I Grew a Multi-Six Figure YouTube Agency in One Year... by accident

To this day, I don't think I have a successful business. As I'm filming this video for you, I have seeds of doubt and my inner self is telling me, why are you doing this video? Your business has yet to hit a million dollars in yearly revenue. So take a step back. You don't know success yet. So I thought it would be fun in this video to share with you what I did in 2021 that I never believed I would do that kind of took my business to that next level and some of the kinks that happened along the way that caused me crying in my bed. Now, if this is the first time catching me. My name is Trena and this channel is usually about how to create, converting content, content that gets you more clients, get you more leads, get you more sales. But today I'm sharing a little bit about my business journey and really accepting what is success in business. What I've seen recently is so much messaging that you, if you're not making X amount of money per year in your business, you're down here, right? You're. You haven't hit success and so you're making a million dollars a year or you've spoken on this stage or you've been featured in this magazine. And 2021 ended up being a totally different year than I had imagined in my business and also had a bit of an awakening. Prior to 2021, I was building this education business because the marketing messages out in the world said, you, you need to do passive income. Why would you want to work with clients? Working with clients is going to tie you to your desk and you won't be able to live the life that you want and you won't be able to, you know, go on vacation when you went. So create passive income, create courses, digital products. Right at the beginning of 2021, I had about three clients and I enjoyed working with those clients. I enjoyed doing the work. It kept me in the YouTube game other than just my channel. But I thought, hmm, this isn't right. I'm not supposed to be doing client work. That's not what a successful online business does. So let me just dive into a little bit more where my business is at in 2022 and then kind of what happened in 2021? At the end of 2020, I had three clients and I charged $7,500 a month for them to upload videos, edit all of that stuff. And I was a team of one. So I was doing it. I also at 2020, had a few contractors. I had a Contractor edit my own videos. While I was editing my clients videos, I had a contractor help me do community engagement in my course so in the Facebook group. And then I had my cousin, I brought her on board in 2020 because she was working kind of half as a kindergarten teacher for my daughter and then half helping me create an online summit. At the end of 2020, when I looked at what we had invoiced clients for the year, we had invoiced about $75,000 in revenue. Now obviously that doesn't include editor expenses, graphic design expenses, all of that. What happened in 2021 is I finally accepted, accepted the fact that my agency could be amazing and that having a service based business isn't the wrong thing to do and that I could find a way to make working with clients and building an agency work for me and still have the flexibility that I thought passive income would have. 2021, we pretty much doubled down on the agency and we brought on more clients. We, we brought on more help in the agency. So now we have two video editors inside our agency. I have a full time strategist which I ended up bringing my cousin who was helping me with the summit, become a full time lead strategist and account manager in the agency. And I also brought on a part time strategist and account manager as well. In addition to that, we are paying a subscription to a YouTube thumbnail agency called Custom Thumbnails to help create all of our clients thumbs up thumbnails because we've seen some great results there and the process worked for us. So at the end of 2021, when I look back to see what we invoiced for our agency, it was over $200,000. I went from a $75,000 agency to a $200,000 agency in one year. Never did any Facebook ads for the agency and it was all through word of mouth mentioning it here on my YouTube channel, talking about it on Instagram is how we got these leads and ult. So at the end of 2021 we had 10 clients and we have five discovery calls booked for January. There's a lot that can contribute to the success. I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but I want you to clearly understand with that success in my head, I still wasn't accepting it. I still did not think I had made it. So don't get yourself wrapped up into thinking, oh, I'm going to make it when I do this or I'm going to feel like I made it or I've reached the finish line when I got here as an enneagram3. That could be a reason why. But I've not reached that finish line. And so I forced myself to step back and look at these numbers. Like, what the heck? 75,000 to 200,000. That's incredible. You have a successful agency. But I just wanted to share this with all of you watching to know that accept your wins, all of your wins are just as important as somebody hitting a million dollars in revenue. Okay, I share that because I really had to readjust the way I think and the mindset around what really is success. So let's talk about what changed to, I think, project this agency in success and then the kinks, because growing that quickly sounds amazing, but on the back end, at least to quite a few sleepless nights and tears. So 2021 Facebook ads totally change it through everybody for a loop. Everybody started panicking. They weren't getting the traffic to their offers. They were trying to figure out what are they going to do next, how to get organic traffic now, because when they dump money into Facebook ads, they actually were making money back. And what was like $2 for a lead for them was now like 30, 40, $50 for a lead. So that definitely helped people really wake up to YouTube and the power of YouTube and ultimately led them to me. Second thing that happened is I accepted this agency model. I really leaned into it. I decided, okay, I'm going to talk about it in public, I'm going to mention it, and I am going to mentally tell myself I'm growing an agency. Third thing was I had Jo, a mastermind at the end of 2020. And just by being in that group and engaging with these people and creating relationships, not only did some of them become clients, but they knew people to reference me to or they referenced them to me. So that also was a huge asset. I don't want to be here to talk about the highlight reel, because we have enough of the highlight reel on Instagram. I really want to tell you, growing is amazing, but it comes with some real hard tips of anything that I can share today can just be one thing that you take away to start preparing your business. And if you want to take your business to that next level, something that you could prepare right now. So when you're lucky enough to see your business jump and see that next level of success, you're ready. Prior to 2021, the entire process that I created for developing strategies for my client was all in my head. I would look at a strategy, I would Be able to figure out what I wanted to look at, how I looked at it. What I defined was successful, what I defined was a good video to go after and what the strategy was going to look like. It was all in my head. So I was the only one that could create these strategies. And as we went from three to seven clients, then to seven to nine clients, there was no time in the day for me to do all of these strategies because it takes me a good 8 to 10 hours to develop that. I had to figure out a way to get this process out of my mind. And I talked a little bit about this on Monday's video, where I think it's really important for you to get your processes down on paper or at least on video, like a loom video. Because if you get to the point where you have more and more people wanting to work with you, you've got to have your process in place. So it's much easier for you to bring somebody on board to help you and do it the way you want to do it. And I know for me, I didn't want to do it because it's taking time out of my day. I would have to sit down and literally write down every single step that I do to create these strategies. It was going to take me a lot of time and I didn't have time to do it. But I wasn't going to be making any time back if I didn't do it. I was going to not be able to bring on new clients. I was going to stress myself out, I was going to be chained to my desk if I didn't get this process out. The way to avoid it is to have your process written down, no matter how small it is. Just have it written down. The next kink was actually scaling. So it was about July ish when we went from the four clients to eight clients. And that was massive because again, my processes weren't down. We were having to develop four brand new strategies in one month. That's, you know, four times eight, math, you know, plus my video editor was maxed out. How am I gonna get YouTube videos up on YouTube if I don't have video editors to do it right? So we just literally didn't have the capacity to bring these clients on when we did. So immediately I'm thrown into, we gotta find another video editor. It was hard to find a video editor because I want to test them out. I want to try them before I give them to my clients. But I didn't have the time. So we hired A video editing agency. I also needed more hands on deck because between me and then, I had my cousin Erica become the lead strategist. She was helping me, but she didn't understand the entire process because I never put it down on paper. So I having to train her while trying to do the strategies and it was stressful, it was defeating. I think I began to doubt myself thinking, who am I to do this? Imposter syndrome started setting in. I started thinking, why am I doing this? I'm not good enough to do this. I can't even do this now. We needed to bring on more help. And so I got to the point where I hired two people to try them out. And at that point we just needed warm bodies. And I incredibly regret, not that I brought them on board, they were amazing people, but I wasn't prepared to bring them on board. I didn't have the processes in place, we didn't have an employee onboarding on place. And we really just threw them into this deep end with no life jacket. And ultimately it didn't work out with them because it was all on me. It was me not having those processes. I don't know how many times I'm going to say processes here, but maybe that's the key takeaway from this entire video is truly understanding what it is that you do that spend special and having that on paper. So when you bring people on, they can help you. And they're not drowning or not knowing what they should be doing or how they can help. Because that's what happened from July to about September. The video editing just wasn't up to par. Clients were getting videos that I wouldn't have approved of. Our quality control started dipping. I started to become stressed out, overwhelmed, depressed. I was freaking out, thinking what had I done? And basically wanting to burn the entire business down. Those three months, honestly, between August to September, October were probably the hardest months in my business ever. From the past six years, even when I was scraping to find clients, I now had this influx of clients. It was still the hardest months for me because I felt like I wasn't giving my clients the experience experience that I wanted to. I felt that I was failing my team because I wasn't giving them the training that they needed. And I literally was like, burn it to the ground. I quit. I'm not doing this. I can't do this anymore. Because not only was I trying to manage this agency piece of it, I also had my education side and I have my members inside of Video Strategy Academy. And I wasn't showing up for them like I truly wanted to. I love my members inside of ESA and I was so stressed with the agency, I didn't have time for VSA and I wanted to be there and I wanted to help and I wanted to continue making new templates and new training for them. And when you're trying to run like an agency and an education business, it's this constant seesaw. You're spending time on one, the other one gets neglected and vice versa. And that's really what happened. The agency ended up taking so much of my time that I was feeling completely destroyed over having to kind of leave my BSA members in the dust. Luckily, our amazing coach Aaron is in there to help them and they don't ever felt like they were neglected because Erin does great work. She had their mindset call, she had co working calls with them. But I personally, knowing the level that I want to perform at and wasn't hitting it, felt like I was letting everybody down across the board. Which also led to less and less time that I had to spend creating content like this. My YouTube videos just became a checklist item. I feel like between July to probably November, the quality of the video just wasn't here. I knew what video I could create that was good enough. And that's all I was doing. I was just showing up to check something off. And so my content became to become less valuable. I thought maybe not all of you, but I personally thought that my showing up on Instagram became less because I didn't have the time. I was also having imposter syndrome. Like I'm not going to show up on Instagram because it's a hot mess over here and people are going to realize that, like, who am I going to tell people to do this in their business when I can't even control it myself? Who? Which also then led to neglecting my health probably again from September to the end of the year, I gained weight. I was doing really well at the beginning of the year from like January, obviously New Year's resolutions, to May, June, I was great. I was doing well, exercising, finding time to exercise. Not every day, let's get real, like four to five times a week. And then when all of this stress happened, I just didn't have the motivation, the energy. And then by not working out caused me not to have the energy and motivation. And so it was just this constant cycle. And I gained about 10 pounds since September. And that then also got me in my head just this cycle, right? Which then ultimately lead me to shutting down applications for the agency in September. Honestly, we were at our max. We were at a number that I never even fathom that I would have as clients. And so I figured the best way to get ourselves out of this is to just not take on new clients, focus on the clients that we have, get them up and running, get our processes up and running. Plus, oh, by the way, I had to launch Video Strategy Academy in September as well. Now, before I kind of go through the checklist of lessons I learned, I hope you can take from this video as well. I'd love to know how are you feeling, feeling about your business right now? Where do you need the most help? Because I want to be as open and honest with you as possible on how most business owners feel. What really helped me get through 2021 was that mastermind that I joined because I realized this isn't just me, other people experiences. This is what happens when you scale a business quickly. It's not abnormal. And so I want you to know like if you're struggling right now, if you're having something that's bothering you, share it with me here in the comments. Let's talk about it. DM me on Instagram because I'd love to have that with you. Because you aren't alone. We all are trying to figure out this online business thing and more than not, we all have pretty much the same problems at some point in time. So know that you're not alone. Let's discuss below. Or if you want to talk to me separately, you know, offline, feel free to DM me on Instagram. Alright, so lessons learned. Number one, I think you could pick up on this, get your processes in place, set aside the time to do it, stop pushing it off. I know it's hard to figure it out, I know it's hard to think about putting time into it, but trust me, if you are lucky enough like I said, to see growth, you've got to have these processes in place to save yourself. The second lesson learned is staggering onboarding. I shouldn't have told four people in one month that yeah, we can get started on your strategy and it'll be due the same week, all four. So what we are doing now is we are staggering onboarding. We only take one client every two weeks so that not only does my team have the space to put the time into a really great strategy, I have the time to look it over, we have the time to talk to our client about it and it just is much better that way. Yes, we're not onboarding as many clients in one month as we could. But I'm fine. I'd rather have quality over quantity. Don't think you just want to grow to grow. What is that overall goal of yours? Right? I was like, okay, we just need clients. We just need clients. And then I was like, ah, we don't need clients. Like, where is this going? How can we really help these clients? And so don't just take on clients to take on clients. Get to a point, maybe look at how are these clients getting results? How can we continue to get them more results? It's a huge lesson that I'm definitely taking away from 2021. Next lesson, don't hire until you clearly understand what it is you want them to do and how you can onboard them. Because this blew up in my face, it still makes me feel incredibly terrible to this day about bringing on employees that did not work out. So don't just hire to hire. Veronica Romney. She's over on Instagram. Check her out. She is a dream team architect. She will help you with anything that you need if you're really wanting to build a team. She's a genius in that zone. I referenced her multiple times. I messaged her questions that I had. But don't just hire to hire. Don't hire in a pressure situation like we were. We just needed warm bodies and it was wrong to do. Next lesson is to stop idealizing about some fictional revenue number that's gonna make you feel successful. So long since probably starting my business, the dream was a million dollar business. But why? Why do I need a million dollar business? That doesn't mean success. I don't need a million dollar business to live the life that I want. We're just inundated with this messaging that a million dollar business equals success. And it doesn't. So the biggest lesson that I would give to you is really figure out what that number is. When I realized what that number was, that's what made it easy for me to stop accepting new clients in September. Because I know I'd already reached a revenue goal that I never even imagined hitting in September with, you know, three more months to go. So really know what is that number that you need to live the life that you want to live? And don't just pick an arbitrary number. The next lesson is find some people. Listen, you may not know this about me because I'm sitting here in a room by myself, but I'm an incredible introvert and it's really hard for me to connect with new people to take that step and reach out for new people. I'd rather just kind of hide. But when I joined that mastermind and there were people in there that were willing to reach out to me, I got to go to two in person events with these people. That's what made me not feel alone and realize like, what I'm going through, everybody goes through. And so it just made me feel less alone and like, oh, okay, I'm not a total failure. The next lesson is you've got to find a way to de stress. Like I said at the beginning of the year, in 2021, I was exerc exercising four to five times a week. I wasn't so much at the end of the year. And so one of the things that I'm doing in 2022 is setting boundaries to be out of this room by 3:30 every day. And that means going to exercise at 3:30, whether it's walking, because I just don't feel like doing anything, but it's still something. Whether it's getting on my peloton, whether it's doing a weight workout, doing something, because if I don't move, I start to spiral and that energy and that motivation just starts to go in the dumpster. All right, this is a big lesson and a piece of acceptance that I had. And it's that the perfect Facebook ad or the perfect social media strategy isn't what's going to skyrocket you into success. What is going to break you out, what is going to make you notice is finding the gap in your industry. What is it that people in your industry, your target audience, needs that's not being offered. That's what happened with the agency. That didn't happen so much on Video Strategy Academy, but with the agency, I fell into this gap that business owners and content creators needed. Where it was, tell me what videos that I need to film for YouTube. I will show up on YouTube, but you tell me what to film and then you take care of the rest of it. That gap existed. There aren't that many agencies out there doing this. And that's what really added to this success, is finding a gap accidentally. I'm honestly not the expert to tell you how to find the gap. I kind of fell into it. But when you do find that gap, that's where you find that success. YouTube was a huge point of my success as well. Like I said, there were some clients that I had got from my mastermind, but there was a chunk of people that also found my YouTube videos. They even told me when we talked like look, I found your YouTube videos, I binge watched your channel and I knew after that I needed to work with you and nobody else. I didn't care what you were paying. I knew you were the one to handle my YouTube channel. So honestly think about how you can start showing up on video, even if it's Instagram TV or Instagram Stories, but video is going to be huge, huge for you to get that visibility and that level of success. Now I did mention like my education side of the business. In 2021 we made more money than in 2022 as well. If you'd like me to do another video similar to this one, only around like building a course and course revenue and launches, put course content below in the comments again that way I know that you're interested in it. I'm really focusing on creating the content that you want to hear and that I'm getting feedback on. So again, if you want me to do a deep dive like this, like lessons learned with a course in 2021, hit me up below. Now I mentioned about Getting started on YouTube and if you really want to have a game plan for getting started on YouTube and understanding what you should be saying in your videos how to YouTube ify your content how to really get started on YouTube in 2021, I am hosting a challenge starting on February 7th. I'm going to walk you through how to really use YouTube as a lead generating machine. The video game plan challenge is going to be five days. You're going to get a lesson every morning, I'm going to have a Q and a every afternoon and I'm going to be in that pop up Facebook group for five full days answering every single question that you have to getting started on YouTube. It's basically having a YouTube strategist in your hand for five days straight. If that sounds like what you need to finally get your YouTube channel off the ground or to that next level, head to trinalittle.comchallenge and get in now because we're kicking off Monday, February 7th and if you enjoy these more vlog chat videos like this, watch this next video where I bring you behind the scenes on how I plan out 90 days worth of content. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in that next video.