lot of negative emotions. Eventually I quit because I just couldn't do it anymore. I cared too much about the small businesses and not enough about hard closing them. Fuck me, right?

    After that job, I spent 6 months unemployed just racking up credit card debt. I actually tried to start my own business selling a silly product on Etsy. It was a fun learning experience but I ultimately failed. I did learn a lot about keyword research though.

    Then I got serious about getting into a digital marketing agency again and I started applying to every digital marketing agency in Colorado. Even if they didn't have open positions on their website, I would submit a contact form or email them.

    A few agencies interviewed me, but I never got the job. At that point I knew digital marketing was what I wanted to do, so I just kept hammering out resumes and applications. I had to apply a few times to an agency in Denver, but they finally interviewed me. It went well and soon after they offered me a job as a PPC Specialist. On Friday they asked "When can you start?" I said I would see them Monday morning baby! I was really excited and even though I took a pay cut, it was worth it for the experience. I had actually gotten 2 job offers that same day but I picked the bigger agency. When it rains, it pours. Just keep going.

    I became the expert by learning from my boss (who had been doing PPC since AdWords launched) and by obsessively consuming FREE information on the internet. I worked hard, stayed late, and tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could. My boss taught me everything I needed to know, and for that I will always be thankful. 100% I would not have been successful without his help. I got experience working on tons of different accounts in a bunch of different industries. I tried to learn everything I could about PPC. I had the opportunity to work on massive accounts, and I was good at it.

    That agency had a lot of internal issues so I didn't spend long there (maybe 1 - 2 years), but they taught me everything I needed to know to start moonlighting / freelancing. I helped build their PPC agency up to become a Google Premier Partner and then I headed out. I worked for another year managing all the PPC for an Australian marketing agency. I rebuilt and managed all their PPC accounts, soon they were a Google Premier Partner too! At that point, I was comfortable with my skills and I was confident I knew what I was doing.

    Starting My Agency

    When I started out I was broke, I had just quit my job at the agency, and I thought I was destined to fail. I had to move from Denver where I had lived for 10 years because I couldn't afford the expensive rent without a job. All I had was a dream of being an entrepreneur and the hope that I could do it better than the agencies where I had worked. I accepted that my chances of failure were very high, but I wanted to give it a shot. During this time period, I was so convinced I would fail and have to get another job. But hey, that wouldn't be that difficult now that I was experienced in PPC. I knew I could get a job at an agency anywhere.

    I had some freelance gigs, so I was already working with a few small clients when I started. I initially got a bit of work from business Facebook groups. I would help audit their PPC accounts for free and it turned into a handful of small clients. I still get referrals from this initial work. By proving value upfront, you can prove to people that you're legit and you're the expert. Most people running AdWords are wasting a ton of money, they just don't know it. After you put together an audit showing their mistakes and how you can improve performance, it's a natural transition into them hiring you to manage their account.

    At this point, I still didn't have a website, logo, or a business name. I wasn't even a legit LLC yet (shhhhh). That all came much later.

    I also applied to every UpWork gig I could find and searched Craigslist for anyone who needed help with their marketing. We actually found a great client from Craigslist that I believe was our first client. Still with us to this day.

    Make no mistake, this business is difficult. Getting an agency off the ground will take blood, sweat, and tears. When I started off, I regularly worked at least 80 hours per week for very low pay. Weekends didn't exist. These days I have a few people helping me, so it's not as bad. I probably work closer to 40 hours per week now. I definitely work less but I'm still doing business related things pretty much 24/7.

    Becoming The Expert

    With digital marketing, you are really selling your knowledge and time / work to clients. If you don't know what you are doing (95% of digital marketing agencies), you are going to have a really difficult and stressful time in this business. Without a doubt, the only reason I've been successful with my agency is because I know more than other agencies. I can do better work for clients. That's the only way to succeed long term. If you can't make your clients money and grow their business, you're dead in the water.

    Getting Hired at a Digital Marketing Agency

    The best thing you can do to get hired at a digital marketing agency is prove to them your interest and passion. Start by passing the Google Ads Certifications in the Skillshop. At least get your Search Fundamentals certification, this will help get you ahead of most applicants. Try to learn the basics so that you have a leg up on other applicants and you can nail the interview.

    This was my path and I attribute a lot of my success to having worked at a few agencies before I went out on my own. If you try to skip this step, it will take much longer to be successful. Not only did I learn PPC and SEO, I also learned how an agency works and how to manage an agency. I learned almost everything I know working in agencies, I think of it as valuable schooling. Would you go to a dentist that skipped dental school, started his own practice right away, and hopes to just figure it out as he goes along?

    Sometimes I wish I had never started my own digital marketing agency and that I just had a great job in someone else's agency. It's more fun, less stressful, and you get to relax at 5PM and on weekends. Starting with a job at another agency will help you feel this out and make this decision for yourself. Do you want to work in digital marketing or start your own agency?

    Freelancing / Moonlighting

    After you get a job at a digital marketing agency, you'll learn the skills needed to start freelancing / moonlighting. It's a great way to earn some extra cash, get more experience, build your network, and start getting clients of your own. When I left the agency I was working at, I had already lined up a freelance position with an Australian marketing agency. I also had been freelancing for a few different small clients that helped keep me afloat without a full time job.

    Starting Your Digital Marketing Agency

    If you know what your doing and you're confident in your experience and abilities, then you can start your own digital marketing agency. There is really no barrier to entry to starting an agency. You can hop on a freelance website and start applying to jobs right away. Hopefully you've been freelancing / moonlighting so that you have a bit of revenue coming in before you quit your job.

    Don't Waste Time

    Focus on getting clients and doing great work, try not to get distracted with time wasters like your business name, logo, website, or even setting up an LLC / EIN. You can do all of that later. When I got started, I didn't have ANY of those things. I see a lot of people get stuck at this point. They worry about their logo, their business name, or screw around building their website before they even have clients.

    Niche Down

    If you're coming into digital marketing with experience in another industry. Use that knowledge as an asset. If you were an insurance salesman, then you know the insurance industry well. That's an asset and will help set you apart from other agencies. Focus on that niche and do Digital Marketing for Insurance Agents. The more experience you have in an industry, the more clients will want to work with you.

    Now I don't exactly follow this advice, but that's because I have a ton of experience in almost every industry. That allows me to work with many different clients across industries because I have that knowledge and experience. Although it's important to note, working in the same industry is MUCH easier. What works for a dentist in Denver, will pretty much work for a dentist in Miami.

    What Services Should You Offer?

    Play to your strengths. If you know email marketing, then focus on email marketing. If you know SEO, focus on SEO. Don't try to offer a service you don't know, it will just be a nightmare.

    I mainly offer my clients AdWords / PPC, SEO, Facebook Ads, and Website Development. In my opinion, that's a pretty basic marketing stack for an agency. You can niche down to only offering 1 service and still be successful.

    I know the services I offer very well. I believe they are all critical to a client's long term success. Managing multiple channels for them makes it easy to ensure they are successful. However, the services I offer are also the most competitive.

    You might consider starting an agency in other popular areas like: * Email Marketing

    • Content Marketing

    • Organic Social

    • Design, Branding

    • Landing Page Development

    • Video Marketing

    • Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

    If you only manage 1 service, it can be less stressful because they are not dependant on you. If you manage multiple services, their business often depends on you and your performance. Don't fuck up.

    Getting Your First Clients

    I got my first clients by offering value for free upfront. I offered business owners a Free PPC Audit (I still do this) so I could show them they were wasting money and that I could help them improve performance.

    99% of AdWords accounts I've looked at over the years had MASSIVE mistakes and it was costing these businesses thousands of dollars. Many times I'd audit an account and find they wasted $10k in the last year just because they didn't know any better. Ouch.

    When I first started I got my initial clients from:

    • Business Facebook Groups

    • Craigslist

    • UpWork (kinda shitty now, mostly clueless agencies looking for someone to do their work)

    • Referrals

    • Reddit

    • Networking

    Picking The Right Clients

    If you want to save yourself a lot of anxiety, stress, and problems... pick the right clients! It took me a few years to learn this lesson. You need to figure out who your ideal client is and only work with those people. My ideal client is someone who has a website, needs leads / calls, knows the value of digital marketing, and wants to hire someone to take care of it all for them. Red flags for me are when a client wants to be involved or wants to manage it themselves. One rule that I've learned... in this business the client is always wrong! You have to be the expert for them and many times you have to explain to them why their ideas are not going to work.

    Why keep a dog and bark yourself? - Ogilvy

    If a client is stressing you out, fire them immediately. Managing stress and anxiety is a big part of managing an agency. Bad clients lead to burnout and can take down your entire agency. Seriously, don't be afraid of firing clients.

    Pricing

    There are a few different pricing models. The two main options are:

    • % of Ad Spend

    • Flat Fee

    My agency charges 25% of Ad Spend ($375 minimum) as our management fee to take care of everything. The fee goes down as Ad Spend goes up to $5k / $10k / $15k / etc. Some people don't like this model, I do. Some clients don't like this model, but they just don't understand it. With % of ad spend pricing, we make more when our clients spend more. BUT they only spend more when it's working well. No one is going to increase their budget if they aren't making money. In that way, our incentives are aligned. It also helps cover our time investment and allows us to focus more on the client as the account scales up. I've been told my pricing is too cheap by a lot of people, so keep that in mind as well. I don't have it all figured out. I think a lot of people start with really low pricing (I started at $250) and then as you have more clients, you can raise your prices.

    I would caution against doing Pay Per Lead and even Hourly Billing. I've done those before and it was great... for me. The client ends up paying a lot more money. You can run into problems where the client owes you way more money than they expected and it usually results in you losing the client.

    Doing Great Work

    This is the only way you will be successful. If you want to build a real digital marketing agency, you have to be the expert at what you do and you have to do great work. There is no other way.

    Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, but he / Amazon have been successful because they focus on doing great work. No one can compete with the incredible convenience Amazon offers. If you want to have a successful digital marketing agency, you must do the best possible work so that no one can compete with you. If you don't do good work, someone like me will audit your account, show your client, and eat your lunch.

    Courses / Mentors / Coaches

    You might be waiting for me to drop a link to my $5000 course that shows you how to do all this, but ya ain't gonna find it. Fuck those people. Most of them have never actually built a successful agency. You buy their course and they teach you to sell courses. Most of those guys are unethical, predatory, and in many cases what they are doing is straight up illegal.

    Do yourself a favor and just save your money. You don't need those guys at all. The information you need is available for free on the internet. All the course guys do is curate content that's available for free. The allure of these courses / gurus is that they pitch the new age Get Rich Quick Scheme by making false promises. "Buy my $5,000 course and start a digital marketing agency making $10,000/month." Seems like a no brainer, right? Wrong AF. There are no shortcuts. Most of these guys have very limited knowledge on how to do anything but sell courses to gullible people.

    It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at what you do. There are no shortcuts for experience and knowledge. You can't buy an expensive course to get around this.

    This isn't super related but a good thing to keep in mind. Don't be so quick to elevate other people above yourself. They don't have it all figured out either. They are just like you. No one has all the answers, be especially wary when they say they do.

    Scarcity Mindset / Why I'm Posting This

    Many people have helped me over the years. I've learned a lot from other people's FREE content. This is a part of my contribution. If this helped you, I hope one day you can also turn around and help other people. Don't fall into the trap of the Scarcity Mindset. The truth is there are more clients than we could ever work with. There's a lot of agencies out there now that are practically begging you to eat their lunch.

    The Future of My Agency

    I recently learned about the book EOS / Entrepreneurial Operating System and it's helped me plan out the growth of my agency. I recommend you check it out once you've started your own business. Below are a few things it helped me put together.

    Core Values

    1. Do the right thing
    2. Be honest / transparent
    3. Never stop learning
    4. Do great work
    5. Think it through
    6. Stay positive / have fun

    1 Year Plan

    For 2020, my main goal is to hit $60K MRR with 80 clients at around $750 MRR each.

    To scale up to this level, I'll need to: * set up our first office

    • hire 2-3 people

    • better document our processes

    • hammer out our exact packages and what they include

    • working with larger clients

    • offering clients at least 2 services

    • find a few large clients

    • improve our automation

    3 Year Plan

    My goal for the next 3 years is to build my agency to $250K MRR with 150 clients at around $1500 MRR each.

    This will mean: * building out my teams

    • offering more services to clients

    • hiring managers

    • finding bigger clients ($100k+)

    • solidifying training / processes

    • automating as much as possible

    • stepping away from day to day account management

    10 Year Target

    500 clients and $1,000,000 MRR

    Software / Tools

    Here are most of the software / tools we use in the agency. Many are available for free. Most are really affordable. * Asana (task management)

    • Slack (team communications)

    • Freshbooks (automated recurring billing)

    • G Suite (Drive, Sheets, Docs, Gmail, etc)

    • Google Data Studio (reporting)

    • AHREFS (SEO)

    • Moz (SEO)

    • CallRail (call tracking / reporting)

    • Unbounce (landing page development)

    • WordPress (web dev)

    • Elementor (web dev)

    • Photoshop (design / ad creative)

    • Google Web Designer (HTML5 banner ads)

    • AdWords Editor (AdWords management)

    That's all I've got for now. If you want to know something else, comment below and I'll try to answer. If you want me to talk about another area of marketing, let me know and I can try to put together some content.

    I don't put together content very often, but it's something I want to do more of. So if you have any feedback / comments / advice for me on writing content, please leave a comment below.

    Thanks for reading and good luck!

    Haydon

    submitted by /u/password_is_ent
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    Small Business Owners of Reddit, how do you manage online reviews?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:56 AM PST

    I owned a maid business a couple years back, and it was difficult to keep track of all the reviews on all the different websites, and responding to them when I needed to. Do you handle this manually, or do you use any software?

    submitted by /u/KevType9
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    I am a 19 year old aspiring to take up Graphic Design as a profession and even start up my own business. The problem is, I don't know where to even start. I need some advice, please!

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:00 AM PST

    I know the whole thing is mostly about, what niche I could fill, what skills I can offer, and all that, but I never really have ever marketed myself to people before. I've tried a few times before but I never really got any catches. What can I do to really get a business going?

    I've been wanting to start some profession in it, even as a side thing to begin with, for quite a while, i'm even going to be going for my AS starting this summer. I have my own equipment already, I'm just mostly struggling on the gaining a customer base part..

    submitted by /u/Woolilly
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    Is there any point trying to make a general facebook page popular?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:43 PM PST

    Hey so recently I've just been messing around. I bough some facebook ads for fun and have gained around 5,000 likes for about $40 cost. The page is just memes I post for fun.

    Is there any path to profitability here? I feel like that's quite a lot of likes for relatively little expenditure. I was thinking I could write some clickbait articles or something.

    Thoughts?

    submitted by /u/PowderKegDiplomacy
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    Need Advice. We are going through rebranding and we’d like to make some visual adjustments...

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:43 PM PST

    Thats' why we had prepared a simple survey to gather feedback on digital signatures and documents.

    We are on a simple yet challenging mission of making Better Contracts. We'd love to gather as many answers as possible, especially from enterpreneurs who face legal stuff every day.

    Every answer means a lot for us!

    Link to survey: https://contractbookhq.typeform.com/to/eh2XIl

    Thanks in advance!

    Marcin from Contractbook

    submitted by /u/marcinmi
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    Looking to advise/invest and not sure where to start

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:35 PM PST

    So I've been in what is essentially manufacturing for a while now, just helped take our company through an IPO last year, and although I'm in the product department now I've worn every hat in the company while going through our "startup phase". I started in customer service, then did logistics, then helped build out our first ERP software with every department in the company and a consulting firm, then eventually our SAP & PLM buildouts as well, and finally landed in the product department where I am now.

    I recently started my first business with a friend, and although we found some consistent business it just wasn't going to get us the returns we wanted and we couldn't agree on something else to get into. We were looking at a 10-15% return on our investments and then due to a stroke of luck, something fell in our laps and after 2 years we'll be getting closer to a 50-75% ROI. Unfortunately what fell in our lap is not sustainable, so we decided to dissolve the LLC at the end of the tax year.

    Now from our very small stint at running a business I've realized that I'm great at advising and coming up with creative solutions to problems, but not so great at doing the leg work to implement these ideas and bringing them to fruition. Because of this I feel like a good place for me is helping passionate people with good ideas take those ideas and make them a reality, and I would like to start investing time & money into projects that I'm not necessarily the owner/driver of.

    I happen to live in a pretty small town where it's not so easy to go out there and find people who have the idea/passion but lack the experience and or money. This may not be the best place but Reddit's done good by me in the past and I figure it doesn't hurt to try, so if anyone has suggestions on how to go about this or has a project they'd like to discuss then I'd love to chat with you.

    submitted by /u/_afox_
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    How can i go about advertising for a unconventional business?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:34 PM PST

    I (17F) have a small online business in which i make and sell customized activity books for children. I had a boom of unexpected business, and now business is completely slow. I've started trying to reach out to people to advertise but it's not working at all. It's such an unconventional business that no one really gets it or knows how to promote it.

    Does anyone have any suggestions?

    submitted by /u/cleanurcloset
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    [Nooks Updates] Today’s pretty exciting. We managed to hit about $300 in sales 11 days after launching!

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 05:54 AM PST

    Here are the previous few posts if you wanna check them out:

    Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Hey everybody, so it's been about 11 days since we launched. Pretty excited that we've done about $300 in underwear sales so far!

    I attribute most of that to the fact that we built up an email list before launching, but its still exciting nonetheless.

    Proof: sales chart

    It's a slow start, but it's nice that theres some validation going on and people seem to be liking our underwear. We worked pretty hard on making sure the material was great, branding wasn't "in your face" and the overall product was high quality.

    The conversion rate isn't very pretty, but those visitors are being hit with retargeting display ads on facebook and google. Still trying to find something that really works on facebook. My money is going into testing, testing and more testing. It hurts putting money in and not getting direct results, but it's a long game in my eyes.

    We've also really started investing time into SEO and blogging. Surprisingly, we're finding that some people are actually searching our brand name in google (we noticed it on google search console).

    Our blog is also getting a lot of traffic. Many people that come to the website (whether it be through social media, organic or paid ads) end up on our blog somehow. I think its because the navigation title is intriguing (we called our blog the debrief – get it?).

    We talk about men's health, lifestyle topics etc and the questions people are looking for answers to e.g. blogs about penis size research, valentine's day tips etc. It's all written with a conversational and humourous undertone, so maybe that's why people are liking it. I'm going to keep looking for interesting high volume keywords and crafting clever blog content around them.

    Our Instagram is also bringing in some qualified traffic. Although we have around 500 followers, a strong chunk of sales have come directly through Instagram, and they seem to have the highest average order value. I assume that's because they're very engaged with the brand and trust it a little more.

    Goal is to break $500 by 30 days after launch (that'll be around February 23 I believe).

    Here's to progress!

    One of my main sticking points right now is my email list. We have about 1100 people on our email list, and we've had about a handful make purchases. Open rates are about 30% for emails, and click rates fall in the 10-15%. Does anyone have any suggestions to really squeeze out as much as we can from the email list – frequency, content, discounts etc.?

    We're also trying to improve our sites conversion rate. Pretty poor right now even though I think the site design is very good (I did it myself). I got some suggestions on my last post and have started implementing them – any suggestions there?

    I don't like to put the link in the post because I think it's bad reddiquette, but everytime I post, people ask for the site link. So here it is

    Website

    submitted by /u/getnooks
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    Dive all in to this business, or what?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:32 AM PST

    Looking for advice on digging in or jumping ship.

    Me: 31M, Single, BS Mech Engineering, MBA. Have ran and sold a small 6 figure hospitality business.

    I currently work for a small (~$1M) engineering services company owned by 50/50 partners. I worked as a tech initially, then migrated to sales, because charisma and earning opportunity. I have used my education and experience to, and with eager acceptance from my bosses, weigh in frequently on strategic and analytical aspects of the business, but my title and role is generally sales.

    I have been getting stagnant in my role because of a variety of factors, including a poorly structured incentive plan and lack of leadership. Because of a lack of accountability, simply being in the office has become a proxy for my 'doing work.' I'm not being held to any standard, so my day-to-day has basically become mindlessly numb. I feel this has become a detriment for both myself and the company as I'm not able to provide my best work, despite my attempts to motivate myself. In addition, I have grown dissatisfied with my living situation (the general area).

    Recently I inquired about moving my job to a remote position, and establishing more objective criteria against which I can measure my productivity (for both my and company's sake). I have a number of friends in another city and I thought it would be a positive change for my own sanity well being. The objective criteria would protect the company (in case I fail) and allow me to have a target to shoot against. One of the partners (CEO) and the other salesman in the office are also remote, and one partner (COO) has mentioned his approval of such an arrangement for me in the past ("So long as the work gets done I don't care," mentality).

    The rub:

    Boss1 w invited me out to lunch today, basically to say that while he would consider the remote role, he would be disappointed with me leaving the office, because he is soon retiring and is envisioning that I become effectively the GM of the company if not more, including some kind of vesting equity arrangement. That said, he has no idea about what this would look like, when, or how it would come to fruition.

    Internally, the business is mismanaged (which is part of his interest in my appointment) and suffers from a top-down lack of accountability and other problems that range from nepotism, insubordination, down to outright laziness. One of those issues is the COO who is 50% partner and who's family holds key roles. I don't believe they are malicious but the nepotism there fosters complacency and inability or unwillingness to replace them when they falter.

    Externally, the market for our niche services is imho shrinking but potentially only shifting to a different type of customer. I haven't studied that too closely. We have not really innovated or expanded our service offering which I think could keep us well watered and growing if we cared to pursue it. That said, our sales staff (myself included!) is drastically underperforming to what I think the market potential is and we could increase capacity fairly easily with a marginal increase in expenditure. Margins are excellent.

    Anyway, this throws a big wrench in my 'get my life together' plans, and could be a huge opportunity, but could also be a huge ball and chain on my life.

    So, now that all that is on the table, what would you suggest? How would you approach it? Would you even consider it? How can I make it worthwhile and who should I talk to?

    TL;DR Poorly managed company wants me to take over but doesn't know what that means, I was looking for more separation. Help?

    Edit: I dk if this gives any more insight, but I am pretty apathetic to the business itself. I enjoy (more or less) the challenge of business building itself.

    submitted by /u/stealthdawg
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    SEO for B2B SaaS - What is a Decent conversation rate from articles(blog)?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:18 AM PST

    Hey there,

    ​

    I have been exploring the benefits of having a blog for SEO purposes, and they seem great. Though I haven't been able to find a % for B2B.

    ​

    Would anyone enlighten me on a very general %?

    ​

    Thank you for your time!

    ​

    Cheers

    submitted by /u/khazha88
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    How to write a real business proposition to a major company

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:02 AM PST

    Here is the idea, because I really am not afraid of it being duplicated, it's a lot of work.

    I would run a fleet of vehicles. And advertise to major companies that do not have sophisticated shipping methods. For example, You have a major parts store for Cars. However, when they ship, they ship via UPS, or can ship them themselves within 2 days or such.

    My company would contract with said company, and run their deliveries, same day. They great idea is, is that I carry no warehouses. Since all the companies I target, already have their warehouses on site. The plan will receive exponential profit margins as more and more companies sign up, allowing me to use one vehicle, to ship for more than one company.

    My question is, I just turned 21, and lack of trust is expected. How would I write a proposition, that would be formal to these companies. And not just disregarded as a "ambitious with no real hope" type of kid?

    How do companies contact companies? I am sure they don't go through our traditional methods of contacting support or such.

    Thank you in advance

    submitted by /u/plsdontread
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    Farm-stand "Franchise" - Thoughts?

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:47 AM PST

    A friend's family has been successful and active in the produce business for generations. Most of their output is to big brands, where they white-label the product for them and ship nation wide. During college, my buddy decided to utilize the families factory and product to make his own private label, and has been extremely successful selling these products at local farmer markets. He now employs a large team to target farmer markets throughout the year, but it is predominantly seasonal and the markets are generally within 50 miles of the factory.

    Recently, a group who enjoyed his product inquired about running their own stands on the other side of the country and have been quite successful as well.

    Clearly this isn't a multi-million dollar idea, but one would think that an opportunity to expand certainly exists. I was wondering if anyone had any insight or thoughts regarding farmers market. I think something similar to a franchise model could work, where potential partners would receive everything they need to run a successful stand (product, merch, tents, tables, etc). Has anyone seen anything like this before? Any ideas on finding the right people interested in making some additional cash? The economics work and are proven, where it is feasible to assume that someone could easily make $1k/day.

    submitted by /u/in5trum3ntal
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    NEED A TEAM

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:29 AM PST

    I have a kickstarter idea ( partial completed ) , but don't have the correct team around me . Half of them are not motivated to work and other half don't see a need to work . Would someone from here like to join , I require a few thing 1.self motivated to work 2. Can invest some money

    submitted by /u/samkitmaloo0912
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    Looking for feedback on the blog we've added to our website.

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:42 AM PST

    We've added a blog to our website, we're just looking for some constructive criticism regarding design and what we can do to improve etc.

    blog here!

    submitted by /u/uniqueusername42O
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    Is there a way to quickly detach myself from a business and hand over the reigns at an early stage while still maintaining a small ownership stake?

    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 11:53 PM PST

    I've found that over the years, my key skill set lies with spotting business trends or opportunities and bringing the right people , investors and strategies together to make it happen.

    I'm a poor manager and personally hate dealing with day to day tasks and I'm not proficient in anything technical . However I do have some fairly strong persuasion skills and the ability to formulate strategies and put the right people in place to get an idea off the ground.

    The problem Is, once that is done I find myself back in a CEO-type role, which I've always hated with a passion.

    Is there a way to remove myself from the situation once a plan is up and a new business or strategy is up and running ,3 whilst still benefiting long term from the new processes and people that I put in place from scratch?

    Like becoming a non exec director or something? Although I feel this would also require a lot of my time. My passion dies off as soon as I've achieved that initial objective of getting a new idea to profitability. How can I monetize this skill in an effective way?

    Thanks.

    submitted by /u/jiggzycoco
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    ProfileUI - Your straightforward online profile

    Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:52 AM PST

    Hey guys,

    Hope you wouldn't mind checking out my latest SAAS project, mainly made for my own personal use but opened it up to the world to provide a simplistic, minimalist profile service linking in with social media and bringing them all together on one, beautiful page.

    An online, simple profile allows you to stand out easily displaying information about yourself and social handles. Our software generates your profile, completely customisable ready to be shared.

    When would this be used?

    This is a question many people ask, however the answer is broad. Online and remote jobs such as assistants, development is now taking a higher priority, with several recruitment websites launching.

    ProfileUI will give you the ability to condense lots of information about yourself in a straightforward, minimalist way taking into account the customisation element giving them an idea about you.

    Creativity is also key in profileUI, with the type of backgrounds selected and colours. We are seeing our website used by about 20-30 users now and aim to grow even larger.

    ​

    If you wouldn't mind signing up, which is an easy process if you reply with your username I will make you a premium member which gives you more features and removes ProfileUI branding, i'd appreciate any feedback good or bad to ultimately improve the service. Thank you.

    https://profileui.com/landing/

    submitted by /u/marcusuk
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