Anyways, I have a very interesting story to share with you today. It is about how a guy grew a marketing agency to 500k ARR in just 3 months.
The takeaway is not “get rich quick”. The takeaway is that “it is possible” and you can do it too.
With that, let’s begin.
The story is about Jacob. A guy with passion for marketing who started his career in a marketing agency as a SEO Specialist.
When he was working there, he learnt that SEO is no rocket science. Within a year, he became very good at SEO & PPC.
Khalid’s Note: If you want to start a business, a very good strategy is to work in that industry for another company for 1-2 years to know the ins and outs.
Eventually, Jacob decided that he will start his own agency. After all, it is easy.
Step 1: You setup business
Step 2: You get clients
Step 3: You deliver
Walla! Right?
Wrong!
Here’s how things went.
Step 1: Yes, Jacob setup the business. You can find the website here: https://netsicle.com/
Jacob didn’t really have a lot of money so he had to cash out his 401k to fund the business (there was no investor, only him and his wife).
Step 2: Finding clients is the trickiest part of this business and the way Jacob did it is different than everyone else.
You can analyze his FB: https://www.facebook.com/netsicle or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/netsiclemarketing/ and you will very quickly realize that those have no tractions.
Literally 0.
The clients are definitely not coming from social media marketing.
How are they coming then?
One word: Relationships.
80% of Jacob’s clients come from what he calls “relationship marketing”
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: You create a list of 100 business owners on an excel file that you want to be friends with.
Step 2: Be friends with them. Actual friends. Hang out, help them with their business with 0 expectations. Offer value however you can.
Step 3: Eventually, 10 of those 100 will become your true friends and you will get 5 of their businesses as your clients.
Go to the other 95 and offer a free month’s work with a warranty that if they like what you did in that month, they will become your clients.
You will get another 5-10 with that strategy.
Step 4: Service the heck out of them. Offer as much as possible.
Eventually, they will start referring other businesses to you (every businessman knows other businessmen).
And that’s exactly how Jacob did it.
No marketing spendings, only relationship spendings.
Today, Jacob has a business that’s making roughly $42,000 USD/month (500k run rate).
He is happy.
You can be too.
You don’t have to start an agency to apply that relationship marketing strategy. You can copy-paste it into any service business you want.
