Therapy Session For Agency Founders (First Time In India) | #letsbitchaloud

This is completely out of scope.

Scope creep.

Hello. So there is, so there was a client who is currently doing around $500 million of business and they said that when we approached them and told them that we would be helping you in setting up your complete digital presence which currently is negligible because you do hardly one or two post, you know, in two months.

Welcome to the high voltage drama of.

The agency world where every decision feels.

Like a hammer ready to strike.

In this world you are either the hero fighting for the right strategy or.

You are the one holding the hammer over that tough deadline. It's make or break. And just like the biggest Bollywood thrillers, one wrong move could have you facing the consequences.

Problem or agency life drama characters or Har hafte ek naikahani.

We.

We brainstorm, we build real stories, real founders, no filters. All right, founders, let's. What we realized is that we are, we agency people are very different kind of animals. Right? So we have, our Mondays are very different from other people's Mondays and our Saturday Sundays are very different from other people's Saturday Sundays. So Hamara weekday be different. So, so we thought we best that we make it happen on a weekday so quickly. I'll just ask all of you people to give your, you know, introduction and then we'll get started. So we start with, you know, maybe.

Top of the screen.

Niladri, you can start with yours.

Hello.

Hello sir, I'm Niladri Roy. I am a tech enthusiast working with close to 50 plus brands currently in India and as well as abroad. We work with companies to build their tech presence as well as their branding presence across different social media. We have been working with, you know, clients like Hero Motor Corp, Bharat Forge, Cummins, you know, building their social profiles as well as their, their tech enablement through, you know, through our team.

Okay. Awesome. So Niladri, in your experience, what do you think? Where do you think such big companies when they know so much about entrepreneurship and business and scaling and all of that? When it comes to social media and branding, where do you think, where do you think they're making the biggest mistakes and where they're putting money on the table?

Okay, so when you talk about social media or branding, I feel they get stuck at a point wherein that is not their core expertise area and they have a team which just knows how to post on social media. They don't know the trends or they don't probably engage in the trends. And that is where we as social media partners get in and help them, you know, take that you know, take that step off, you know, just because we work with the manufacturing industries, we work with other bigger industries wherein, you know, social media is not a prime focus area. They feel that social media is just for a presence. Yeah. For that matter, Bharat Fauch, they don't engage in social, they didn't used to engage in social media. And that is where, you know, we came in and we started managing the social handles, we started engaging with the different teams and understanding and that story should come out.

Right.

And that is why, because they want to attract the new generation, you know, candidates also.

Right, right.

So they feel connected when they are connected on the, on the social platform. And that is where we come as a, as an agency. So, so we made the mirror line. This is a very important part of your business line wherein to scale up you need to do these things which the new age employees would love to have. Like connecting on LinkedIn.

No, 100% because you know, even when we go and pitch to big companies, when they say no, no social media sales, even if they're doing their social media and paid ads and everything, we say that. Let's catch an angle of you attracting the right talent. Exactly, exactly. But every single person is taking at least six to eight interviews to close one position. So that means it takes about two to three months to close one person. And if every interview is about 45 minutes, you're spending eight to 15 hours per person. And these are for your HR, your mid or up to all the weight is your mid level employee management. So he says, you know, I hired say maybe say 300 people. Okay, so one and a half lakh rupees divided by 350 people multiplied by 350 people. So sir, you're spending say anywhere from say whatever the math is 3 to 5 crore rupees only to hire these people in interviews. But what data is showing is that the kind of people you're looking for are people between 25 and 45. Because LinkedIn then you have people 45 to 55, whatever. This demographic is on Facebook and it's looking at these kind of ads. This demographic is looking to work from home, work from Uttarakhand, whatever. And you're also looking at middle management people above the age of 40. They want to work from Goa or work from the hills or whatever. So are you, if you, if you're such a good company. And I see that your ad campaigns are doing extremely well for every different motorcycle based on kudos to you. But sir, out of the five types of demographics of the people that you're hiring, there is no ad. You don't run ads. Person says, what do you mean running ads to hire people? Yes sir. Actually the concept of ads is to attract other human beings for your cause.

Correct.

It's not only for selling. So you can do ads for HR and also you can. So what? We. So once you explain the problem in such a big way then you say fine, you're spending 10 crores, 20 crores, 30 crores in man hour time to hire these people. What if I do this demographic segmentation for you, do this ad profiling for you and this will be a separate social media exercise. 5 lakh rupees a month. I'll charge you 50 lakhs a year to be able to cut down your few crores cost. And being able to close the sales cycle from three months of hiring to maybe 15 days of hiring, that automatically opens up another segment. So congratulations. Already talking, you know, in that language to people. Awesome. Deepak, over to you.

Hi, my name is Deepak Rwal. I'm born in Kolkata. I did my CA but my passion was marketing. So 13 years back I started a company, 1X Solution. We are into SMS WhatsApp, email marketing. Our USP is. We have built 60 crore data, worked with 5000 plus clients and have 300 resellers in India. And I am on a mission of Vocal for local. I have worked for many brands international. Now I want to support my cause. Vocal for Local. So working on something called Love Desi to make an impact in the economy.

Very good. Thank you Deepak. But tell me whatever you said in your hero introduction was about Love Desi, about Vocal for local. About what you like to do about your passion for marketing from a ca. Now tell me how if I'm. If I'm a client who's got crore rupee budget to spend, how does your hero introduction tell me what's in it for me?

So I mentioned two, three things. We do SMS WhatsApp. I have 60 crore datas and I'm already working for 5000 plus brands. So if the client.

So tell me if I'm a hotelier or I'm a hospital owner or I. How do I know how to fit this SMS marketing into my thing? Or can you help me? Can we just redo it and can you help me fit. Say for example I'm a hotelier, I'm a hotel owner. So can you redo your hero introduction to fit me so that I'm like We have a burning issue.

So if you're a hotelier and I knew about it. I would say I work for a client like Novatel. We have launched in India and we have a pan India HNI data and travelers data which could be relevant for any hotel brand to attract the customer from day one.

Okay, very good. That's a good start. Can you make it even more revenue focused for me, this introduction for Novotel?

So we have helped a client for a Kolkata launch where they have spent 30 rupees per campaign and they have generated a 4,000 rupees revenue per customer. So that is kind of valid.

Perfect. See how you're improving at every step? Let's do it one more time. Give me a total like, hi, my name is Deepak. I help hotels just like go hotel in Goa. They have 400 rooms mostly their occupancy is 60%. Even if their occupancy goes up by 5% every day, that is an additional 30 rooms a day. That's an additional 1200 rooms a month. That's an additional 4800 rooms a year. And 4800 into an average occupancy rate of 6000. It's some 24 crore rupees to get those 24 crores and only that 5% extra 60% they're getting from OTAs. Makemytripbooking.com rest they're getting from travel agents, rest they're getting from corporate, from mice to walk ins. Great. But I walk in to only get that extra 5% which also comes down to 24 crores in revenue. For that I use the 1x messaging system. It's an automated messaging system that I've created with AI where data of the right hnis who are moving to all these expensive resorts. They are informed about your weekday, your weekend, your shae, your movement, whatever big events are possible in your place. And from there we track people who are calling you. And Even with a 1% conversion rate, we are able to give you a minimum of two, 300 room nights a year. And that totals to say two and a half, three crores. In business, it's. If this message appeals to you and you're a hotelier listening to me, click on the link. Let's get on a call. That should eventually relate to the business opportunity that the client has.

Awesome.

Thank you. Yes, Amrit. So for all the people who are watching, it's great that you know, the first few people who came on this agency series are all, I don't know, somehow we have all x over here. Evonix1x and okay, go for it. Yeah.

Sir, my name is Amrit Singh. I have a company named Forfox Solutions. We are 10 years old. When we started this we were a tech company and now we are not just a tech company. We are doing staff augmentations. We are in developing blockchains. We are into developing n number of products for people who are based on AI. We are working currently we are working on 5 to 7 AI products.

So.

So we are. I won't say we are a proper marketing or digital agency. We are a pure tech agency and we work on all the aspects and each and every you can say unturned toned of tech. And till now date we have worked with B2B agencies and other networks as well where we have worked on from A to Z all the brands in India, whether it be hdfc, you name it and we have done it. It's discovery, tlc, all the brands which should even a small website or a logo or anything. We have created that for where tech comes in. So coming to the AI part we are developing few tools for foreign based agencies where they would be. I am in an NDA. I cannot discuss the idea. But yes, it would be a market boomer when it comes out.

Okay, so Amrit, first I'd like to tell you exactly what I told Deepak. Like you said, I do see this is what happens as founders. We get very excited about our message because you know, and that's what 10 years of experience must have gotten to you. But thing is the customer will only come to you when he understands in the first two minutes what you can do for his why he would awake last night. Last night. So you can you just redo it and tell me based on all the things customer who's listening to this because this is going to go live everywhere. So listening to this and said yeah. Oh, these guys do this.

Okay, so we do websites. We do all kinds of website. A website that can give you booking engines. Website can drive you sales. Website can give you n number of services that you want to offer. We create those kinds of websites and portals. We do e commerce.

So you've definitely gone one step better than Peddheapnika. I do everything now. Instead I do websites which can give you sales. Great. Every website can give me sales. Now let's refine it a little more. Looking nice, Arjun. Welcome. Give me yeah a little bit more.

Yeah. We do websites which gives first we decide the wireframe which gives you minimal clicks and will take the user journey so smooth that within few clicks or any Other agent you can just take the product by.

Excellent. Excellent. Now can I tell you firstly, the very few people are able to understand this skill. Congratulations for being able to master this skill. But can I tell you the way you've explained it. You're losing at least 100 clients a year. I promise you that.

Absolutely.

Because you explanation is not clear at all. Can I help you here?

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely sir. That's why I'm here.

Thank you. Let's take an example. Give me one industry and let's take an example.

So you can say hotel booking is.

Hotel booking.

Here it comes.

Almost there.

So what I'm trying to say is that I'm not. I'm not promoting here on this call that you should have micro niches only. But the thing is on your website Amrit and Deepak and Arjun and on your Instagram people should know for example. So you say if you are a stand, always remember.

Rooms.

The rooms which are there.

Banquet, restaurant.

That's it.

Banquet.

Anyway, let's take it at 20 lakhs. Because we work with so many hotels. But any because we want to work Deepak, with people at that level. So you say all those things. So you or pure reverse engineer. How much retainer do you want from this guy?

At least 3 to 5 lakhs.

Rupees.

3 to 5 lakh rupees a month.

Yeah.

Okay. So that means my formula is always give a person 10x. So you have to give him 50 lakhs a month. That means 6 crores a year. And 6 crores a year.

20 lakh.

How many leads do you think that you need to get to this person so he can close six sharis.

Nearly 100 or something leads.

50X.

Right. So that's 50x. 50x. 50x. So let's make it difficult. Now this 300 leads is coming from who? Who are the people? Decision makers. North India, Delhi. Punjabi people who spend money. Right. There are some. Some demographics in our country who spend a lot of money on Shadis. Lot of people South India. So we are going after who, who are our people? The father of the bride, the mother of the bride, the Nani dadi, the Tobi. Who are these people? Maybe Malwadis, maybe Punjabis. National demographics, type of people in the family for example. And you say or buy, it's better than others. And all of that tend to be located. So business model. Hi, my name is Amrit. If you are running a banquet you are getting average three queries a day. 90amonth. Out of which after every two to three months. You're closing one big deal and about one small deal. When I see the heat map data of most websites, either the queries are not replied on time or there are automated jawabs happening. Sia dates are not available, personalized responses are not available and most of the queries people say are coming in junk. What we do at Fourfog solution is to be able to create four different types of targeted ads for four different types of demographics so that only targeted ads are coming in. And when they fill up the form they say our minimum cost for one wedding for 500 people plus is at least 1 crore. If your budget is less, please don't fill up the form. We get you targeted leads of people who have the money. We do the first round of calling the client to understand if this client has the money and then we pass on the lead to you. With our system you're able to close half a percent extra. Only half a percent extra per month. Which means you're able to close about 1.5 deals out of the 300 that you get every month. And one shaadi is one crore. So one and a half crore rupees per month. If this appeals to you, click on the link, book a call with me and I'll tell you how to grow your banquet business. Because I think you're losing about 10 one crore rupees business per month. Now this is a better introduction for a client. Rather than saying we can do everything in tech, see everything. What we are saying is nobody has to. If you confuse, you lose. If you clarify your win. That's the mantra of running an agency. If you confuse, you know you can't confuse the person. You have to completely tell them. Exactly. Okay. So does that help? Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Okay. Okay. So yeah. Arjun, would you like to introduce yourself and tell everybody about you?

Yes sir. So hi everyone. My name is Arjun Uppal. I'm the founder and CEO of Global Now Productions. We are based out of Delhi and Mumbai. We are an advertising marketing company. And we basically cater to 360 degree of digital marketing services. And we also have a in house production team. So when we say we look after the advertising part, we look after from the scratch of the pre production to production to post production of an advertisement.

And we've already lost a one crore rupee client.

Right.

Because the answer is becoming so generic. We do production, we do this. We have 360. What is 360?

So it's like sir, Social media management, performance marketing.

How do you know that that person knows you know SEO ppc you know, off page client. It's like a doctor doctor which is called the lats. But you don't. If you say. If I say Lattice you will be the best digital marketer in the country. Most joby upkeep Micronesian May I met identify Kirk amplify social media email marketing. He will not care. I have a question from all of you people. I'll start with Niradri.

Okay.

What is the biggest frustration that you feel when you when a client? Is it the owner or is it the owner's manager or is it both? Agency people are, you know, we are sort of bitching aloud.

Okay, so problem. They don't want to identify the problems. Everything is running fine and moreover when they look at a younger agency they feel we are already you know a multi billion dollar company. And when somebody like us, you know, I have an experience of around 17 plus years but my agency is around 10 years old. So they feel the Selka agency how would they work? But when they start working with us they realize. But you know, the main problem I find is that they don't realize that there is a problem and that is the most. Okay so. Okay, so there was a client who is currently doing around $500 million cup business and they said that when we approached them and told them that we would be helping you in setting up your complete digital presence which currently is negligible because you do hardly one or two posts, you know, in two months. And, and, and you not do not manage your social media well. So they said, you know, we don't need social media. But then we said, but then you know, there is no engagement, there is no response, nothing. Because. And this is, this is what this. But, but for that matter we all know everybody searches everybody on social media first, right?

So.

So this is how the conversation started and I felt, you know, this person will understand that there, that there actually is a, you know, is a need. I did the same thing. I did the same thing employees then why would not they like on your page? So. So that is how that conversation changed and we could close the deal. But anyways. But this is same with every. Every other founder. At least the bigger companies, small startups, they understand this. But big organizations.

Yeah. No, no. Very good. Anything else? Subria, would you like to introduce yourself? And we're talking about you know, this, this section of the communication is called wishing allowed. We are all wishing about our agency clients. So you please introduce yourself. And then let's get.

My name is Supriya and I have an agent agency in the name of CCM wherein we provide ATL and BTL marketing services and solutions to our clients. We have an expertise in the automobile industry as we have been serving them in the rural as well as in the urban locations for over past 20 years now.

Very nice. What do you do for them?

We provide all kinds of ATL and BTL solutions which include all kinds of media releases, media planning and outdoor holdings events that they have corporate, small scale corporate events and activations.

What benefit does the client get after you do this?

So they are able to reach a wider audience. They are able to tap on to their competitor audiences and make sales to them.

So approximately.

So yeah this I might not be able to share because the companies that.

We are working major just give me hypothetical situation.

So revenue wise east ka ya North Ka jaha ka bi hamlo kam kare unka market share they are able to get better sales in their zonal divisions where we work with compared to their other regional counterparts.

Okay. So approximately.

Approximately. Jai. Say if I am working with say suppose Hero Motocom which I think Niladri also works with, they have their biggest suppose egg product glamour. Glamour Market share. East India. As I'm from Kolkata, we are headquartered here but we have representatives, not corporate offices in other locations in India.

Okay, no, but approximately. If you see what I'm trying to say, what I'm trying to get at is because that if we show a number, a hypothetical number, a tentative approximation then our story becomes even more engaging for people to say because I know this happens.

But I'll tell you why I don't have the numbers is because I am not working as a central agency for the client. I am maybe working as one of the agencies in the east division. So maybe one client is getting done their media releases by us and maybe some of the other part of marketing is with some other client or other agency so even they don't get the full market data from their own company.

No. Hypothetical. Hypothetical business. Okay, so any funny or irritating or frustrating stories without naming the client.

Without naming the client. It's funny because when I was new in this business like there was a moment wherein I got a call from a client and he said.

No.

You just put the phone down?

No, I just laughed it off and said.

Good, that's a smart thing to do. Good. Okay. What any Arjun, Any crazy frustrating?

Yeah. So.

So I just went to one of my friends and he called me up. I'm looking out for a social media agency and social media office and after some time and he was like pricing. So I said the whole 360 degree package that we cater to will start from 2.53 lakh rupees, right? And you like 2.53 lakh rupees. And I was like marketing agencies Social media manager does this Barabara Pandra Pandra clients Dal the TM Maximum Pachas.

And.

I was so frustrated I was like starting price. Still he called me.

Yesterday'S incident wherein I went to a client and told them, you know they call us for SEO services and website development and all. And I said SEO is a. Is a long term process so it will take time. You have to be patient about SEO because you know, keyword optimization. Somebody from the senior team came in and he sat down and said there are research tools, keyword research tools and all. If you have our, if you have us as a team. So and. And this conversation was, was not ending. He said on everything that this might. This I can also do. This I can also do. And that is really frustrating point. They realize that they can do everything but they, they don't. They don't do anything. So so, so that is. That is the most press.

I promise you. Many, many, many, many, many Manager Kibatkani Promotion Vice president level right? So Apka Joe targets Kibat. You are absolutely right. This is amazing. Please, because normally clients please once we sign the deal, you have to make a promise. You are going to come and give a motivational talk to my team. So best is to include him as I promise you, if you want to win over a client for a talk or chief guest. Digital marketing see all this hamlog Bhat Kara Digital marketing. Yes. We talk about positioning. We talk about, we talk about a lot of things. It is positioning, it is marketing, it is pricing that there's a correct way of running a digital marketing agency. There's team management system. But today we're just having a little bit of a fun in this section where we are calling it wishing aloud. What we are saying is sir, I'm sorry million dollar client is coming to office speaker phone. Tell your speaker. When it comes to other clients, always we do round table call people for podcast. This is to understand them, make a relationship with them and also build a rapport. Anybody else has such a story.

So not a story sir, but just want to say something. So the last time I did a three day course with you. After that I implemented some of the changes in my company and after that changed I created a little bit of a funnel Jobi lead Ali Thieves questions and initially do you have this much budget? Do you have this much budget? Conversations proceed so that cluttered we were filtering out people from that and initially the people were so interested to meet me that now what is he about to say? He'll correlate to my problems and he'll fix those problems. So firstly I made all those changes after that three day course of US and better quality leads now because of it.

What's better quality reading? I'll tell you guys something. Leads lead junk leads. How is it junk and lead together? How can. How can a junk be a lead? It's not. It's not. It doesn't make sense. Actually you know what? This is the difference I've seen between India, America, Canada. No way. But it's not only about the money. Hamari brain power Jungle eat self confidence Apnea Bajagi Raknai subset precious cheese as the Nyami worldview market Kabu market Kunti leads abundance mindset of manifestation because people are not able to see beyond their own reality Lead you have to reverse engineer number two for example post tax for example reverse engineer designing your own new agency life in 2020 customer avatar 2026 the thing is I meet so many agency founders Jim Agarapki Growth NI Path Team Chodi Achieve team members or Unki Growth Any other stories? This is getting very interesting. Very nice. Very nice sir Qk.

You do this and in tech business agency business model tech business information now what he does.

Is.

Design they don't understand the time. Absolutely.

Recommendations? These are the best in the industry.

Jaldi Banakar and impossible chip.

We all learn from the ecosystem. Maybe amrit kohat 50 calls 50 means 8 hoga for second round hoga proposal better kataraga or industry vs anxiety self doubt cash flow self worth so do you think this inner game because do you think this makes sense?

Of course this makes sense because. Because we also have a limited bandwidth output if we do the same output for a small ticket client who does not even value your your work or anything that you do. It's like we are setting ourselves up.

For failure then 100 so but why do you think this is still happening? Like everybody I speak to very few people are able to do this. What do you think is the reason?

I think lack of patience Especially in my generation we want money and we want it fast.

Very nice point. Social media successful.

One more maybe yeah like that. That is a major part of it. But still I think how success is viewed in our generation is quite different from like what used to happen in our parents generation.

Right? So what? But end of the day, I'm just asking.

Yeah, yeah.

End of the day. See we are all. Every human being is insecure. Every human being has sat down. It doesn't matter. And also everybody has that. I mean my daughters are 20 and 16. So fine. But what I'm saying is ache level because this is how every human being is. Politicians, Kibatkarti, actors. But eight times. When is it that the pain becomes so big that the person starts saying wait, I need to learn more to earn more. What I know is not working. It's not that the market is not working. Clients are not quote or all of that. I need to learn more. I don't know how to do business. When will that realization come? Reality check. Kisata, right? You're right. Apna low quality education. Kesha Jitra Jobs, time learning. My thing is I'm from the agency. It's not a very positive word. Egg Dotin or Hamariko grading mild based on the Jitney Achiever Motor company ecosystem Banana. And then a client comes to a central website. This is something we are working on behind the scene. When client comes to a central website and sees all the genuinely ranked agencies. Supriya, Hero, Honda, Airtel, Niladri, you know, Nokia, Samsung, Indian brands, middle level agency founders.

Actually there's also one thing that I have been noticing that when I had joined the business, the market was rather very heavy on traditional forms of advertising. So even during that point, client stickiness was there. After the heavy introduction of digital platforms and so many number of agencies coming up, client stickiness has reduced quite a lot. Like if I say agency, I work with the regional offices of all the corporates. But if I talk about the agencies which is impaneled from their headquarters, even their work life for just one year or one and a half years at max.

Very good point.

If the corporate agencies are not performing well, agencies clients, if they are not maybe even being able to provide good services or good negotiations to the client.

Excellent. Beautiful question. A fantastic question. But I'm very glad. What I'm saying is until see stickiness dependency by the grace of God pandas are say one of the reason that we are a small boutique agency working only with hotels is because 15 of our clients work with us on percentage, retain our percentage and that is almost 70% of our revenue. Because and you can make those when you do a revenue promise. That's what the agencies are meant to be. See, what happened was most of us have not gone to Those kind of marketing schools to be able to create those stories. I had gone for a pitch to Dubai when I lost this deal to one guy many years ago. My story, gold plated conference room. We were like oh my God. So we went. But we lost the deal. We lost the deal. Full respect to him. You know, personality wise. He came. Nice hotel. Okay, now guys, tell me. If your hotel was a car, which car would it. If your car. If your hotel was a color, which color would it be? If your hotel was a perfume, what perfume would it be? You hero. And which heroine would it be? Vice president. So what I'm saying is amazing. I always tell people work for large agencies. Try to understand how to hype up a brand. But in the absence of that, according to me, the best thing is go and understand where this person makes money from. Percentage Other Apartment 0.25% conversion. How do you get the lead better? Only work with rich people. And only work with people who have clients who are rich people. Your clients have to be rich and your client's client has to be rich. So if your client is a builder and the builder's client is somebody who's buying a 5 crore apartment. Great. So work with rich people who have rich clients. Once you do that, how can I add 2.25 extra? Figure out that one place that you want to fix in that whole funnel. I'll get you better this thing. Now you might say what if I lose money? Lose money. Lose money. Tell the client I will charge you only 5 lakh rupees. But after two months of proving to you that I can sell you at least one apartment for one crore every two months. Challenge accepted. Yes. Ad copies. Let's stop blaming the client. Take ownership of that the whole thing. That Tripria client can never leave.

So I try to say that we shouldn't close the sales on behalf of the client.

I am saying two things. One is 100%. So that's a huge distinct. You can show four types of different ads. Create a bag. Okay then what is. How is the CRM working? How is your automation working? 100% Pera DeKoski to sales call the phone Otarioski Saw Sales call so saw Loki Sales keys Transcript Manga Chat GPT if you were the builder's daughter, if you were the owner of that building, take ownership of the whole thing.

I think very relevant what you are saying. When we take the ownership client confidence. Just understanding from you. Since you have scaled up One of the challenge as the agency we face is we have to look on the sales and operation all the things. So getting the right people. How should we look at KPIs? How should we do that? One.

Delivery.

Challenge delivery.

Perfect delivery difficult delivery is not a difficult delivery. You need somebody who loves to do delivery. Easy answer but obvious or easy by the way life may hurt cheese answer is easy and obvious. I call this the IPL strategy South African team what do they do?

Yeah, the people are trained.

Exactly Finished. That is how you scale a business. You find somebody your HR not your hr your HR. Find the best person find the person in who is doing in some other agency what you want what you dream should happen in your agency so that you don't have to teach him anything and he is 10 steps ahead of you and then life. That's how you build a team. Support Karobad ads full on salesman this there is I promise all of you people there is no other way out. You know Arjun knows we do hundreds of these you know agency calls and you know three day challenges and all of that. There is no other way out. This is the most common question and there is only one way find somebody who's doing in another agency what you dream should happen in your agency. Does not matter about the 5 lakh. 5 lakh 2 lakhs whatever you want to be able to start cracking these niche customer avatar now ads now start rolling it out to it and say no to everybody else in the meantime also spend time but agaram ye choti choti clients and then what starts happening is agency and that is a very. That's not a good phase to be. It's happened with everybody but that's not a good phase to be because if you're not in love with what you're doing then it shows in your work. It shows to your team. The third thing that I'd like to say to all of you people is I would suggest after this call Arjun and Rupriya Deepak and all of you people if you've not met you should, you should. You know what it's maybe yeah yeah that's the best.

I mean I have supplied services to so many agencies during their festive season when when we had the bandwidth and this happens quite often that is why meet with other bigger agencies so that I you know I can get that work.

That's fantastic. You know social media marketing world this is one of the largest social media conferences happening in San Diego. Five to seven thousand digital marketers come and I've been going since ten years boss. It's difficult to find agencies with More than five to ten people. Because everybody is collaborating. It's amazing. But the one to three million dollars key agencies per year have five to ten people. Obviously system. But also the factor that they're collaborating, but collaboration and also what Supriya is doing is a great idea to reach out to large agencies around the world. Around the world.

So whenever you travel for work, especially like when you are going out for a pitch, meetings, say suppose how do you plan to meet with other clients or agencies there? Like you were, you have a business in Canada. You went to Dubai also for a pitch. I'm sure UK may be. So how, how do you network there? I'm asking this because I am planning to visit London for two weeks in December. And I have spoken to a few artists there because I want to get into more into, you know, lines of art direction and all of those things. So I want to know how can I do it better?

Very good. So first I'll tell you always remember in your business that what is the first path to money? First step to money. I also, I love meeting people. I love talking to people, I love networking. All of. We all love it. We all, that's why we are creative agency people. But I'll tell you one thing. It doesn't lead to money directly. It's a relationship building part. But then there are, there are things which are like prospect proposal that is one step away from money. These things of meeting people are two, three steps away from money. So depending on where I am at my stage in my agency, I will create a 60 to 70% urgency on the one step away from money. 20% urgency on the two steps away from money and then 10% on the three steps away from. And that's how I would also plan my meetings. I'm always meeting people. But that is not direct money, that is indirect. So. So firstly I will give it in the thinking. Whatever you do, whenever you plan a trip, whatever, always say first step from money. Second step, two steps from money and three steps from money. Number one. Number two, the thing is the best way to close clients, network with clients is to make the most of your. Thing is. I used to, I used to always have partners and resellers in every place. But Dubai was my biggest market at one point in time. So Sahil from West dad used to be my partner. I'm a diamond merchant son. But I have opened a company with the software for hotels. So I. My definition in my head of a partner is always somebody who's selling the. Who's selling a Product to your client, but it's not your competition. 30, 30 meetings you have to go. And we did awesome business. But most time now what I would do and I what I would like to do whenever I every time I travel is I'll invite the top prospective clients on a round table conference. Call it, whatever, real estate, digital conference, whatever call 10, 15, 20 people. Maybe it will be $50 per person, lunch, sandwich in a nice place, maybe overlooking the water or something. Interview them, make reels out of it. Because remember, Supriya, branding by association is the best branding, right? So it's called branding association. So you associate yourself. So number one, advantage, second advantage.

They.

Feel important and then reciprocity kicks in and they ask you what do you do? And then we talk about I do this for a client. And after that some people will want to book a time with you to call later. It's the best ROI of your thing and you make this happen. In fact, you should do it every month in every city, wherever you travel. But we decided I used to do this when I came to India. We said let's do three a day. So we did three in one day, one 10 people podcast roundtable. But I met 30 people. Then we did that another in Bombay, then we did that in Bangalore, then.

We did that in.

So that was second phase, 3x4x. Now third thing which we want to do right now in January is that now when we do our round tables, this time I'm going to get it sponsored and we are asking the sponsor only to pay 50,000 per sponsor. So what will happen is hotels. Why? Because we tell the hotel, these are the guests who are coming, the top people in your city. Would you like to sponsor it? Because hotels love that idea. But that will be six times a day extra revenue for us because now we're going to get relevant sponsors or sponsor brand investors. You can also be there 50,000 and then we'll get. So it's according to me, this is the best. Number one, do one podcast roundtable. See how it goes. Number two, then brand it and do two, three a day. You can do once in two months or whatever curated. Once you're confident about it, then call other sponsors who are not your competition but selling the same product. And then you watch, you will. I don't like people to stop their ads, but this is the only way that ads because the top decision maker is doing a dinner with you, podcast with you.

So when you did this for the first time, had you known the people you had invited or was it only through cold calling.

No, no, no. So it was mixed. It's always fixed. But the thing is so then I can show that picture to them. I don't think it's the wrong thing to do. But what we do is we say These are the 20 people who are invited.

Yeah.

Not coming. We're invited.

This. This happens quite frequently. Yeah.

So then people look at that and say you get the award. People like about those ideas to get the right people because time is and you know, in fact now I want to do something so book a nice van or something and take eight, ten people together. Just make it interesting and fun for them. Everybody wants to have fun but. But only the clients. Supriya, Amrit, Arjun who can pay you 50 lakhs a year so that we can work less, make more money and spend time with family and all of and travel. That's the basic mantra of when I call myself a family first entrepreneur. Seriously, I'm not against or for anything because against and all these things are very harsh words. I'm not against it.

And we are not looking after anything else in our life.

I will not have like you know everybody in India played cricket. I didn't play cricket but I watched cricket because I love the discipline of how teams are made. And all six is okay. Six means 99% of the world is not for me or 1% is more than enough. But I Bohikarna goes Mary Sapse client who do say pants apartment I'm not saying don't become billionaires or whatever some trade off of that billionaire.

Have you had any such experience wherein a client say suppose have has told either you or maybe early in the time your team members that marketing is something Actually traditionally people who have excelled in the fields of advertising or marketing have not really come from a background of that.

That means the way we position ourselves of course gets these kind of I'm talking to the wrong person. I have to talk to a person who's in extreme pain. I don't have to talk to somebody. Why am I even talking? In fact you should give a lecture to my team. You know, give a talk. I'd love to have you but the thing is immediately I get to know this, you know, you should know this is not the right person.

Actually I had heard this from somebody else. So like what I responded to them was that if even if they're thinking like this there's a reason why they are still talking to you.

Exactly. Reverse psychology. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate. Please come and give A talk. What he's expecting from you is some. Okay, so we just have in a couple of minutes left. So I just wanted to, you know, go to this. What do you think is the role of. When we started Internet moguls we used to. I made it mandatory and we were known for it for a long time. The Internet wears only suits. You know why? Because I felt like an outsider when I. Because we work only with hotels so I used to feel like an outsider. I said here I want them to feel I'm part of them. Red color pocket square. So what do you think is the role of Abhiya Patani? But what do you think is the role of power dressing when you're trying to impress a client?

So power dressing can either make or break your first impression for a client. People generally say that, you know.

What.

We bring to the table is far more important than how we look. But it's not really like that. You, you never know. We say a lot of things but then when it comes to belief or our conditioning of the mind, things are pretty different.

Usually I'm without my rings, I'm without my kara, I'm without my watch. Man. Normal dress that he is coming from that background.

If, if he's in the field of.

Hospitality, if he's in this field of hospitality or he's an event planner or I know like banquet owners. Banquet owners. If I'm going to meet a skincare brand, a new startup skincare brand or a old skincare brand, the old skincare brand marketing heads. But it totally depends upon the kind of category that you are going to meet and her category, category accordingly. He's coming from the main. He's coming from the same mindset.

Very smart. Very smart. That's a good point. When you really love somebody or you you have attracted to somebody you go your first date or whatever and do we not dress our best? Yadaram Shadi Bhajat Cousins, family I guess will we not press our best judge? It's a good word. It's not a bad word. What's wrong in it? Wow, nice suit. Very nice professional background. You know what I'm shoot means your power. I'm telling you one thing. When during COVID what happened was honestly I'll be very honest social media but time I put on a lot of it and I realized that my hoteliers, you know the hotel industry because everybody in the hotel industry knows me. But the whole perception changed. You see, now I'm back to my suits. It makes a difference. It has made A difference every time I. Doesn't matter. You know, tfg. Taken for granted. Taken for granted. So I'm just trying to say, I'm not talking about the brand, I'm saying just the way person dresses up, it shows that he cares. He or she cares about themselves automatically, subconsciously.

The energy of that speaks for itself.

100%. 100% lovely. You know, every time I get on a call, I always have my cologne. But why am I putting on this? I always put on a cologne before I get on the phone. It's for me to feel good, only then that energy goes out. Right. It's for me to feel good. 95% people are not going to do it. So success I don't think is difficult. It is just consistently doing what you find difficult to do. This one, you know, a founder should always be freedom, discipline. No founder has to be more disciplined. More disciplined. Last thing I'd like to say. And then we, you know, one parting comment from all of you people, last thing I'd like to say is you're feeling overwhelmed, broken behind those doors. Many Years ago, about 10 years ago, my father in law told me, emotional decision. Fire this person, fire that client. Yeah, yeah. Emotion could also be something very good. 24 hours. So that completely changed my life. Practicality number one up now I'm, I'm going to be 50. So now what happens is my parents are growing older, my, my children are growing older. My responsibilities are going right. So all these responsibilities are growing, right. Sometimes like I'm talking about day before yesterday, day before yesterday we were having a three day challenge. Now three day challenges I'm doing from here. You're tired. And then while the webinar is happening, somebody broke mine into my neighbor's fence. And then I could not find my daughter's car, got lost. Long story. What I'm trying to say is life breaks. So the new mantra that I've learned is don't react. Which means don't try to. And the third thing which I would like to tell you is please always, always talk to people who are from the Same industry but 10 steps ahead of you because you cannot go to another doctor, her doctor doctor. Talk to Shubria Singh, she talks to big agency founders, talk to agency founders who are, who understand your pain, where it's coming from and they're 10 steps ahead of you. So what I've realized is I've got a business coach over here. He has run international businesses staying in Canada. He runs businesses in different parts of the world. There are different challenges. I am not sitting there to motivate my team every day. I don't go to office physically more than 12 times a year and he helps me. So find whenever, anything in life, health, wealth, relationship, spirituality, whatever. Try to find somebody who is 10 steps ahead of you and is there where you want to be after a few years and is coming from the same challenges as you. It's beautiful. Life becomes beautiful. So before we end today's session, thank you very much for. You know, I enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Reminds me of college days. No agenda at all, but thank you for joining me in the bitching session. I think that was one of my favorite parts. So just any parting thought because other we going to upload it on YouTube and a lot of other agency founders are going to be looking at it. So what would be your one piece of advice for agency founders? Number one. And finish it by saying why other people should join this agency series live series next time. So you're also doing a little bit of marketing.

I'd like to go first.

Yeah, love it. Go for it.

So I think the one thing that I would like to share with all the agency founders is that we really need to dissociate ourselves from the roles that we play. We are a founder here, but not at home. We. We might be a daughter at home, but not at a client's office.

No.

Right.

And.

And we need to take our decisions also in a dissociated manner. So this is what I am trying to learn. As if, for example, say suppose some. Something mishak kind of a thing happened and we have an emotional outburst for that. We don't need to look at ourselves in the situation. Right. Then we just need to give a macro view of it from the top and react as if this has already happened, happened with us before. So why perfect. Why do I boil my blood right now for absolutely no reason which can automatically be taken care of itself.

Lovely. Love it, Love it. Perfect. And now if you could just market this series.

So I think if we are getting such kind of a platform wherein we can talk to a lot of people from our genre of work wherein people are coming from different aspects of life, businesses, the struggles that they are coming with, you know, unknowingly, subconsciously, we learn a lot. The things that I mentioned about or say suppose some other person mentioned about was not a part of my life or maybe the things that we had to ask, we did not ask or would not ask. But somehow or the other, it keeps on revolving in the conversation. And later, you know, after say suppose three to four days we realized that nobody had spoken about this.

Right.

So we should never even any opportunity to be in such rooms.

So what was that one thing that stuck with you today or you got validated?

It was when you mentioned about branding by association that everything is not pure play sales. But we keep informing our room about what we are doing by you know, associating with different people and letting them know that we have such associations.

Lovely.

Lovely.

Awesome. Amrit.

Low bowl clients go for a bigger ticket size. Interact with people who are working with bigger ticket size. To be very clear, hire them and take your company ahead. So this is the best learning I got from.

Okay. Perfect. Lovely. Niladri, I like your shirt. Over to you.

Yes. I'm so sorry. I was, I was not there for some time. But. Yes. One thing, you know, honestly one thing which I always have felt over the past few years is that somebody told me this, you know, a long back is, you know, it's, it's. It's lonely at the top. Right. So. So when you are, when leading an agency you, you start feeling and, and this, this forum, honestly when I, when I started, started the interaction I was, I was not knowing. I was totally blank. I told you that I came completely blank.

Yeah.

But when we started interacting I realized here it's not me who is facing the same problem day in and day. Everybody's sharing the same pain but probably nobody's sharing that part. So I think this kind of interactive forum helps us to release our frustrations. This is one of the best part of the session was the pitching session. We can't discuss this.

Right. And I'm sure everybody.

So I think, I think honestly we all have gone through this but probably nobody shares this because we always, we feel that I will look weaker. But I think, I think there should be, you know, these kind of forums wherein we get to talk out our, our heart out and probably we can learn from each other. A lot. A lot can be learned from each other.

Awesome.

Perfect. Very well said. Thank you so much. Yes. Mr. Pull. Yes, sir.

So sir, firstly.

It'S your power dressing which is talking.

We don't need them as a part of our journey. And thirdly, what you are worth.

I'll tell you one thing that you know from, from my childhood I had a bit of an impatience. But anyway, so I went to Delhi's Bhagar Singh College. It's supposed to be a decent college for commerce and everything. But you don't get. It's not IIT it's not, you know. So every week I used to go to Hindu and Hansraj. I didn't have a low self esteem but I knew that those people are going to go abroad. That was number one. Then when I was about 19, 20 years old, Delhi had the best nightclub. It was called Gumroo. I took a membership for 30,000 rupees. Long story but I met there were about 4, 500 people used to come there. It was the number one club in the country. I met the top people of the country and today on my my best friends are all billionaires before I got into business. So that was just an innate desire of me to surround myself with people. Because when you go to these kind.

Of places.

Then recently I joined Forum.

Club.

Then I joined Soho club, then I joined Bay club. I joined all. But why do I continuously join these clubs is because when you join these clubs where there are entrepreneurs who are 10, 20, 30, 100 times bigger, better than you, it's not about. It's not. It's about you will always be forced to dress better. You'll always be forced to look better, you're always forced to think better. They don't crib, billionaires don't crib. So you have to all this is the kind of company we're trying to build with these kind of micro communities. Find places. So I interrupted you in the middle but I just wanted to say find places where in situations uncomfortable. You know why? Because they will challenge you to come out of your comfort zone. But.

Thanks Avi Mala. It was a good learning session and today what I learned was the most important thing was.

Thank you so much for saying that.

So I can say I have 400 personal resellers in India, your ad agencies there and I have one database of advertising agencies. Advertising agencies, personal talk. So maybe sometimes I'll check with you if you would like to come and.

Experience that one lovely agency founder. That is my. See that's it. You caught it. That's it. Definitely me and my team are going to get in touch. So that's it. You personalize the thing for what the other person is looking for. That's it. Finished, game over. And the right leads will come to you. And query form is Zaru Likh. Now what was the last thing that did not work with you? What were the three things that did not work with your agency? What are the two expectations that you have from us? What's the minimum you were willing to spend 2 lakhs minimum. If for some reason you're not able to spend this amount of money for your business. We totally understand but we will not be the right agency for you. This Zoom call will not be booked on our character.

What you are saying Business four, five years I personally will not meet when I was client. I think for the other founders it helped me a lot in my business personally involved. So that has worked up very well. One thing I would just request you because lot of time I don't know if that can be covered in today or some other day. So we suggest you business but I would love to learn from you today.

Or some other I'll take 2 minutes on tell you on this. So I I. You know I've met a lot of people from like Gary Ver from Media Office and from I'll tell you Mary Joe understanding especially with so Saska told me. According to me a SaaS tool is a good idea only if it increases the stickiness of your agency. It's definitely a separate business but separate business.

Team.

Completely separate but Agarapni Abi Banana. Okay, so guys let's take group selfie. We call everybody else as well who is here on Zoom man and Abhishek and anybody who's here. Okay, so five. I'll tell the team to take a picture. Five, four, three, two and one. Awesome. Thank you guys for joining us on this series. Agency therapy section. I'm saying it so that the editor can hear me. We'll make it fun and look forward to seeing you in the upcoming session. We're going to make this a continuous series and somewhere in January we are opening our own podcast studio in Goa. We're going to be inviting agency founders just to have fun. So stay tuned for emails coming from us. And yeah, thank you once again for your time on a busy weekday. I hope you had fun. I had a lot of fun. Thank you and thanks a lot.

Take care. Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Thank you everyone.