How I Would Start A New SMMA in 2023 (If I Could Start Over)

Starting an Agency: Lessons Learned

In this video, the speaker shares the lessons he learned from running his agency for seven months. He talks about the mistakes he made and what he would do differently if he were to start over.

Mistakes Made

• The speaker made a lot of mistakes in service selection, offers, outreach, and promises.

• The consequences of these mistakes only became apparent two to three months later when clients started leaving.

• The biggest mistake was picking a service without conducting proper research. The niche chosen was YouTube ads for info products and coaches which required a lot of skills and knowledge. It only worked for clients with big budgets who were doing high volume business.

Service Delivery

• Conduct research on your niche by sending emails or DMs asking people for 15 to 20 minutes research calls to find out what they are struggling with.

• Find out what their biggest problems are and figure out possible solutions that you can implement yourself or offer as services.

• Base your service around the solution you have found through your research calls.

• Doing research calls can also lead to potential clients.

Conclusion

Starting an agency requires proper planning and research. Conducting market research is crucial in selecting a service that will work best for your target audience. Avoid making mistakes in service selection, offers, outreach, and promises as they may have long-term consequences on your business.

Tips for Picking a Service

In this section, the speaker provides tips on how to pick a service that works for anyone in the industry at all levels. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of picking a service that is easily systemizable and can be outsourced or taught to someone else.

Criteria for Picking a Service

• Pick a service that works for pretty much anyone in the industry at all levels.

• Pick something that you can actually systemize, outsource or teach someone else how to do.

• Consider the skill level required for your service and pick something where you can easily bring tangible results for clients without too much time spent learning.

• Avoid services with high skill caps as it will be difficult to find someone who is really good and willing to work with you.

Examples of Systemizable Services

• Chat marketing

• Database reactivation

• Google reviews

• Short form content (must guarantee or get a lot of views)

Skill Level Required for Your Service

In this section, the speaker discusses how the skill level required for your service affects its systemizability and outsourcing potential. The speaker also advises against promising ROI services if you don't have a huge budget.

Skill Level Required for Your Service

• It's going to be very hard to systemize good results if you don't have a huge budget.

• Consider whether your service requires high-level skills such as direct response marketing or short-form content creation.

• If doing an ROI service, pick something where you can easily or quickly bring tangible results for clients.

Avoiding Low-Quality Services

In this section, the speaker warns against low-quality services and advises picking services that offer quick wins and are not too difficult to learn. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of guaranteeing views and growing someone's brand.

Avoiding Low-Quality Services

• Avoid services that promise to make your life slightly easier by stealing clips from your podcast and posting them on some channel.

• Pick something that's not only systemizable but also offers quick wins for clients.

• Consider the difficulty level of the service and pick something that is not too difficult to learn.

• Guarantee views and show that you can grow someone's brand.

Direct Response Marketing and Outreach

This section covers the skills required for direct response marketing, picking a service that gives prospects shiny object syndrome, and outreach strategies.

Skills Required for Direct Response Marketing

• Direct response marketing requires writing skills and the ability to empathize with your target customer.

• Email marketing is an exception as it does not require exceptional writing skills.

• Pick a service that gives prospects shiny object syndrome to attract clients.

Outreach Strategies

• Use both cold email and cold DMs for outreach.

• Optimize your social media profiles as they are assets for getting more clients in the future.

Tips for Starting an Agency

In this section, the speaker shares tips on how to start an agency and get more clients.

Volume is Key

• The speaker recommends going for volume as soon as possible when starting out.

• Doing more work helps you get more data that you can use to split test different variables.

Sales Process

• The speaker advises recording sales calls from the start to improve your sales process.

• Reading books about sales can also help change your perspective and make you a better salesperson.

• Some recommended books include "Pitch Anything" by Oren Clough and "Never Split the Difference."

Hiring Strategy

• The speaker suggests not hiring out to a contractor until you know how to get results.

• Offering to work on a purely results basis can help figure out what works as soon as possible.

• Once you crack the code of getting good client results, scaling becomes much easier.