Podcast: Embed
Jeff Fisher joins me on this episode to share insights about the complete life cycle of his digital marketing agency. He recently sold his 135 client child care agency. Jeff shares how he picked his niche, how he landed his first 5 clients, what he how he attracts customers and how he has hired and kept his virtual team. Listen to his experience to help you understand what works and what doesn’t when creating, building, and selling a digital marketing agency.
Listen to this fantastic interview with Jeff Fisher. He built his local child care marketing agency to over 100 clients, managed a 100% virtual team and was recently able to sell his agency!
He shares some tremendous insights:
– How he landed his first 5 clients
– How he selected his niche and why that propelled him forward
– How he built & managed a 100% virtual team
– How he was able to sell the business in 2017 for a profit
Outline of This Episode
- [1:22] All about Jeff’s agency
- [3:30] What drew him to the childcare market?
- [7:52] What services did he provide?
- [10:54] How did he get his first 5 clients?
- [18:34] Create expert status and generate income with webinars
- [27:04] How does he fulfill the work?
- [39:15] How does he differentiate freelancers from team members?
- [49:32] How did he end up selling the company?
- [57:55] What resources has he used to learn?
How did Jeff find his niche?
He focused his agency on the childcare niche. He focused on childcare for several reasons. First of all, he knew that he wanted to work with people that were fun to work with and he knew he wasn’t interested in the suit and tie market. Jeff also felt it was important to find a niche where his customers’ customers were paid monthly so that they would have no problems paying him monthly. And lastly, he knew it was important to find a niche that had at least 2 national associations so that he could attend their conferences. As he learned more about the niche he came to realize that he needed to focus on childcare centers with 150+ students. It is important to understand who your target customer is within your niche.
How did he build his client base?
Jeff hit the ground running once he found his niche. He wanted to be ready to sell at his first conference. So before the conference, he built 10 demo sites and had them ready to show at the conference. He did this all in 5 weeks. His hard work paid off since he sold 10 packages at his first show. Jeff made an important contact in the child care space which landed him a speaking gig. He knew he was a terrible cold caller. So developing strategic alliances, going to trade shows and creating webinars were important factors in growing his agency. The best way to find clients is by making strategic alliances, joining an association within your niche, and by positioning your agency as an expert in your niche.
How did he build his virtual team?
Jeff used Upwork to find most of his team members. Although he used people from all over the world, he understood the importance of having American citizens to understand the nuances of American communication. The team members he uses to communicate with clients are all American citizens.
It was important to him to build a team culture. He was able to build his team culture through daily morning Zoom meetings the entire team. During the meetings, he would listen for small things that would help him to connect with each team member. Since the team was based all over the world he also paid attention to different culture’s sporting events to strengthen his connection with his team members.
How did he hire more full-time team members?
Many times on Upwork, people are only applying for one-off jobs. If someone provided good work for him he would ask to use them again when another job came up. Over time he developed more of a relationship with these people. He then would ask them if they were interested in working with him on a more regular basis. He is still able to use Upwork as their payment platform and there is even a time tracking system now through the system as well. He understood that when hiring through Upwork to be very specific in what he was looking for and how to respond. He knew that people who couldn’t respond properly to the job advertisement wouldn’t provide the quality and attention to detail that he needed.
Resources & People Mentioned
Connect With Josh Nelson
- Josh’s Coaching Page on Facebook
- The Agency Success Facebook Group
- www.SevenFigureAgency.com
- Seven Figure Agency on YouTube
- Josh on Twitter: @joshnelsonimc
- Josh on LinkedIn
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