The reality of agency life

This article is a bit of a rant, and it’s aimed at people who want to start their own agency.

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Not just contractors

I’ve come to realize that not everybody visiting my YouTube channel for website design, SEO, and stuff like that is a contractor, a home service business, or a local business that wants to do this on their own. I’m also attracting people who own their own digital marketing agency, website design agency, or SEO agency, or who want to start one. If that’s you, there are a couple of things I’d recommend.

It’s more of a mindset thing. This will benefit anybody who is a contractor, home service, or local business, or who wants to start their own business. It’s the whole mindset behind it all.

Directly competing against thousands of people

Let’s say you want to be a website designer or an SEO guy, or you want to offer Google Ads or Facebook ads, whatever it might be. One of the first things you have to understand is that there are thousands and thousands of people who already know those skills. They already know how to build websites and they already know some SEO. Those are the people you’re going to be directly competing against. And I know there is so much stuff online. I see videos of people saying it’s super simple to start your own website design agency, your own SEO agency, or your own Google Ads management agency, just get a couple of customers. One of the big things I’m seeing now is AI agents, like teaching business owners how to put AI agents on the phone or on their website to manage leads.

Advice from a guy who’s been doing this

I wanted to make this to give some advice. This is coming from a guy who’s been doing this for a while and really understands how this whole damn thing works, and who built his own. It’s not like I’m a freaking millionaire or anything like that. I make enough to run my business and live off it. It’s my full-time job, my wife doesn’t have to work, and it’s just me doing this. We live in expensive ass California, so we’re making ends meet. I’d always like to do better, so I’m always working on that. That’s also why I wanted to make this, for the people who want to start their own agency.

Critique of online gurus

The gurus are the ones killing it

One of the big problems I see is with the gurus, the people starting their own YouTube channels and marketing this stuff on Facebook and Instagram. From what I can tell, the people teaching this are the ones actually killing it. They seem to be the ones making the serious money, and they’re the ones trying to make it sound super easy.

You’ll see it in other industries as well. Lately I’ve seen people teaching how to start a junk removal business and build it up to six or seven figures. I’ve seen people showing how to start their own carpet cleaning services and things like that.

Why are you teaching other people how to do it?

The first thing I think about when I see this online is, if it’s so profitable, why in the hell are you teaching other people how to do it? If you know how to build a junk removal business to a million dollars, why don’t you just do that again in another location? It just makes me think. Same with these website design people. If you’re making six figures a year building websites for local businesses, why are you wasting your time teaching other people to do it themselves?

The rank and rent model

Because there’s a hell of a lot more money in teaching it. For example, I’ve lately been seeing ads for the rank and rent model, and I cannot believe there are still ads out there for it. I started in rank and rent back in 2017 or 2018, which made sense back then. These days I just don’t see how people can do it. But to this day I still see Facebook ads aimed at people who are probably struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, showing how they built a rank and rent business. Build websites, rank them on Google, generate leads, and hand them off to business owners who will pay you.

I see that all the time, and I’ve actually looked into it. They’re charging somewhere around $3,000 to teach people how to do that. The first thing I think is, okay, why are they selling that information when they could just go build a bunch of rank and rent websites and make a killing? So what they do is market on Facebook. Maybe they spend $10,000 or $15,000 on Facebook ads aimed at people who are struggling to make ends meet. Sounds super easy.

All they need to do is close 10 people at $3,000, and they’re already up to $30,000, minus the ad expense. Let’s say they’re spending $10,000 and signing up 30 people every single month. That’s $30,000 and they’re spending $10,000. They don’t have to provide anything except videos and tutorials showing people they can do this. And they know damn well that something like 99.9% of these people are not going to do jack with the information, because even if you do want to do rank and rent, it’s going to take so much goddamn more work than you could even think. Those are the problems I see with this stuff.

Website design courses

Same thing with website design. I’ve seen people out there saying they can show you how to build a six-figure website design business, and I think, why waste your time with that? Believe it or not, I’ve been approached by people saying I should show people how to build their own agency. And no, I’m not doing that. I’m not a millionaire or anything like that, so why the hell would I waste my time on it? I’d rather show business owners how to build their own website and rank it themselves. That way they don’t have to pay a bunch of people who took these courses, don’t know how to do any of this, and go out and pitch business owners while experimenting on their websites, their ads, and their Facebook pages. The whole thing is just a mess.

Strategic skill development

Build websites that generate leads

For those who do want to set up their own website design or SEO business, in my opinion you should learn how to build websites that generate leads for the business owner. Then you can sell a website that’s worth a damn. A lot of businesses aren’t going to pay for a website that just looks pretty online. It’s kind of stupid. Even my own website, I don’t really use it to generate leads. I use my YouTube channel. So why would somebody pay you for a nice pretty-looking dentist website or whatever the hell it might be?

You want a website that lets the business owner know they’re getting their money’s worth. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to build a website that helps the business get found on Google and pushes their listing toward the top of the search results. If you want to go that route, you have to get experienced at doing that.

Learn it step by step

If I were to start all over, the first thing I would do is learn how to build a website that’s going to rank well on Google. How would I do that? Well, I did it by myself, step by step. Just grinding and learning on my own, with trial and error, courses, different trainings, and all kinds of crap like that. I ultimately came up with my own formula, and it seems like it works very well. I believe you can learn everything you need to build a website and rank it on Google here on my channel for free. You don’t have to go anywhere else if you just want the basics.

I’m sure there are other people who show some sincere stuff and really show people how to do it. But learn the basics. Learn how to build a website, how to host it, how to structure it, and how to give it a real shot at ranking.

Experiment on myself

Then I would experiment on myself. If you’re a website design guy who wants to build a business on this or help business owners, here’s what I would do. I would legitimately go into my town and get a business license for something like window cleaning, something you don’t need a commercial license for. Just say you’re doing business as Ted’s Window Cleaning in your town. Get a listing. Go into Hostinger and get a WordPress website. Build it from scratch. It should cost about 50 bucks for the whole year.

Connect it to a Google Business Profile

Build that website and connect it to the new Google Business Profile you just created. It doesn’t have to be window cleaning. You can pick some other industry you’re interested in, like carpet cleaning or gutter repair, whatever the hell you like. But I would practice on something like window cleaning. Get it built out, learn everything I can, make sure I understand how the whole process works, and not experiment on anybody’s business. Why are you going to tell some window cleaner you can get their website to the top of Google when you’ve never done it before? So do this on your own. Build it, structure it, and get some backlinks for that damn website. Push that listing toward the top.

Give it to a real window cleaner

You’re going to spend money, time, and energy getting that thing built and structured, and proving to yourself that you can rank a website on Google. You might not get it super high because it’s not real. It’s just made up. But eventually, if it does get some calls, give it to some window cleaning guy in town or tell them you’ll work with them. Give them the damn website for free, whatever it might be. And then all of a sudden you’ve got confidence that you can do this for somebody else.

Do it for free to build a portfolio

At that point, reach out to a window cleaner in another town. In my opinion, I would do this one for free. Say, “Hey man, I build websites for window cleaners. I’m trying to build my portfolio, and I want to build your website for free and show you that it can generate leads for your business.” Whatever you have to do. It’s still better than paying three grand to some place that’s supposedly going to show you how to do this. You can get it on YouTube for free and practice on them, too.

Let’s say you get another one, and another, so you’ve got two or three people you’re helping. Now you’ve got more confidence. You’ve got testimonials. You’ve got a portfolio of work that actually works and has generated leads for these window cleaners. At that point, what I would do is build a YouTube channel specifically for SEO or website design for window cleaning. That’s it.

Scaling through niche content

A YouTube channel for window cleaning

Everything I learned through that whole process, I’d make videos about. I’d make a list of the top 10 things a window cleaner is looking for in a website. What are they confused about online? Explain H1s and H2s to that specific person. Show them what they need to do on their Google Business Profile. That’s all I would do. One video a week, maybe two, on nothing but website design and SEO for window cleaners. And know going in that nobody is going to be watching at first. It’s going to be tumbleweeds. Nobody’s going to find you.

Keep making the videos

But I’d keep making the damn videos. Make another one. Eventually there’s going to be some window cleaning guy who’s thinking about starting a business and wondering, how should I structure my website? He sees your YouTube video, and then he sees six, seven, eight different videos you made about window cleaning and how to structure your site. He starts consuming your content and getting to know who you are. This guy is pretty damn interesting.

Eventually they’re going to reach out to you, and maybe you could charge them 1,500 bucks for a three, four, or five page website. There you go. You start making money and building up your confidence, and you already know how to do it. You’ve proven it. You’ve got different examples, so you’re going to feel extremely confident when this person reaches out and wants a website for their window cleaning business. You’re going to be able to provide that specific service for those people.

Separate yourself

Not only that, you’re going to separate yourself from the thousands upon thousands of people out there who build websites. This window cleaning guy could go to anybody, probably somebody in his town. He could have his cousin build the goddamn thing. But this way people find you specifically for that service. It becomes way easier, and that’s how you can start getting leads. This is exactly what I did with my channel.

Specialization for success

Junk removal, asphalt paving, and home services

I focused on junk removal guys in the beginning and started getting a portfolio of them. Then I focused on asphalt paving guys and got through that as well, and that’s how I got going. All of a sudden I was building websites for people who do land clearing, build decks, do RV repairs, remove tree stumps, crap like that. I’ve also been approached by other people like dentists. I don’t deal with any of those types of professions. That’s out of my league and I don’t want to deal with any of that stuff.

I just want to stick to home services and make it nice and easy for myself. But I wanted to rant for the people out there who want to provide a service for other business owners, learn website design, or do SEO.

Transmissions for Hondas

This holds true for your business too. As I always tell people, if I was a mechanic out in Las Vegas just starting out, I would probably work only on transmissions for Hondas. That’s it. My business is transmissions for Hondas. Some guy comes in with a Chevy Malibu, get the hell out of here. I just work on transmissions for Hondas. Then you differentiate yourself from every other mechanic, you’ve got a specific type of clientele, and you’ve got the right tools for every single transmission you do. It becomes like clockwork, and it makes it easier to fix transmissions on Hondas.

Templates and ChatGPT prompts

If you want to learn how to build those websites, you can learn it on my YouTube channel for free. But if you want the templates and ChatGPT prompts I’ve worked on for a very long time to help me build my websites really quickly, all of that is in the description below. And if you’re a business owner who doesn’t want to deal with any of this stuff, I can do it for you. Go to the description below and I can help you out with that as well.