Advice to Young Marketers Starting Their Own Agency
>> 7 minute read
It’s a long read, so jump to the section you feel most attacked with.
Recently, a friend from church asked me if I’d be willing to give someone he knew from chruch advice on starting his own marketing agency.
He was a young, fresh-out-of-college kid who was hungry to start his own marketing business. In other words, he had been brainwashed. And I had to undo everything he had learned whether it was from antiquated, college, marketing lectures or bullshit, get-rich-quick, marketing agency courses from online “digital gurus”.
After exchanging about three or four messages, I knew exactly what he thought about marketing, what he thought worked, and how soon he was going to fail if he kept on thinking the way he did.
He sounded like every other “digital marketing guru” in the world. The same polished turd that floods your Facebook and LinkedIn feeds with dumb, rhetorical questions that have obvious answers.
Yeah… those are the ones.
He seemed to blow off a lot of the answers I gave him. If he didn’t like what he heard, it seemed like he thought I was wrong.
Honestly, I don’t care. I have the successful marketing agency. He doesn’t.
So with that, here is my advice to those young marketers willing to listen… and probably be offended.
We’re kicking it off with this one.
The number one reason people fail at starting a marketing agency (besides they simply don’t know how to run a business) is because they think what Tai Lopez teaches actually works.*
*Not an actual statistic…
It doesn’t.
Tai Lopez’s marketing agency course has about the same success rate as being successful in a multi-level marketing business (legal pyramid scheme).
It’s built on the idea that your potential clients are morons and you’ll be able to swindle a minimum of $5,000/mo out of anyone.
Your clients aren’t idiots. They’re business owners. And business owners are 200% smarter than nearly every marketer out there.
Before you make your judgements, yes, I took a Tai Lopez marketing course to see what they teach. It’s 10% good marketing practices, 20% outdated marketing practices, and 70% assuming your prospects are idiots.
The real idiot is the one thinking they’re getting value out of these courses.
And it’s not just Tai Lopez. It’s any of those social media, marketing influencers who have some proven method to success for your agency.
Take your pick. Billie Gene, Dan Lok, I’ll even throw Grant Cardone in there.
Those who cannot, teach.
I will say, one great thing Tai Lopez does teach, is niching down.
If you’re a marketer and you don’t specialize in a certain industry, then grab a shovel and start digging your own grave.
It’s 2020, there’s no way little Johnny-know-it-all who’s fresh out of college is going to be competing with multi-million dollar marketing agencies.
If you don’t focus on a niche, you’re not an expert in anything.
We’re the experts in landscaping and lawn care. Clients come to us because we’re a member of NALP, write for multiple landscaping publications, and are featured on landscaping podcasts. We know marketing and we know the industry.
You’ll never penetrate a market if you don’t focus on it.
Birdshot probably won’t kill a deer. But .30-06 will.
Be a .30-06.
This almost goes without saying. If you’re going to niche down, you need to understand your niche. Not just the market, but the trade.
If your niche is dentistry, you better know a lot about dental practices. Learn what services go hand-in-hand with each other, how often you can get a patient to come back to the office. Learn about how dental insurance works.
In other words, think as if you own a dental practice. You don’t have to be a dentist. Just understand the business and how it makes money the best.
Read books about running your own practice. There’s literally a book on everything. Here’s one on how to run a successful dental practice (I Googled this after I typed this example).
My business focused on the landscaping industry. That lead me to read books like:
- The E-Myth Landscape Contractor
- Landscape Economy Book
- Profit First (Only because my clients were reaing this)
- 10X Rule (Also only because my clients were reading this. I hated it.)
This allowed me to connect with my clients and become more credible in their eyes.
Knowing how to market their business is only half of the battle. You need to know how their business works.
It’s my belief marketers don’t know how to handle money. They may know how to allocate other people’s money. But if the amount isn’t dictated by an outside party, they’ll blow through it faster than a teenage girl at an outlet mall.
In turn, they don’t know how to properly run a business. So when you get turned down, it’s because your solution didn’t make practical business sense.
You have to realize marketing is certainly a positive investment for anyone. But YOU may not be. If the business didn’t buy into your marketing plan, it’s probably because:
- Your plan didn’t solve THEIR problems
- You didn’t quantify how you could help them in terms of their own profit numbers
- They just don’t trust you
If a business rejects your proposal, it’s not because they don’t see the light. It’s because you didn’t present a solution that solved their problem.
You need them to tell you what their problem is.
Business owners work to solve problems. Marketers look for problems to solve.
Don’t look for problems. Listen and provide a solution if you have one. If you don’t, then let them know. You don’t have a solution for everything and you shouldn’t.
People respect humility over arrogance.
On that note, be sure to humble yourself. You don’t know everything and you’re not expected to. You’re expected to find the solution to a problem.
I’ll admit. When I first started out, I was a bit arrogant (I also realize I’m being pretty arrogant in this blog post…).
My word was law in SEO and even social media (though, I really didn’t know that much about social media at the time).
I knew a lot about SEO, but the thing with SEO is that a lot of it is really subjective. Google has over 200 ranking signals and they do their best to not give away their secret.
So I’d say absolute statements like, “Image titles and file names don’t affect rankings, only alt-text” or “Duplicated content negatively affects your ranking.”
In case you’re wondering, the first statement isn’t for sure known, but it’s a best practice… just in case (If I owned a search engine, I would definitely look at these). Regarding the second statement, I haven’t seen anywhere that duplicate content affects your rankings negatively.
But it doesn’t help the duplicated page.
I’ve even burned some bridges being arrogant and argumentative to other SEOs. Was I right in a lot of cases? Sure. But it doesn’t matter.
The funniest part of all of this was I was never explaining any of this in detail to clients or prospects. So why the hell was I even doing it?
Humble yourself. You’re not a god and no one expects you to be. They expect you to be honest and personable.
It’s not your job to know the answers. It’s your job to find the answers.
Let me knock this one out right now. Your formula for marketing success or attracting leads isn’t a secret. I can guess it right now.
First you deploy an ad on social media (probably Facebook) that has an enticing offer in it to get signups. Like it’s some kind of sweepstakes. Just enter some information for a chance to get free {insert product or service}.
Then you get a bunch of (unqualified) leads.
You then use those leads and set them up in an email database that deploys scheduled emails. Probably 4 or 5 and the content changes depending on how they interact with the email (or don’t).
Those emails lead them through a “sales funnel”.
Your client then gets lots of still, unqualified leads. They’ll close some, but they’ll be shitty customers (oh sorry, you’re not supposed to know that yet).
Finally, you’re using ClickFunnels. Or some knockoff to do all of this.
This is a short term strategy. It’s not meant to get repeat customers or work forever. Does it work? Sometimes. But more often not. Especially if you’re not in the ecommerce industry.
Your secret isn’t a secret. It’s been beat to death.
The only thing worse than a used car salesman in the early 90s is a marketing entrepreneur.
I actually wrote a post about why people hate digital marketers awhile back. I encourage you to check that out if you have some time.
In the beginning, it was easy to sell things like SEO. High ticket items with minimal effort. At least it was for marketers at the time.
They (and still do) played on the ignorance of business owners. Throwing out buzzwords like “meta tags”, “alt-text”, “link equity”, etc. Things real business owners don’t have time to learn or understand.
“Sure, whatever, just take care of it.” Is typically what went through their minds.
It’s still the case.
But more and more business owners are catching on to that. They’re not stupid. In fact, they’re smarter than most people who call themselves marketers that rely on 3rd party apps like ClickFunnels.
If you want to stand out, you’re going to need to establish trust first. You need to help, not sell.
When I first started, I set out to become a resource for landscaping and lawn care business owners. I didn’t sell and I didn’t promote. I just helped and answered questions.
If you want to get an idea on how I “helped”, check out this link. Someone posted their website on a landscaping business owner forum for critiques. So I gave them… in detail.
I made it so if he wanted to do his own SEO, he could follow everything I said and didn’t need me.
This is the kind of credibility you need to build for yourself. It’s also the exact same thing that Gary Vaynerchuck preeches in his books “Crush It!” and “Crushing It!”.
SALES WILL COME.
They did for me. It just took a little while for the credibility to start building.
It’s no doubt that your business can’t succeed without sales. So naturally you feel like you need to be salesy and create an enticing pitch.
You don’t.
I would argue that being salesy and having such an exhuberant attitude when talking with a prospect is draining on them (and you) and keeps their guard up.
I find the most success when I treat them as a family member calling me. I don’t use any inflection in my voice, I don’t pretend I’m excited if I have nothing to be excited about, and I really don’t care if I get the sale.
The first thing you have to get through your head is that not all sales are good.
Trust me one this. You won’t. But I have to say it anyways.
Shitty clients are stressful. They’re the clients that want everything for nothing and make you bend over backwards for low margins. You don’t want this.
Instead, be an educator. Your leads should come to you. Not the other way around. To do this, you have to get your name out there.
- Comment and help on forums
- Write for industry related magazines and publications
- Try to get featured on podcasts
- Join social media groups (Do NOT pitch here. It’s an easy way to get booted and chastised)
Leads will come to you. And when they do, don’t be salesy. Vet your potential client and let them know you need to see if they are a good fit for you. Business is a two-way street.
They don’t have to buy from you and you’re not their slave.
The Office had a perfect example of this from the “best” salesman in the area.
Meredith: “So, you’re here to sell me some paper.”
Danny: “Well actually, no, Ms. Van Helsing, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to meet you. To see if we’d be a good fit.”
Be a Danny.
If you didn’t dress in a suit and tie before you became a marketer, then don’t do it now. It’s not you. It’s inauthentic (I have a hard time saying anything relating to authenticity without thinking about Gary V. I feel like he could trademark that word by now).
No one’s buying it.
Your appearance and how you conduct yourself makes an impression. Unfortunatley, snazzy-dressed marketers look sleezy.
They should buy into you. Not someone you’re not.
Sorry for the long post
I didn’t mean to make this post so long. I had a lot to say, apparently.
The truth is, if you’re a marketer trying to get started, you have to realize you are a drop in the bucket.
If you’re trying to get noticed, you have to do what no one else is doing, and right now, that’s literally just being yourself.
If you’re a douche bag, naturally, you’re gonna have a hard time.
That’s all for now. I post a lot shorter content on my Facebook page if you want to give that a follow. Or don’t. I don’t care.