Before you get your first client

You have to figure out a skill that you have that other people find valuable. And my first business was, I found this company that need help with, I mean, I realized they have a lot of, you know, they want to get more customers, but they have an email list that's untapped. They haven't even sent one email to anyone. So I literally sold them, I was like, hey, I'll build your email newsletter and I can help you get more customers. And what I did, I went on and I built up a template for them. I went on MailChimp and I set up an email sequence for them. And next thing you know, they're getting more customers. And that's how I started one of the businesses that I had. And I tell people it's not about starting a company, it's about building a skillset that other people need. And that skillset is gonna help those people get further in life. Does that make sense? So everyone's like, oh, I wanna start a business. I'm like, okay, what's that business? Who's your first customer? 'Cause if you don't have a customer, you're not in business. So I would just say stop obsessing over learning whatever random shit. Learn things that other people need and find useful. You know what I mean? It's not about just, you know, knowing more. It's about implementing what you know, and that implementation has to be useful and someone's willing to give you money because they don't want to do it themselves. That's a service business. Or if you want a product, you know, like when we were— when I work with Gallup on their StrengthsFinder product, they built a product that help other people discover themselves. So figure out someone who's trying to help discover themselves, and I was showing them that product with my advertising. I just think a lot of it's just like now the hype about entrepreneurship, I want to start my own business, it's just so like up in the cloud and everyone's like, find your first customer before even scaling. Maybe you're not scalable. Maybe you're like a mom and pop shop and you're always going to be. And that's why like right now I was sick of— so the challenge that I had is when I was starting my business is I've never done it before. And the thing is like there's, and even digital agency was not done before because it's a whole new practice, right? So there's no blueprint you can follow. So what I start doing is start kind of like looking for different people who are doing something right and take their class or learn from them or get their book. And I start collecting my own kind of blueprint. So this way, whoever wants to get into that industry, they can follow the steps that I've built and they don't have to, you know, they can cut off their learning in half because we've already learned all the stuff for them. We already know the tools to use. We already know how to influence others. I mean, the art of influencing people and telling them the story on how you're going to help them, it's a whole different skill set that you have to learn outside of the actual delivery of the product. So I think combining those two, then you're going to have a successful business because you need someone who's going to go out, get the deals closed, you know, put up the proposals, do that kind of piece. Then you need other people who can fulfill those things and, you know, make sure that the promise you gave that business you're going to help them with, someone's actually doing it. So that's why I think mentorship was huge for me. And I highly recommend anyone who wants to scale their business or get into even expanding existing business, hire someone who's done it before. Work with someone who's done it before because they will, they will cut your learning by half. They will save you tons of money. And one of the reasons we built the online class is because I realized that there was no defined blueprint on how to start a digital agency, how to influence people online, how to scale your business. What is the strategy piece? What is the strategy? Is you have to be intentional and thoughtful about the steps you're making, the people you're hiring, the clients you're going after so you can become scalable business. That's actually sustainable. Does that make sense? And I think a lot of us, people just get stuck in like the idea phase or the activation phase or getting another client, another client, and not thinking of, okay, how can I scale? You need recurring income. It's not about the one-time deal you keep selling. Someone has to be willing to give you every single month a base check. I mean, not base check. Someone has to give you every single month some money for something you're doing for them. And that's kind of like a lot of the stuff that I built in this class. And the second piece, why I decided to start a digital agency, I realized there's a big need out there for, you know, more people who know how to build things online, starting from a website to social media to advertising, because we spend over 8 hours on our phones. And I think that's crazy. And a lot of businesses don't even think about that. So our goal is, as a digital agency, is help those businesses be online, be on social media, be in people's newsfeed, so they can get more customers. And then the second piece that I was struggling with is just hiring people who love what they do and they want to serve that same purpose. Because I had a very bad boss. And because of that, I probably decided to start my own company because I was sick of working for someone who's not appreciating what I was doing, who's not helping me grow as a person, who's not coaching me rather than working 10 hours a day and going home and pass out and wake up and do it all over again. It was like a rat race. So I was done with this whole thing and I wanted to build, bring a bunch of people together who love what they do and grow things for other people because our skill set is needed by those businesses. My goal has always been to get that first customer and show that my skill set, my skill set that I've developed either from the strategy piece or the communication piece or the marketing piece or mapping a customer journey piece is useful for your business that you have. And I think if whatever you're trying to do in your life, build skill set that are needed by other people. And I don't care what you've done in the past. I don't care what you want to do, as long as you can figure out how to use that skill set and how much people are willing to pay for it, for that skill set. An example, you're willing to pay, you know, I don't know, $50 for someone to come clean your house. You value that at $50, while you might hire a business coach for $200 an hour. You value that skill set at $200 an hour, right? So whatever you want to do, figure out how much is valuable for the world and how many other people are doing it. And if there's an opportunity for you to charge X amount of dollars for X amount of work you can do. And I think the world of digital marketing, you helping other people make more money. So they're willing either to give you part of their business sometimes, or even pay you huge amount of money because you can make them more money on top of it. So any dollar they give you, you're making them more money against it. Make sense? What was your first mistake? Tons. My first mistake is over-promising, under-delivering. Like, never over-promise, under-deliver. Always be sure that you have a delivery nailed down to your promise, right? And even I would go a step further, you have to over-deliver, because if you over-deliver, what's going to happen? They will overpay you. They'll give you more money, give you more work, right? Always willing to go the extra mile with delivery because that's how you're going to scale that business. And, and you're going to be thinking, oh, that's not in my— that's not in my scope of work. You know what? Nothing is scope of work if you don't make it. And if you show ownership, you show, you know, like responsibility, that person working with, they're going to see it and they're going to give you more money to do more stuff for them.