Bootstrapping – Affiliate Marketing Programs

Xavier is a digital marketing expert with a passion for helping people achieve FIRE. He scaled his agency to $5m and sold it for 7 figures.

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Are you dreaming of starting your own digital marketing agency? Or are you a solopreneur looking to scale beyond your time and run a profitable agency?

I started as a solopreneur building internet businesses while I was in college, some 13 years ago. When I started to earn passive income from the internet as a 22-year-old, I saw the potential and future of digital marketing. I began my foray into the world of digital marketing, not knowing much about the industry, running a business or my competitors. My business partner and I bootstrapped the agency, starting with nothing and doing everything (including cold calling) from my room. It was scrappy, unsexy and uninspiring. We had no money nor connections, but we dreamt that one day we would run an agency with a million dollars in revenue.

Fast forward eight years, and we grew from a two-man company to a company with 70-plus employees in three countries with $5 million in annual revenue. A few months ago, I sold the business for a seven-figure sum. Now, I want to share a few tips, gleaned from my own entrepreneurial journey, that will hopefully help you.

1. Your reason for starting needs to be about more than money.

After making a few hundred dollars on my first website, I knew that I had found my career choice. But those initial years were difficult. We were not earning much because we had to reinvest our profits into growing the business. But I loved marketing, making websites into money-making machines and helping businesses grow with it—that kept me going.

Running a business has many challenges, and, in my experience, it’s going to be the most difficult thing you’ve ever done by a mile. You need to start with a reason that’s more than just money so that you can persevere through these challenges.

2. Intern/work at an agency.

If I could turn back time, I would have started out working at an agency. I started my own agency with literally no experience. I had no idea what I was doing and how marketing agencies were structured. If I had worked in an agency before, I could have saved myself from making mistakes and slowing down the growth of the company.

3. Focus on a niche.

These days, there are tons of agencies around. Back then, there weren’t as many. Still, we struggled to differentiate ourselves from our competition until we decided to focus on one service: Facebook marketing. We were one of the earliest, if not the earliest, agencies to focus on Facebook marketing back then. That helped us to stand out, scale quickly and acquire new clients much easier.

These days digital marketing services are more competitive. Identify what you can be the best at and what you want to be known for. It’s very tempting to say that you can help everyone and do everything, but if you are a marketer, you know that if you help everyone, you’re helping no one. To stand out, pick a niche, or a service, and be the best at it.

4. Focus on inbound marketing, not outbound.

These days, your customers likely receive tons of outbound calls and emails from digital marketing agencies pitching their services. It’s almost impossible to get their attention when you do cold outreach. Most of our leads come from inbound marketing.

Focus your efforts on creating an inbound marketing machine. You can do this by creating great content that educates your customers. Make sure your website and digital sales assets sell you effectively and speak to your target customers.

5. Take asymmetrical risks.

An asymmetrical risk is about taking a risk that will produce a return that far surpasses the risk taken. When you’re starting out, you have nothing to lose. My advice? Pitch for that big account with no fear, and make your services the cheapest among your competitors. When you’re just starting out, you don’t have as many overhead costs, so you can likely afford to take on the work. Even if you break even on the account, you now have a big-name logo under your portfolio. The next time you pitch for another big account in the same niche, you can charge more.

I can’t tell you much big logos in your portfolio can boost your brand, especially if all the big logos come from a specific niche. It helped us have a sales closing rate as high as 80%.

6. Focus on your existing customers.

It’s far more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. Remember, you’re in the service business. The level and quality of your services matter to your customers. Make your customers feel that your service was worth it. Create valuable reports, respond fast and be proactive in sharing updates about their marketing campaigns with them.

When you can retain customers, you have more opportunities to upsell/cross-sell them and increase your lifetime value. The higher your average LTV, the easier it is to scale your agency.

7. Reward your team.

Your people are your assets. Your team takes on a ton of stress, especially the people who face clients. Reward them well because happy employees will take care of your customers.

Here are a few things that I have done at times.

• Thank-you cards.

• Employee stock options.

• Company meals.

• Parties.

• A well-renovated office.

In conclusion, starting and growing a digital marketing agency from scratch is no easy feat. These lessons are what I’ve personally learned when bootstrapping my digital marketing agency, and I hope they’ll help you, too.

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