scaling an agency is one of the hardest things to do once you've found some initial success this is why I've put together this free course yes completely free not some elaborate way for me to pitch something to kind of make some money completely for free as I've been blessed over the past 8 years to build an agency where has delivered $100 million in Revenue my name is Sean I'm the founder CEO of gemf flow and I want to do something in 2025 to help you guys out you guys as in the agency owners Freelancers people that are trying to build their agency so what I have for you is the agency road map course essentially for free and I'm going to be going through all the fundamental things that you need to improve today there's so much misinformation when it comes to signing clients when it comes to structuring your offers when it comes to the way you meant to sell and everything else so I focused on the key areas that you need help in that I see young agency owners need help in so hopefully this video will give you some insight and this whole course will give you the things that you need to go and smash 2020 5 all I ask in return is sign up to my email list which is linked down below and I will be sending you more things just like this every single week to help you guys out with that being said this is the agency road map course make sure you subscribe to the channel hit like and save and bookmark this link cuz I'm sure you're going to have to come back to it to watch it all the way through anyway ADC road map course for free let's get started for the past 8 years since October 2016 I have been running my own agency called gen flow back in 2016 I found a opportunity which was to monetize my skills because growing up I understood really well how to buy and sell I was selling on Amazon and eBay since the age of 156 and did that for many years so I had a very good understanding of online culture what is going on Etc so in 2016 there was an opportunity in the market which was to star an agency to provide services to creators and to Brands so today we as an agency have 100 plus employees I have offices in New York La London and Dubai and in all of that time in 8 years I have done close to $100 million in actual agency Revenue last year it was $18 million in 2023 I'm going to put a quick image of our accounts right here just so you know I'm not one of those guys bullshitting telling you I have all this or I'm going to show you lots of cars and lifestyle so you really believe me I'm going to show you our actual accounts which you can see right here the truth is this is public because we are a large company within the UK and then I have many subsidiaries globally in the US Dubai Ireland and many other places to run the agency so that's very important because all of that revenue is me as an agency providing services to clients and getting paid in retainers oneoff fees and the rest of it as you expect as an ADC owner today the reason again I make this point because so many people in the agency space are actually only selling courses then they'll run ads saying that I made 500k last month when really they made 500k last month selling courses they don't know anything when it comes to signing clients and everything else but just before that let me give you a bit of background on what is it that I actually do today as an agency we provide almost every major service you can think of so I work with creators the people that you follow online and we do everything you can imagine from content creation is start short firm content managing YouTube channels long firm content helping sell courses run communities running paid media at scale I'm talking about spending $50 to $100,000 per month for many different creators online not only that setting up actual Brands one of my brand is new tonic we completely designed Manufacturing put everything together and look I've been doing this for eight years for eight years I have built some of the biggest brands on social media and help some of the biggest creators people like Mike thirst Ali abdal Grace Beverly lyanna Dee Logan Paul I did all his clothing brand Maverick back in the days and look the reason I'm able to provide all those Services is because I have mastered actually running an agency properly which makes profit and has scaled year on year since since we launched not only that I work with Brands I work with Brands like gym Shar Dior Nike apple and the list is endless and these are the biggest brands in the world that we pitch to we win and we go ahead and deliver services so when it comes to the whole game of agency right which is what which is you are attracting clients you are pitching clients you are constantly trying to think of what is going to be the right way I'm going to be able to sign clients there's a certain signs to that there's certain processes to that there a certain way to do things that makes you win and there's a reason I have managed to do certain things with other people may not have in the past eight years and all of that is essentially why someone like myself is in the best place to teach you when it comes to trying to build a successful agency I'm going to jump on my screen here I just want to kind of walk you through the story a bit cuz I think it's really important for you understand what I've been through so when I give you some advice when I tell you what to do in this free course you get good context so I'm going to C us a bit of the journey here so I launched in 2016 however the first two years we did 2016 I think I did less than 50,000 Revenue in 2019 we did close to a million and then we did $2 million in 2018 we were seven people then ADC was very small as you can see 2019 5 million 2027 11 milon 21 1422 2319 million and this year we're on track to hit 28 million I've gone through so many so much Journey during that from hiring people firing people setting up offices in different locations getting through covid raising money and launching all sorts of different services and look the only reason I'm saying this because I want you guys to understand something I live and breathe when it comes to the agency space and every single thing that you have to do to have a successful agency and look the ATS have not been easy there's been so many times I wanting to quit so many times when it wasn't working so many times when people have left clients have left or something has gone wrong so all the pains that you feel trust me when I say this I have felt them and I F them to this very day and you know what having an agency is also one of the best things that you can build because when you get it right with the right clients is absolutely amazing I have scaled massively alongside our clients we've had clients for more than five plus years that have not left us and in that time I've helped them build their business and on the back of it I've buil my agencies so look I just wanted to keep it short and simple at any point if you want to know more gemf flow.com go and look at our clients go look at the stuff that we do go to company's house check my accounts and you can see for yourself how we are a multi8 figure year Revenue business and we've been valued at more than $100 million mainly down to the proprietary Tech that we've also built which allows us to monetize creators at scale and I've built a lot of analytics tools at the back of that where we can do a lot of deep analysis around social media analytics on that basis we built a valuation for more 100 million plus dollars and I'm now probably in the last few years of the Journey of my agency before I Look to exit and that's what I'm about you know when it comes to the agency space it's all about building agencies the right way properly for the rest of the agency road map we will now take the steps to help you scale your agency step by step we first got to have a serious conversation because before or you can actually start implementing things and improve your agency you've got to fix your mind you got to cleanse your mind there's so much incorrect information online today and that is why you are not scaling your agency so one of the first things I want to talk about is just the way you sell I don't know why but for some reason the that I see online is completely incorrect I'm going to tell you something now and you're probably never going to believe me in the past 8 years of me doing almost $100 million in actual agency Revenue having an agency for eight years and working with the biggest brands and creators in the world I have never used a sales script I have never done any sort of guarantees any sort of moneyback guarantees any sort of you pay on results all of this that I see people pushing on social media and I know you're thinking what because I've had the same exact reaction when I've said this to other agency owners that I'm coaching and I've when I've put it on social media Etc the truth is some of that stuff works but not for agencies the whole idea and the invention of money back guarantees as an example was for course sellers which all started from TY Lopez and then Sam Evans and then you know it's hosi all of these guys that you watch and you listen to and you think are teaching you sales so you can sign clients are actually the way you sell High ticket programs to people I.E not clients customers there's a massive difference a client is somebody that you're expecting to provide service to month on-month and they will pay you in some capacity High ticket sales I.E selling High ticket price courses things that would be 8 10 12 20K UPF front is completely something else and the why you use a money back guarantee for something like that because you are trying to get them to buy into your price point because then you're going to try your hardest in your terms and conditions so they can't get a refund this is so important because what has happened today people are taking Frameworks and sells lessons from other people and trying to apply to agencies and what you end up with is like this we're going to get you 50 leads in 30 days or you don't pay or you pay on results or money back guarantee all of this that I see it will never work yes you may sign some clients but you are overselling and at some point that's only going to burn you imagine doing all the work but you don't get the leads and then somebody wants a refund how would you deal with that in reality people will trying to put it into the fine print that oh you know if this this this this this this this happens then you can get a refund it's only going to lead for you to have a terrible agency and look I'm going to say this outright we are living in the world of mediocre agencies because of the guys selling the courses to convince people to start agencies and then we have all these sales tactics what we really have now 95% of agencies will never get past 10K 20K because that's like a thing in the market right which I also don't understand and they will never scale because fundamentally it's all wrong they are starting the agency in a completely wrong way providing services in the wrong way it's all linked to a guarantee and his outcome approach Etc the whole idea of you have an offer and you stack so much free stuff and give a guarantee is how you sell a course again I have never done that ever I don't really care what your favorite YouTuber says I don't really care what some sales book says because I have never done it myself and saying this quite openly in the nicest way possible there are not that many agency owners in the world doing actual agency revenue of $18 million proven on public record when it comes to selling services to clients and actually retaining and keeping your clients for year after year after year most famous agency owners on social media today had an agency at some point had 10 to 15 clients struggled to keep those clients pivoted to selling courses show you houses watches cars so then you think okay they really know what they're doing or it's they are selling a logical ideology to you if that's a word like logical things to you so you're like oh yeah makes sense you know sales should be all about you know the best one is the best one you answer sales questions with questions and it's like no you don't I hate that stuff it does not work if you on a sales call and some guy's like so what's your price and if you respond with well you know depends on what type of results are you looking for it depends on you know how much is growth worth to you in your business is like that that I see on social media it does not work so the reason I'm saying it in this tone and in this way you have to cleanse yourself from all the stuff you have been consuming probably for the past 18 months and that you're trying in your agency and it's not going to work the reason it's not going to work because it's just not the way you sell because in the agency space I.E not course space I.E not a software in agency space you are building relationship you are Consulting your prospect the lead to convert them into sales and then you're going to keep the conversation going right because from the moment you sign a client from the very next week you are now going to be talking to that client and month on month on month they going to be delivering them results so at any point if that relationship starts off in the wrong way I.E you're going to be getting guaranteed these results and that results this results like a when you can't guarantee it because you just can't it will never work so it's like starting something off in the wrong way will already lead you there the next thing that I need to cleanse your mind from is this idea that people Niche down I have never understood this because again it is not true people agency owners and maybe you have done this too literally pick some like random thing because they think that is the way to launch an agency meaning I'm going to do real estate Legion that's my agency and you know what I'm going to pick a New York I'm it's like what I see this I see this all the time then the same guy and maybe that's you would be like Oh I'm struggling to grow it I'm struggling to find leads where do I get leads from then you be like bro does cold Outreach still work bro like what's the method bro have you got the right sales script oh I just need the right sales script and it's going to kill it for me and then you go and buy when people are selling you which is I've got the golden script I've got this I've got that there is no such thing as a copy and paste script there's no such thing as taking what work for someone else and duplicating it and it's just going to work it does not happen when I teach stuff I give Frameworks I give methodologies and you apply that to your business you don't copy and paste nothing there's no sales script there's no none of that and that's exactly why doesn't want because it's not it's not going to work because it's not relative to what you are what you provide who you are and how you sell and all those little things but firstly this idea of picking a niche so what's happening today and why I said cleanse your mind or even fix your current agency CU without a doubt you are today have picked some random thing to do because you were told well if you want to make the most money and you know get the rly you got to pick the highest paying need you can possibly think of so let's say let's pick plastic surgery right like cosmetic surgery clinics they have a lot of money I'm going to bring them leads why because even one lead to them is worth $10,000 high ticket leads yo this is amazing I'm going to be rich okay so I'm going to get leads for cosmetic surgery and I'm going to pick la la you know the central place let's say for plastic surgery most likely for cosmetic surgery so I'm going to do Legion for cosmetic s surgery uh places in California in Los Angeles so you'll start with and your headline will read something like 30 new leads in 30 days on a done for you basis and otherwise you're money back we specialize in helping cosmetic people grow their clinics like never before right and essentially that the whole thing is just doesn't make sense you will never make any clients the whole thing will just never really work because why have you picked that this whole idea of niching down I never understand for me if you have a skill if that skill genuinely is that you know how to generate leads which as a general agency I have to be honest is one of the hardest agencies to probably run because if you were so good at getting clients you would just have lots of clients yourself to get other small businesses get clients it's so hard it would be one of the hardest agencies to run full stop because the chance of getting results is so low regardless of what anyone else says that's just the truth it's the again easiest thing to sell why people push the sales angle because it's so easy to make it make logical sense out of it so essentially people are like okay yeah it makes sense I just seem to get one client it's going to work but in reality it's just it's just not because it's very very tough to pull that off I have this all the time I've spoken to so many different agency owners and the amount of people are stuck in this world of their picked a niche because of some reason and then they're just struggling and then they're like no no I got to stick to it cuz you know your favorite YouTubers like you got to go all in on one thing you got to stick to it you know do the Reps but the whole thing is just wrong in the first place because you know nothing about real estate or you've never even generated any leads and you are now promising other companies you can generate their leads it's just so stupid it's like almost saying I'm going to help you get ready for a boxing fight I have never fought I have never trained anybody but I can help you get ready for a boxing fight of course you can't because you don't have the skill and that is my point so for me how you start an agency how you build a successful agency is that you build it at the back of your own actual skill and that's all that matters so if you are great at copyrighting because you actually are naturally good at that or if you're great at editing you're great at design you're great at whatever that thing is and that could be because of your childhood it because because you've sat and learned that skill by implementing it by trying it you can learn framer go make 20 landing pages and by the end of that you'll actually know how to make them good enough so you can be like okay you know what if there is one thing I know is how to make landing pages so then you say I make the best websites in the world for you know for SAS businesses and any SAS business can be your client you don't start saying I'm only going to work for SAS businesses in the insurance sector that niching down makes no sense to me so if you're doing that today that's the first thing to fix because you're just wrong it there's no need to do that I had someone that was coaching he was doing um Google ads for supplement businesses I asked him why supplement businesses he goes oh no it's amazing Niche like right but it could be any direct to consumer product you're just limiting yourself because then he was like I can't find enough clients I don't have enough fleets it's like right but you could just do a clothing brand you could just do vitamins basically it could be any product that's being sold essentially any Shopify brand that needs Google ads it you could technically do it for he's like yeah I could is there any difference in the actual work not really okay so why are you only on supplements oh yeah because I I think he said I bought a course and the guy was telling me to Niche down cuz that's where the money is it's like no it's not and now you're literally seeing that it's not and I've seen that time and time again anyway cleanse your mind of that you don't need to Niche down you don't need to go to some particular thing you just need to monetize your skill and you got to figure out how can you get to more people that can use your skill and you can help solve their problem cuz ultimately that's what it is right what are what am I doing as an agency owner when I'm working with the Dior when I'm working with the MAC Cosmetics I'm helping them solve a problem MAC Cosmetics wanted to reach gen zz's young people so we did a deal with one of my creators who's 15 years old jod Woods so they'll be able to reach a new Young audience I help them solve that problem or Mike thirst he was coaching online spending all his time doing that I said to him you should have a mobile app you should have a full platform I can help you do that and as of right now it's been six years and I've been doing that with him that's a perfect example of I'm using my skill to solve a problem and my what what was my skill I know how to sell things online because I've been doing that since I was like 15 years old so when it comes to setting up the website what it should contain how do you package a product how do you price it how do you Market it all that stuff I know it so I approach people saying that hey I think you can solve this problem that you're having and I'm going to give you the solution and this is how it's going to work I don't limit myself similarly if it's a beauty Creator who can sell a course to teach people how to apply makeup it's the same skill I'm utilizing the same skill across Industries across niches across people across different demographics Etc because I'm just monetizing my skill and that is what it takes to build a successful agency because you're not pigeon ho holding yourself you saw the graph right people are struggling to get to 10K a month 20K a month which is what 100,000 a year I went from I believe it was less than a million to 2 million plus and then 5 million and 7 million because we were just not like looking over here like this the whole time I'm looking like this I'm like yo I am the best godamn person for this thing in the world and I'm going to help as many people as possible and make the most money it is most logical sense and in that naturally yes you will find people that you know maybe in the insurance industry the way I pitch and the way I come across those people really like me so you may get 10 clients from there or it could be from here or it could be from a certain country or maybe it's in the US or maybe somewhere else that will naturally happen but you don't do this because you just won't scale again that's just going against what everyone else tells you no sales tactics no money back guarantees no niching down and look the very last point that you have to cleanse your mind from is this idea that you're just going to hire some Freelancers and they're going to do it for you people will be like oh I you know I'm a sixf figure agency now so I just don't have to do any work or I should just sit back I'm going to start diversifying I I watched a random YouTube video the guy was talking about how I'm getting into real estate in crypto now because you I've already made it I'm already making 100 Grand a year it's like first of all you've got to realize most people online that say that stuff what does that really mean if you got five clients and $2,000 that's 10K a month they will start to say they're a six figure agency when they actually haven't banked six figures in their bank right so it's very very important not to listen to that secondly even though that 2K a month they probably had crazy guarantees on that so the chance they'll actually get that paid or don't get a charge back in stripe yeah very unlikely so always remember the context right and people that will be telling you to do that stuff have not even had any success again $18 million last year in actual agency Revenue banked cash in the bank it's real it's real and I'm doing that stuff I'm been doing 1 2 million this year we're doing $2 to $3 million every single month as Revenue these are real numbers and you know how we do that is by actually doing the work yes I have a big massive remote team but we have never outsourced work I have never thought I don't have to be in the details just before recording this episode I've just been on a 2-hour call with a client I've been going through so much different things till this day I work on the details it's all online that you're never going to have to be in the details especially in the agency space because if you are not the best in your agency if you're not the one who actually has the skills if you're not the one who's speaking to your first three clients five clients 10 clients then your 10 most important clients and if you're not in the details yourself if you're not on those calls if you're not doing all that communication yourself you will not be able to build a big agency I don't give a what anyone else says it's all it is all from any other major agency owners that I know every single person is in the detail themselves firstly are you even aware of actual agencies like real big agencies are actually successful you might know of wpp if you don't you should look into it it's publicly listed one of the biggest marketing agencies in the world and they own so many other small agencies other agencies would be like WME who do all of the Rocks work they own and do so much of the big Hollywood stuff CIA is another one all these are billion dooll agencies you will never hear them talk about money back guarantees niching down or any other that helped them scale and get to that level so I guess the whole point of this video is you've got to stop listening to the stuff that's online it's for clicks it's to sell you courses it's to show you a dream lifestyle and if you think an agency is some way to make some quick cash get rich diversify do other stuff it's all just logical that people are putting together to sell to you it is not true sure can you make some 10K 50k would you be able to make some money here and there yeah but what I'm about is building real agencies in the right way so you can actually live your life through it and it can support your lifestyle support your family it can provide for your family and it can be something that you love to actually do I love what I do I love helping my clients I love making money for others which in return makes me money that's how I've managed to get to a place where I've been doing it for eight years I'm going to be giving you exactly what you should be doing at different stages of your agency life the truth is is probably the question I get ask the most because I could give you deep strategic things to do I can tell you which tactics to deploy I can give you different Frameworks processes and systems but naturally depending on where you are today there's only so many things you can do so where your focus is is very very important at different stages of your agency journey and if I was in your shoes if I was starting again how I would be approaching my agent Journey not only that I do have actual context because I keep launching new Services new business units essentially new Mini agencies within my agency now I have this context very very well so that being said let's get into it I'm going to jump onto my screen I'm going to do this in kind of like four tiers first is you don't have an agency today you're making no money and it's something you want to get into second group is going to be that you have a new agency today we're assuming you're making $6,000 per month you have let's say three clients number of clients not important let's say you're making about 5 6K a month next is you have an agency you've been doing it for some time you're making 12K a month maybe you had some bigger months some smaller months but you're just struggling to get over that right cuz that's still a $100,000 agency but you're struggling to make that into multiple six figures or you're an existing agency that is quite established now you're doing well you know maybe you're 25 to even 50K and you know you're just really thinking how do I break that barrier how am I going to get to a million plus a year so one by one I'm going to talk you through what I would do in those exact situations with that being said I will jump straight in so if I was starting out today and I had absolutely nothing essentially I would be doing three things number one I would be analyzing my skills I would be sitting and looking at what is it that I'm actually good at not where I think the money is not what Niche is the most profitable not what I think I should be doing based on what I see online just simple what are my skills if you have no skills it'll be very hard to get people to pay you to do something ultimately you can only build an agency based on your actual skills I don't really care what anybody else says it doesn't work that way you can't just sell something find some other people to fulfill it drop ship it or whatever you know it doesn't work like that you actually have to know how to do the thing that you are trying to sell so the very first thing is I would really think about what are my skills but I know what are you thinking a lot of people don't know what they're good at they have a few things they're passionate about they have a few things they have tried and they just don't know and if I was you I would have tried to go and service different sorts of people with your different skills and see what were you able to actually do for example you may think you can make amazing websites try it you may think you're amazing at copyrighting try it you may think you'll be able to help build someone's brand try it you may think you'll be good at cro try it you may think you're amazing in Legion try it so whatever that is you'll have to try it but I would still be leaning into what is your actual natural skill and that to a lot of people they don't realize that they have because let's say you spend a lot of time on Tik Tok you may not know but you probably have a good eye for Tik Tok content now you you've probably sat and looked at so much content that you should try to sit and think if I was to create 10 posts for an energy drink brand what would that be and you may just know because you have been a consumer of it I'm a massive believer of the thing that you're trying to sell as a service you should actually have understanding of it as a consumer of that thing so for me I help other people sell things online why because firstly I started selling online back in the dialup internet period in early 2000s and I have been buying online ever since so when it comes to landing pages optimization copy how to sell something online I have innate knowledge cuz I've been consumer and then a a Creator a seller in that space so using the same example if you have been an insane user of Tik Tok you spent hours and hours on your phone you may actually know what content works because you have seen enough of it and that's where you find skill in your life and turn that into something that people can pay you for it's crazy that people look outside people try to find something to jump on which is going to be their skill well all along they're not paying attention to the things that they consume if you are a crazy person who loves going to the gym every single day you'll have so much more knowledge about Fitness that you may able be able to help people in that industry and that is where the whole like follow your passion build a skill it kind of merges together because you are chasing something that you're already doing in your life and now you're trying to make a success out out of that for example you may love gaming you may be the best Call of Duty player there ever was you could turn that into an agency because you could learn editing and then edit streams to turn it into YouTube videos but you'll be so good at editing the actual Call of Duty stream because you play the game yourself and all of a sudden you'll actually enjoy watching three hours footage of someone's war zone and chopping it up and posting it and you can get paid to do that do you see what I mean because you have taken something that you're interested in that you've built a insight into by being a consumer and then you flip that and you start to make money from it that is the key that is how I built an agency which did $8 million last year because everything we do is things that I had interest in as a consumer and then how to actually get client in any of those scenarios I would just list on all the freelance websites from Fiverr to people per hour to every single other website I would go and list make a profile I would sit I would contact people I would sit and do that every day to sign clients you'll easily be able to start making money you'll have to be cheap in the early days you'll have to do anything for money but the point is you are getting going and you could split test this right you can say okay I'm going to try three different things and let's see which one of those I actually enjoy doing I'm going to charge $200 to $500 for each and let's see where I get to and look that's all I would be focusing on in the early days honing on what I actually enjoy hining on something that I actually have a experience with as being a consumer and literally putting myself on every single website out there where you can list yourself your services and apply for things and see which gigs you can win which jobs you can win and go and do them to the best of your ability and make that work that's what I would be doing if was in your shoes next up we have if you have an agency you're making some money already I would then be focusing on keep learning your skills ENT she keep honing your skills keep improving your skills because at this point you have somehow found some clients that could be a friend you helped out could be someone that you knew it could be something that you were doing in your job let's say you were a copywriter for a brand but now you've want to set up your owny you may have bought one of those clients with you so you kind of now like okay but now you're going to have to get real good at it right to be able to get more and more clients so in that sense you know you're in a situation where it's time to start taking things seriously I'll move this in this order I would start to build your own landing page your own branding your own vsl and really start to like make a name for yourself about who are you what you stand for how do you work all that good stuff and what value you can provide because already you have kind of found something that's working the moment someone's paying for something and say it's monthly let's say it's been 3 months and you've made 6,000 each month you are now onto something you need to start further developing so you want to develop your skills if that's copywriting you want to get better and better at it if it's design you want to get better and better at it if it's development you want to get better if it's web flow you're getting better better web flow whatever the thing you're offering SEO you want to get better and better so spend time developing your skill make sure you service all those clients yourself at the early days because that is how you're going to hone in your skills if you're immediately looking for someone paying them $500 sitting in Philippines and they're going to do it you are already on the path to going nowhere cuz you're not going to become a true expert and I say this to you as the CEO of a business that employs more than a 100 people with eight figure Revenue I'm in the Tik Tok ads manager running campaigns myself I'll say that again I'm in the Tik Tok ads for number of my Brands doing it myself I'm writing copy myself yesterday I was learning how to use framer myself cuz that's what it takes you have to build your skills because when you'll be sitting just picture this right you're in the biggest boardroom in the world New York skyline and you are working with The Rock in that moment when he's saying when he's asking you a question you would not be able to answer it as a true genuine World expert if you didn't spend 10 years building your skills if you only did Arbitrage or people in the Philippines Bangladesh whatever you will actually don't know too much and that always has a ceiling so my advice to you someone who's 30 plus meaning the game for eight years learn your skills don't shy away from it don't think you need to do it I am telling you right now you have to be learning your skills next I will keep pushing on marketplaces because that needs to happen that still is how you would get your early clients but then I will be starting the new thing which is hot Outreach if you knew hot Outreach essentially is where you are going to manually be emailing your ideal agency client profiles and you're going to be going after them trying to sign them through value based proper emails like your life depends on it to try to get them to respond back to you to then sign them as a client this is where you should sit and strategically start doing that let's keep moving forwards here we are now talking about the next Group which is an existing agency been going for a while doing 100K a year what should you be doing then honestly I would continue everything from above so I'm just going to move this over I will keep listing on freelance website as this point too but this is where the time is to start transitioning over I would do hot Outreach I would start to hire V to help really go after Outreach that we should be now be really going after people to try to increase our client base if you're at this stage it just means two things I think I probably should also put here this is where you start hiring like building a team because this is where you are really starting to become an agency now you need to start building a team so you can depend on people a team is not a bunch of Freelancers I was coaching this agency owner and he told he was at the similar stage he only had Freelancers so he would wake up every day and manage seven people in the Philippines and it was just hell because there wasn't a single person that he could trust there was a single person that could actually check for Quality there wer a single person that could communicate with with clients that he would spend all his time reviewing the work giving feedback updating clients and he's like I have no time to scale my agency I'm stuck I'm stuck I'm stuck and I kept saying to him you have to hire somebody who you like actually get on with most likely lives close to you so you can start working with them so this is where you start building an actual team of real people that you actually want to have with you for years to come exactly what I did my leadership team that I have today eight years later most of them joined me in year 23 and a beat me for 5 to six years now and together we have built this massive agency and later down the line I ended up giving them Equity because that is how we're going to build a massive agency to sell one day which is my personal goal so at this stage is very important the next thing I would do if I'm at your stage here I would start to diversify my client acquisition strategy and I would start to Launch much personal content for you to start really controlling the narrative because when you're going to start doing lots of Outreach the first thing is people are going to look into who you are and you can control that narrative by posting content online and this is where you would be fully posting what you actually know as in your actual understanding your knowledge so then people think wow this guy knows what he's talking about so let's say you send someone an email and you're like hey I can help you with cro I can help you with you know social media content short form cont content Etc if they went onto your Instagram and there's 20 reals of you talking about best post-purchase flow to do for brands in Shopify three apps in Shopify that I've used and done X or I recommend best review app for this people will start to think oh man this guy really knows his stuff it is the best way to control the narrative you can go and check my YouTube out I've been I posted videos I think five years ago because in the early days when I started building personal brand it extremely helped me sign clients as of late I have not pushed it so much cuz I kind of in a blessed position that being said a lot more content is coming but I really used there tactically to frame the public narrative to help people understand my story and my skills and my ability so when I sent an email to someone they looked me up they're like holy this guy really knows this stuff we need to speak to him that's what I'll start doing at that stage which then brings me to the final stage which is if you are 20 25k to 50K a month you are now becoming a solid agency you are on route to become a Seven figure agency this is where things start to get more serious and look all of the stuff is still relevant to you you've got to have an amazing team here you've got to have a massive Outreach team using vas you've got to be doing your content now but there's two other things which is new at this stage of your agency life that I know agency owners spoken with are not doing today number one is they you start upselling services to your existing clients so what that means is so let's say you are doing um only cro which is conversion rate optimization for like Shopify stores you can then start to say we're actually going to help build your Shopify store or another example would be that you just been doing short form content edits for podcasts but now you're saying we're going to help manage your whole podcast for you what I found to scale was that I was doing one thing and and then it was so easy for me to start doing all the other services across the conversion funnel so what does that mean when you are pitching yourself right every business has the same marketing funnel there's going to be traffic there's going to be conversion there's going to be customers right either you're helping them drive more traffic through leads you're doing content for them which helps them Drive traffic or you're helping them getting customers to make the most money from clients you need to offer services across the whole conversion funnel that's exactly what I did to scale so I started off it saying saying Hey to Creator this was I can help turn your followers into customers they're like great and I started doing that then I'm like you know what I can help bring new customers to you by running paid media like oh you know I can help build your social media to then build bring more free traffic okay so each element I've just gone from the purchase Point all the way up selling more and more services along the lines and it could even be then postp purchase oh you know what we'll manage your community for you $2,000 a month or you know we'll launch another brand for you this is the cost of that so I would start to upsell here because there is no reason for you to stay constrained you know one of the guys that I work with maybe he's watching this you know if you're providing like one service let's say Instagram management content it's so easy for you to be like let me learn YouTube let me learn Twitter let me learn LinkedIn and you start selling other personal branding Services alongside it because it just makes all the sense if someone trusts you someone thinks you're good at doing what you do it'll be very easy for to get them to trust you to do something else for them it has been the number one way and that's how you'll get to Seven figures and that's the truth people will tell you all sorts of it's not some DM script it's not some sell script it's not some hack it's not some guarantee it's not some offer that's going to come out the sky blue ocean and whatever people like to gold mine offer and other that I see online it's simple once someone's paying you and they think you're good sell them something else as simple as that and lastly as you can see here it says launch ads fundamentally you have to be pushing people to buy into your agency I did an agency um aex cohort and I had 10 agency owners all more than six figures a year I asked them how many of you have a Facebook pixel on the website and only one of them did agency owners are terrible at marketing everybody at that stage especially should have a pixel on the website should be running some retarget ads cuz what is that when people book a call and don't turn up we've got to be running ads to them when people are coming on your website and leaving we need be running ads to them and then people that we know are experiencing the problem out there your ideal agency client profiles we've got to be hitting them with ads to tell them who you are that is your chance to speak on camera if you speak on camera create content and you do ads you're already in the top 5% adcs in the world cuz most people are so scared to do that and they don't develop the skills good enough to be on camera how are you going to assign clients and scale your agency if you're not good at communicating your message and the only way to learn that is by doing and doing and doing so at that stage that's what I would be doing and I did that too every single thing I'm telling you here I have done myself and once again the whole point of this and this free program is to give you a bit more insight into what it actually takes because the online is just not true that's not how you scale the way you scale is through three steps these are all steps that you take people always asking what's your fiveyear plan I don't have one I have a 3 to six month plan based on actual individual steps that you have to do or that you need to do to get to the next stage that's all there is I'm currently at a stage where I'm doing $2 to $3 million a month transparently not really trying to grow this that that much because it's hard to maintain and it's enjoyable right now I'm more interested in increasing profitability I'm more interested in investing starting Brands I own 20% of this brand new tonic and I'm more interested in building our actual Equity value as an agency versus just more clients more retainers more work every stage there are different problems different opportunities I've just given you a bit of a road map to where you are today what you need to focus on because a lot of people think it's so singular that they're going to find one thing like I'm going to do ads for supplement businesses and that's how it's going to be forever and I'm going to be really rich it's just not true you are constantly waving through that road map of like what is it I need to focus on at times for me the you know doing uh mobile apps really worked then it was courses then it was communities then it was building Brands then it was doing deals you know it's it's a bunch of different things but some Services you will be better at some you wouldn't be and that is the way you scale you will have some clients that you sell five things to and they love you and they'll pay you $50,000 per month I have that I have clients s me $50,000 per month retainers right now or you have people that you only do one service for and they never want you to do anything else with you because they're using other agencies and they like to have seven different agencies I've seen that too I'm going to giving you exactly the steps that I have taken to build my agency to be delivering $18 million in actual Revenue last year in 2023 and in total close to $100 million in a Revenue in the past 8 years this is not something that I'm saying I've said this before Mak can go to company's house in the UK you can check our accounts and you can see that we did £15 million which works out to close to $18 million actual Revenue as an agency and that is agency Revenue not selling courses not something something else actual clients paying us retainers oneoff fees percentages commissions and all the rest of it if you new here and you haven't seen anything else that I've done my name is Sean hanif I'm the founder CEO of gemf flow and that is an agency that I've been running for the past eight years and in that time I've managed to work with some of the biggest brands in the world Dior Spotify Nike jym Shar and some of the biggest creators in the world with Ali abdal lyanna D Grace Beverly Logan Paul Mike th and so many others Chris Williamson who made this brand called new tonic which is absolutely killing it and look in this video completely for free I am going to tell you how I've managed to build an agency which right now is doing about $2 to $3 million consistently in Revenue per month and essentially means I've been an eight figure Revenue business for almost 3 years straight overall the agency is worth more than $100 million because we built aot of proprietary Tech which builds our valuation as a company as an agency but in this video I'm going to jump straight in to give you guys the value because look the truth is I'm sick and tired of all the bad content out there people telling you that this one method is the way to sign clients and they have this amazing script which just is going to work people buy courses now to get people's copy and paste scripts and all this other stuff and the truth is there's hardly any real agency owners that are doing multi-millions giving you guys young Founders agency owners the real insight into what it takes to build an agency so let's jump straight in I'm going to jump on my screen here I'm going to take you through my strategy that I've deployed over the years to sign 200 plus clients and have clients that haven't left me for five plus years and ultimately build an agency that can deliver that much you know so many agency of uh owners I speak with they can't understand how you can ever get to a million a year let alone a million a month and it's all possible if you just do the right strategy and start following different ways to sign clients way too many agency owners are pigeon ho holding themselves this one method is the right way they almost argue against all the other methods because they just feel like that what they're doing is right and everything else is wrong and that's exactly the thinking that's going to hold you back so let's jump straight in ultimately there are two main methods to sign clients in the agency space inbound and outbound I think before I go any further I want to give one more disclaimer a lot of you guys are these days you know who would be following people online uh hosi or somebody else but people fail to understand that if that's him or anybody else who are talking about sales who are talking about essentially what would be signing clients all the information is incorrect for agency owners because they have never had an agency the idea that when you are selling you're going to be using money back guarantees and just layering in lots of things that make it an undeniable offer and making it a gimmick where it's like 40 leads in 30 days and all that stuff that doesn't work in the ADC space so what I'm about to go through I guess in this video and the way we can assign clients it's clients not customers people that sell courses they have customers people that have software businesses that make packages like you know bronze gold premium whatever that's software pricing not a agency pricing so just want to say that up front because you have to understand that the agency space is different to the cor space it's different to someone selling software sales is not all the same with that being said let's jump in so I'll focused first on outbound methods because obviously we know that is the thing that you can control the most especially in the early days and I'm going to jump straight into number one the best method to sign clients full stop is hot Outreach the difference between why I call this hot Outreach is because you are going to be focused on finding leads who are your ideal client essentially so let's say you're a paid ads agency today you should be trying to help direct to Consumer Brands Shopify Brands sell more products through your ads so essentially your job in the hot Outreach would be to email brand owners to convince them to use your Agency for paid ads the way you make something hot Outreach is you are going to spend some time 20 to 30 to 40 minutes you are going to look through that brand in full you're going to try to come to some sort of assumption about what they are doing wrong today where can you add value and then you're going to write the most important person that you can find at that company and email and you're going to say hey I saw your ads and this is what I thought about them this is how I can improve them by the way my name is Shan and I do this as my job and I help business owners just like you make more money online by doing this and if you were to work together we would script we would do this we would edit we would do this and this and this what do you think that's hot Outreach very different from cold Outreach cold Outreach is where where the whole industry is today you you essentially are finding lists of you know people um leads downloading them from Apollo clutch Etc or you know going on LinkedIn scraping someone's email through some tool and then you s you sending them just emails which are not personal enough or actually that's wrong what people call personalization is hey man love your content that's not personalization personalization is what I said personalization is you are actually going to look at their business and actually use your skill which you claim to have to actually say what can you actually do for them do you get it and that is the problem cold Outreach is the other way right that ultimately you can pull some leads you can make some automated messages you can send 10,000 a day the truth is it works less and less and less and less now but still it is a method of signing clients the last one is paid ads it's absolutely amazing to me when I speak to agency owners nobody runs paid ads it's like and I never understand this because any leads you have you can run paid ads to those guys you can do lookalike audiences to join paids out to those guys any traffic that you're getting to your website you can retarget them with paid ads anyone that interacts with your content you can retarget them with paid ads it's such loow hanging fruit to be spending $5 $10 a day just on retargeting but then you can actually Target so going back to my paid media agency all you have to do sit and run campaigns on Google and you could actually run them in front of the channels that you think are where your ideal customer is watching it's so easy you can run your ads to every keyword or search term around Shopify around UDC content around how to make the best ads or tutorials you can purposefully put yourself in front of the right people that is just so much harder for you to be sitting there manually finding leads when you can let the algorithm and the Machine do it for you you just got to learn how to speak on camera get the right ads together but that also will help you develop your skills so for me that's the third method and look I will tell you about this a hot Outreach I've been doing this since the first day in October 2016 is how I signed my first 10 clients and is how I still to this day sign clients it is the greatest way to sign clients full stop because it's the most purest you are an expert that is why you have an agency if you are an expert you should be able to look at your ideal client and you should be able to give them the expertise for free if you tell them what's wrong they will pay you to fix it if you tell them how you're going to fix it you're going to tell them what's wrong you're going to tell them how you're going to fix it and you're going to tell them what's going to be the benefit to them if you were to fix it people will pay you to fix it the whole Space instead is like answer questions with questions and you keep hyping it up up and you keep saying if you pay then you then this or you know pay on results but the truth is none of that stuff is the way you sell because you have to just be pure and simple I am an expert I have noticed a problem in your business I can help you fix this and this is how much I charge and this is how it works you will be surprised if you were to simplify it to that level you will win that's ultimately how I've won from the very first day till this day you may not believe me you may think you got to have this you know irresistible offer and you got to stack up the wins or to stack it up and throw some bonuses and money back guarantee and all this rah rah rah and then and you know if someone asks you what the price you say hey man it's not about the price it's about the value you know what is it important to you like this that sells people teach I've signed the biggest brands and creators in the world and I've never used any of those tactics so to simplify it you email people properly and that's the best method cold Outreach I do this for clients not for my own agency just going to be honest I don't think it's that great I think you can do it it's a great way to get your name out there hopefully get someone to respond I would still take the same leads and sit and actually admit the effort spend 30 40 minutes emailing every single one by myself one by one you do have the time the truth is a lot of young agency owners who are not even doing a million a year would have so many excuses to why they can't do that they're trying to game it they got to get 10,000 leads and they got to like email them every single day and spam them and then hopefully if you just emailed 50 and actually try it you will win because nobody's doing that because everybody's trying a hack everybody wants some way to automatically sign clients automatically book calls while you sleep and your sales to plugg into the calls right then you're going to find someone in Philippines to do all the work right then you're going to get the rly right and you're going to be chilling and no one's going to you know that's the dream right you being a going to have no agency you know because that's the lie that core sellers are selling You by showing off the lifestyle and this dream of you're not going to do any work and it's just going to magically happen it's just not true the other methods which a lot of people negate which lot of people don't do in the agency space number one you have to build a personal brand in this day and age if you were to email anybody and if people can't search you they can't find you on social media they can't see you speaking they can't see you actually showing off your knowledge you you will not be able to sign clients I started building my personal brand years and years ago che check out my YouTube we used to do a whole behind the scenes Vlog on the business that really helped us in the early days I put my story out there that really helped me in the early days I've got content with our creators with our clients that that helped us so much in the early days our reputation built from there that you know the truth is I should should have kept doing it the business grew so fast I made a decision not to at that time but you should definitely be building your personal brand and posting from day one I don't really care if you like I'm too busy I can't do it you can most a I've spoken to you know they just think it's it'll be too much for them to be doing that but they just want to be behind the scenes like right but you expect people to trust you people expect people to think you are good enough if you want to be an agency owner in this in in today's world you're going to have to show people you have some skills before they ever get on a call with you number two the truth is this is the lowest hanging fruit today for any agency own even you have zero clients you have five clients 10 clients you own 10K a month whatever the lead magnets and using things like mini chat Etc it's so good because for example you can so easily with whatever your skill is so let's say your skill is SEO you can make a lead magnet to be like this is the cheat sheet for the 20 things that are always going wrong on a Shopify website when it comes to SEO you can get it for free give me your email here right a lead magnet allows you to get someone's contact information nurture that lead over a period of time and then turn that person into a client at some point and nobody does this again what's the purpose you are using your knowledge and you are putting it out there to make people think you are capable of doing something people just want to get on a sales call and then show off their skills well people want to get a sales call read some magic script answer lots of questions and then Hope by the end of it they will pay you and you guaranteed them you know some results so I would say inbound is massive to use lead magnets because essentially you are building your email list next up is funnels landing pages vsls so what this means is you actually need to really be smart about who your customers are and a funnel essentially is you're taking one message one angle and you're following that throughout so back to paid ads if I was like I'm a paid ads agency if you that is that for Shopify Brands if that's for clothing brands if that's for Fitness people is that for coaches you can actually run all four of those as funnels that's cuz people get so stuck in like I'm this Niche and that's why I have to talk like this and I'm going to have my landing page to say I help coaches with paid ads but you're can just have another one saying I help creators I have gym owners I help this that's what I would do that's what I've always done I remember at a time we had so many different versions of the gemf flow.com web page because we were trying to attract different types of people you know what I had a hardcore Fitness one I had a generic one I had a lifestyle one we had one pointing out Brands and the whole idea was you are using messaging to make your inbound stronger so as you create content as you send emails as you do paid ads you can funnel the traffic down the right path to book a call with you or sell them something and the other part of that is you can't have a website you must have a landing page and you must have a vssl because ultimately it's again a chance for you to sit there as a Founder agency owner and you're telling people this is how I can help you this is the problems I normally see this is how we solve those problems even if you have zero clients you can literally pick big Brands and talk about them you're showing off your knowledge but people's websites are like old school websites and it's just not thinking in any way so you need to have like four or five learning Pages four or five vsls funnel traffic down it you will sign clients anyway again feel free to disagree I'm telling you what I've done and how I've managed to build one of the biggest agencies in the world and that's how it was so look I'm just saying this because I want you to win whatever your goals are in life right like go and Achieve them be happy but for you to do that you have to implement things you have to build your skills cuz the truth is if you do all the stuff that I'm saying and even if that was going to take you one year all these are building blocks to scale I myself honestly if I was to say if I'm starting again my one piece of device like people ask those questions right it would be you've got to just strategically build your agency in building blocks and these are all blocks the whole thing of like I'm gonna stick to one of these and it's all about the Reps bro I got to keep put in the Reps of this cold Outreach reps you know then it's going to win it's like no like you're taking things out of context you still have to figure out which strategy is going to work for you the best when I've coached other agency owners in the past they come back to me and said holy like I didn't think this thing would work and it's working I did a Min Chat thing on my Instagram I got 4,000 emails and then I sent them and this and this and this and this happened and it's like I never thought it would be possible because you're just not trying so in the trying you will figure out what you're naturally good at you will find something which is working because of the way you speak the way you come across your ideal customers you just don't know so you have to try and I have something to say you as a Founder CEO you're going to have to do it yourself because you have to learn this stuff and get really good at it for it to really make sense for it to really become a way to scale your agency next is referrals like for me obviously this has been massive so I've always ran an undercover referral scheme so when I have a client which is loving us you know I will try to see who are they connected to and I try to get them to refer me sometimes if they don't know I will use it as a thing to a new pitch the biggest thing you can say to a potential lead is hey man why don't you speak to some of my clients you'll see for yourself they're like yo are you sure yeah yeah don't worry I'll hook you up I did that last time a couple of weeks ago I was in WhatsApp I was like why didn't you speak to some of my clients cool I intro him in another group the client in 2 minutes dropped a voice note and the guy was like yo like this amazing like you appreciate it blah blah blah they couldn't believe it cuz I was like oh yeah look just speak to our clients all good all good yeah yeah kind like oh you know I'll interview you yeah like I'll hook you up right now people like yo what the like nobody does that so referrals like in that way are amazing has been an amazing strategic thing for me to grow my agency look I understand you got to have some clients you got to make sure the clients are good you have good relationships with them but I'm just telling you what's worked for me to build you know to do $18 million in 2023 this the that I do the last one is is the one that's really the dark arts it it's it's partner agency SL middlemen so I'll tell you two things I've done as you start to get more clients and this is something for like maybe whoever's watching this who has a bit of an agency already you're making you know 10 maybe probably like 50k a month you'll start to meet people that know people and you got to understand that's the way the world works you know people talk a lot about networking and people think networking is like standing around in conferences and you're just going to like you know meet people or events to me networking is knowing the right people and then knowing how to essentially keep those people happy so I've done a few things I've I host dinners where I will try to bring the right people into the room so something comes out of it introducing people I always introduced people with nothing in return that's allowed me to then have Goodwill with lots of people so I be like you need help in this don't worry I'll hook you up or you need this cool or you want him on your podcast don't worry I'll hook you up that Goodwill goes a long way so what that does is that in certain situations where someone needs someone or something is going on people will then hook you up people like oh you need an ads agency I know a guy you become the I know a guy situation then the thing with middleman is that you can start doing essentially commissions and bonuses I pay so many middlemen to get something done for me and I would I would literally give them a bag for that reason so I've given people $10,000 $20,000 for just making something happen for me it's a massive skill that you need to recognize that when you come across someone that could be resourceful how to stay close to that person another one part of that is partner agencies so I used to do this a lot in the early days again to scale and this is why you're watching this video you want to see how you scale your agency let's say you do paid ads you could try to partner with an Ecom agency and by partner I mean like so if you get a client you're going to introduce them to them if they get a client they can introduce to you I've done that and I've shared retainer fees shared percentages and it's been a massive way in the early days especially to get more clients because when you get good at something right when you have like 10 15 clients you can clearly have good testimonials you have proof you're actually good at what you do it actually becomes a problem because you wake up there's so much work to do you got a team to manage there is no time to grow anymore so I understand they can get hard cuz I felt that pain right you like man I want to grow but I can't because I'm so busy and who's going to do all this work some client is complaining and someone's left and now I got to do more interviews and you're like ah I can't find good enough stuff can't get good enough clients my clients are always like you know the low level I need to get better clients and you get stuck so some of this stuff will help you get unstuck because if you're running paid ads comes to you if you're running really good funnel comes to better clients will naturally come to you if you're working with partner agencies you know they'll be able to bring you someone that wasn't in your ecosystem wasn't in your radar and that's a great way so for me in the early days I partner with a lot of talent agencies I partner with a lot of even Ecom agencies and they would bring me clients I would bring them clients we used to call it deal flow you share the deal flow people people people do this with the leads right they're my leads you right and it's like I was spreading the leads like you you want some leads here you go you want some leads here you go because in the end the more you do that the more comes back outside of that what I'm going to say is what I realized very early on is that all of these methods it's just a funnel people die on social media trying to be like no bro this is the best one that's the best one this is this this is the one that's hot now we need to jump on it it's the gold rush you got to get in early I have this secret method or you know the script for this thing it's like no look ultimately all of them you're just pulling in people that are interested then it comes down to your actual pipeline management your skill how good are you at the calls how good are you relationship building how good are you pitching how good are you negotiating so you can sign them and that's all this is and look even till this day some months hot Outreach kills it for us some months payad kill it for us some months person brand still kills it for us sometime crazy referral comes through I'm like holy I had one come the other day and I I didn't realize I promised the guy $50,000 so he's like yo bro you said 50,000 for this and I was like oh and to be honest I had to think about it and I was like you know what I'm actually not interested cuz I don't think I'll make that much money from this person to also give you 50,000 so I really appreciate they got the intro for me I really appreciate it but I just can't do it so these are all just methods the other thing I realized very early on was that this is a general funnel ride so the more you are at the bottom of the funnel as in your service that you're providing the more money you will make so when it come to acquisition I realize that I need to be signing clients across the whole funnel because as I'm getting closer and closer to the bottom I'll be able to make the most money hence why I started using all these methods because I increased my services because I wanted to make sure I'm servicing the whole funnel I started off a conversion and then we moveed to traffic then we moveed to just like social media growth audience and on the other side we started doing more post-p purchase stuff Community Building other brands second products different digital physical products Etc the truth is how have I built an agency that's almost under $100 million in actual agency Revenue 18 million like year $2 to3 million at this moment in time one of the biggest agencies in the world a having multiple methods of acquisition B understanding that's all just a funnel at the end of the day and the middle part is the most important where most people suck today because they're using scripts using I've actually spoken with 10 15 agencies in the last three months not one agency has ever presented a deck to me ever just getting a call and be like what up bro yeah or to like a bigger agency to they just start talking they just talk about themselves for like 30 minutes and you're like right that I actually have to be like cool this is what I'm looking for how can you help me I literally reverse engineer the call because they're so and that's the truth like you don't have to use some sales framework you got to talk you got to build a relationship you got to consult so this middle bear is where it's all lost all these methods work I understand can't do all of them so do whatever you can but you should look to do them in building blocks so your funnel just gets bigger and bigger and bigger so if you're not signing clients today or you're not growing fast enough guaranteed you're doing some cold Outreach you're probably doing some personal brand and that's it you sign some clients through your LinkedIn you sign some clients with some Outreach and that's where you went to if you do all this stuff you will grow your agency and then if you start to think about this more you will start to make more money per client right because that's the other way to scale is there more clients through acquisition or better clients to make more money with and I essentially did both I find a way to sign lots of clients doing lots of different methods got really good at signing clients one of the best in the world and then I also understood I need to make more money from clients my first ever client was paying me I think it was 10% share of the revenue and like I think a th000 a month now I have clients on $50,000 retainers $50,000 retainers and that is only possible because I'm literally managing the whole funnel for them so I'm so important to them and I makes them so much money that they can pay me that much anyway look hopefully that was useful I wanted to put this together just cuz I think it's just in the this is a very interesting point and where the agency space is today people are so championing their one thing because they'll be selling something or whatever like this is the right way for the past eight years I have mastered the art of sending Outreach and in that time I managed to build an agency which in 2023 did $18 million in actual agency Revenue I want to put up our accounts right here which are public on company's house you can see we've done 15 million odd in revenue and that would equas to like $189 million or whatever so when it comes to running an actual agency today we are doing $23 million a month now I have used Outreach to sign some of the biggest brands in the world Dior Spotify Apple JY shock Etc and some of the biggest creators in the world people like Ali abdal Chris Williamson lyan D Grace Beverly Mike thirst and so many others and look the truth is the whole industry is filled with the device which is just not correct cuz people try something they they'll send 10,000 emails with some cold Outreach and they'll get some responses then before they know it they have this perfect script which is going to work forever so then you imp you try to implement it and it never goes anywhere and look the world is full of it I want to make this video because I'm tired of people spreading Brad information and if you're an agency owner I want to help you because it's hard it's hard to build an agency it's hard to get out there it's hard to you know essentially win but one of the ways you can do that is by mastering Outreach just the way I did so let's get into this what I want to do in this video is I'm going to walk you through people that have been messaging me and then I'm going to tell you what was wrong about them and why which I've got up here so let's jump straight into it and apologies if your names are in this that's all I can say so stuff like this really annoys me this stuff is like I need to move in with youan this is not a clickbait you read the right so ESS that's I think these are LinkedIn messages because you're exporing what you do at G FL I can't help but crave to mooving you I went to do the test on your page amazed all of this is just made up it's all a lie I don't have tests on my page festive like I don't know what this guy is talking about basically you need a copyright after all that also the festiv in approaching I'm sure you need to copyright you take the load off you deliver faster we can help it's it's so bad it's so bad like I don't know what this guy is even doing like instead of all of this you could have been like I saw your agency I saw that you worked with creators I'm sure you guys have like got lot going on I could help you with copyrighting and also try to say that he's done something before or he's actually looked at the copy of one of my clients and thinks he can actually do something for somebody so the very first thing so I've got this set up in three ways what are they doing wrong as in the emails I'm going to read out what should they be doing and then other General things that I have picked up so firstly never use any gimmicks this guy is using a gimmick I need to move in with you Sean what I hate the people that teach copy the people that teach sales like some people will try to get to optimize for the open rate or whatever right and they be like oh then more deliverability whatever but if it's for the wrong reason if it's then it's just going to be and that's the bottom line so gimmicks just no space for gimmicks next example at silicon mint we provideed get teams basically as you can see here in this email the guy's only talking by himself quick facts where they're based development centers in Georgia HQ there senior developers here's all the text tack just lots of languages like it's just terrible right like he's not selling me anything I I don't know what to say to that so bad here we go as you probably know Fix You 18 years ago I don't know why would you say as you probably know terrible language again just keeps talking about themsel I don't care I don't even know what the guy is even selling us let's move on never do this hello bro hope you're doing well do you work me as a thumbnail designer here's my portfolio don't do that cuz why okay let me go back to this right you should be picking one of my pieces of content and then telling me how you can do it better right you have have to actually email people hi I hope you're doing great I'm outreaching you for video editing we'll make you more content engaging here's my portfolio once again like it's just me they talking about me let's jump into some emails this guy as gum crosses the threshold of 89 employees have you find himself increasing cour in day operation I'm to focus on high B thing is it's common and frustrating situation when your business owners get trapped right I interest a short video so I hate this not interested in a short video send me the video so I know all the cold email gurus out there and people say oh for deliverability don't put links in the first email it's like yeah if you're spamming people if you actually use your actual inbox that actually emails people there's going to be no problem because an email does get to where it's meant to get to if it's a proper email written properly and Google or anybody else can pick that up versus is it written like a spammy email so cool let me jump into I guess some of the stuff that I see all the time people doing wrong when it comes to outreach and look don't worry I will be taking you through exactly the way you should do Outreach and how I do Outreach so make sure you keep watching this video cuz we will be getting to that point as well but let me tell you what are they doing wrong what have I seen look I get hundreds of emails and it's all the same LinkedIn messages I get hundreds of DMS all these guys like which one should I read out Sean this is the probably the you got this week to hit me out right I've built out system that will add 10K Mr to your business in 62 days I don't know man this is the hosi stuff right this is like the the stuff that people teach today which is like oh you know add some time and what you can actually do for somebody in some time frames so people think oh wow this is like amazing would you to hear about this assuming it's like do you really if you even clicked on what I do on my profile do you think I need 10K Mr like but what is it he I mention what is it it's a system it's always a system they always think you're always trying to not say the thing until they get you on the call because they're going to try to trick you into buying something on the call right pressure you they're going to be like after thought you manad enough are you not the person in charge are you not the person who can make the buying decision you need to speak to your wife what is wrong with you man you need to make this decision right now people basically are using blackmail and morally very borderline sketchy in sales calls cuz that's what the sales guys teach to try to convince people so they never want to say what is the thing till they've asked you your deep problems in life and try to be like those problems will get solved if you buy our thing right like all that stuff is absolute that's what you do to sell courses to teenagers and that's it no one has ever sold something thing proper using those tactics I don't give a anyone else say you can read this sorry I was just reading my thing is um hey Sean if you can add an extra 10K to Ecom business paying results only would you be interested oh man it's amazing pay results yes amazing I must join 101 free software relation with me to develop what is just like to develop what anyway you get the idea it couldn't be any worse hey Sean just reaching out anyway helping busy agency owners get 6 to 12 qualified appointments every week going to complete done for you bases with zero ad spend the guy has drank all the agency Kool-Aid in the in the world I'm going to say something they're done with you done for you those are just words that you almost are internal just for you again spoiler I have never used those words in my whole life I know it's the thing now you can decide internally right are you going to do something for someone or are you just selling them how to do it I get it but to use those words as your way of selling is suicide because your customer don't care the way you're going to do it can you solve my problem so the bio terrible hey Sean just reaching out because we help busy agency owners book extra 30 to 60 qualified bookings in 60 days on a done for you paying reses basis like it's so bad like this will never ever ever work instead he could have been like hey Sean I can help Source creators for your agency I believe I could get 30 new potential clients Fe you a month I've gone through your website and I see the following issues or the following this or the following that or a bit about how he would do that is he going to scrape Instagram is he going to look at leads softwares what's he going to do honestly if you actually said even 1% of what is it that you can actually do for me people will respond Outreach is that simple all is what can I do for you because all you care about is yourself that's the truth even now you're watching this video cuz you're like hm who's this guy what can he do for me will I really learn something you only care about yourself and that is fine that is why I making this video because I care about myself I'm trying to build my personal brand I'm trying to make people realize don't follow wrong information cuz that's a passion of mine I care about that so I'm doing it for my reason you you're watching this for your reason so this guy is not messaging for people he's doing cuz someone has given him this script and he's just following it like a monkey so with that being said I'll just run through Sith I see wrong so basically never use any gimmicks people never do any research basically they just send emails don't name drop random people so I've seen this people be like Oh I'm the guy behind Zach Smith you know and you're like who's Zach Smith I have no idea because in your world there may be somebody so don't reference people like I see that a lot of times it's really bad no fake things people just make up stuff and they're putting stuff don't be selling something you actually don't do so I love leg gen people they have tiny agencies they don't have any clients themselves and they're telling you that you can get agencies for you never send portfolios I just showed you that misleading subject lines I've seen loads of people will try to be like you know just sent you a money transfer like it's like what are you doing like you're never going to win you're trying to game the system that's not how it works metrics people say I will increase you you know we have increased our clients by 33% month- on month it's like increased in what 33% of Mr is like right it could have gone from one $ to $1.5 and has an increase right so percentage increase is don't use that different industry examples are bad I see this all the time some guy messaged me like we've helped this insurance company do this I'm like me like that is not relevant in any way it's completely different business like what are you talking about don't push for a negative response I hate this some people in the follow will be like oh just let me know because you know I want to move on or you know sorry to keep bothering you like all that stuff is like no opt in then I'll send you video no fake SK like oh we only got two spots left best hurry up he's like no no that's bullsh no no you don't you are desperate that's the truth and never scrape email send more than one sometimes you will email me and like three of my other people at the company all in the same email and you're like what are you doing like no don't do that that's just like that's just begging you in in a weird way so what should you do look firstly whenever I do Outreach I would send an email comment and DM I would try to actually let someone know in the nicest way possible I'm trying to get in touch with them you'll be surprised with people responding to you find a big CEO find whoever I recently messaged um the whoop CEO in the same way I was doing Outreach I'm still to this day doing hot Outreach I sent him an email and I sent him a a message on Instagram too and the guy got back to me because I wrote him real messages real emails in a normal simple way and I made sure that he understood that I'm trying to get in contact with him for this reason and this is what I think we can do together and the guy responded it's as simple as that the other thing that's very important is that you show off your skills when when you are emailing them them you need to show off your skills I would say you go for the clients that would be a dream client for you to sign because you never know whoop is a dream client for us to sign I go for it it only real numbers that mean something use dollar values whenever you can meaning not percentages clean simple signature people have some crazy images and massive banners and stuff give the prospect context always give them context around like who who you are why you're emailing why is this thing going to work and essentially no fluff just say the actual thing let me show you some examples of how to do it the right way this is one I wrode for imagine the lead is a d2c brand selling clothing it frits our criteria because basically small brand ads are poor and not really executing to the way we need them to I should say the assumption is I'm a paid ads agency here subject would be improve your ads and drive more Revenue this is how hi name got hit with the ad yesterday and I love The Branding so straight away you want to say something which makes a real life context and it's almost like it's not going to be a cold Outreach but then immediately we have to go into the value we have to go into sorry highlighting the problem then giving the value so the second bit is problem I mly noticed the format of the script and the Ping of the video was not good and instead I would change it to an agrial statement hook so I noticed a problem here is this value here is the solution and I'm just saying an agreeable statement hook meaning don't you just hate when a new t-shirt stretches in 2 minutes you wear it obviously I am messaging a clothing brand this is not getting super particular then go on and Shake H why yours won't do that so in this very small email I have shown that I have some skill when it comes to paid ads because I'm saying yours aren't good enough I can help you my name is Sean I run answer Brands like yours this is our special IDE and what we do I think I can help scary brand what's your plan repaid Medi going for other things you never ask for a call you never say like you never ask for a call basically you should always end with a question it'll make people want to respond to you you start a conversation you start a conversation with another human being telling them that you something useful that you can help them with to improve their business that is the secret that is the secret to signing the biggest brands and making all your dreams come true but people continue to people continue to do this Earth to Sean can you respond it's start you have lots of things going on like what the is this what is this it's so bad and yeah I've picked some bad ones to show this I'm sure some of you guys are better than this but you get the idea second email so the is a founder of an agency I am a personal branding agency and the founder is a cro agency owner so subject strategy to grow your brand hi name came across your agency whatever the name is I like how you are focused on cro the market is ripe for it I looked into you and saw that you used to post content but you're not so active on your personal accounts I think it's a massive missed opportunity again highlighting the problem I run HD myself the he finers like yourself build a person brand from my experience if you were to make content that breaks down understand the science behind the optimizations you do it would be great to build awareness for you and get you more clients here I'm giving you more value of what I think you should do you don't need to get a call with me you don't need to you know uh sit through a massive uh you know 30 minute sales call and just go through the steps you're not opting in you're immediately just giving you value here's an example of the cont time means essentially is link any other content it could be someone else's content which is very similar to what you think this guy can create then you want to simplify you want to tell them easy it is going to be to work with you if I was to help you it would be very easy as we would put together the exact content you need to film we would edit it for you and Max would take you like 2 hours a week and make seven post for you to stay active I've been helping the past 12 months you can see more about here thank you do you see the way this is written so this will take you 20 minutes and if you did 10 15 of them a day you will start to your responses you will build your agency or you can write some DM script or whatever email template that some gu is telling you and you're going to Bliss that to 10,000 people and you think that's how you're going to go it is not going to work this will work if you have zero clients 10 clients 100 clients if you're doing a million dollars a month like I am this still works to this day how I built my agency I've been doing this for eight years I actually don't know that many other agency owners I've been doing it for eight years and done multiple Aid figures year and year and year in actual agency Revenue not selling courses and calling them clients this the that works in actual real sense very last one again look pitching a brand who's not running ads I'm a paid ads uh agency I bought your whatever t-shirt love the material been wearing it constantly and guys like who's this guy I was browsing the website noticed you guys don't run any ads I think you guys would kill it with some mutc content that shows the product of being worn etc etc I know this as have an agency that does this for Brands and I've done it for XYZ on average you the cost of acquiring customer around $7 which I think would help you scale your business have you run any ads why haven't you again super valuable super good and look the truth is once you have ran 20 of them you get so used to it that really you are going to copy and paste your older emails and tweak them but that is fine but you keep then going with different approaches forgot to mention actually one thing I like doing is the PS you add something in because you're following the guy on social for a couple of days something that makes it even more relatable oh I saw that you're into the UFC or whatever like something cuz then you trying to be friends with them my number one thing is I will become someone's best friend to then work with them and they won't even know that it's happening I A lot of times say PS feel free to Whatsapp me and I'll put my number and you'll be surprised like bam what'sapp and you're like yo like well how's that happened and then before you know it you're on WhatsApp going back and forwards like honestly like these are the tactics of how you sign clients couple other things look ultimately is playing the long game planting seeds forever that's that is the ultimate truth you you're planting seeds forever that is how you sign clients 6 to 12 months for big results if you were to keep doing this day in day out if you send 10 hot Outreach emails for 6 months I guarantee you'll build one of the biggest agencies in your space cuz no one's putting in the effort these days I'll be honest nobody's putting the F sleep 1 hour less watch Netflix see your girlfriend less whatever the thing is to find yourself another two hours another hour and start to learn how to send emails as fast as possible number one just don't be corny right the a the space is such full of people trying to be smart trying to be clever trying to be this just be straight up be honest simple be to the point none of us have time to go through gimmick emails I'm saying this to you if you want to work with me if you think you can provide some services to jum flow that's how you should be doing it if you email me like that I will be getting back to you but if you're doing all this you're never going to get no response from me or someone like me this is something very interesting that I wrote here I just want to quickly talk you through pitch people the idea of helping them with their clients more than their own agency so I've always thought if you were to pitch another agency you could be angling it that whatever you're going to do for them is only going to help them become better to their clients it's a great way to think about it so if you were to help a cro agency with personal branding you can be saying to them this will allow you to then be better to your clients because then they will think of you differently it's something that I picked up on very other small thing Add profile pick and Gmail not many people do so yeah look I hope that gives you good insight into just the world of Outreach and what you're meant to do you're just doing you know real emails to people is what we meant to be doing and you know the truth is I have managed to live my dream life by building an agency which is worth a lot of money and I absolutely enjoy it it's the best thing that I've ever done and so many people are building agencies in the wrong way that they're going to spend years of their lives building something which is not really going to ever get anywh and that really annoys me and especially if you're like under 30 it's your prime years to be building and you may be doing it the wrong way may be doing it incorrectly and you're just going to waste your life I'm 35 I've got two kids you know I'm blessed me in a position that after 8 years I'm in a very comfortable position and now for me it's about the long game I'm in the last chapter of my agency and looking to exit soon