Question

How much do you think a person needs to learn in order to be able to run a successful advertising agency? They say it takes 10, 000 hours to become a professional. So, if person were to study let's say 4 hours a day. Learning Copywriting Funnels Website design Funnel design Ad design Ad's Creatives Software Sales Marketing Offer creation Client acquisition Client retention Rules Content consumption: Watching videos, courses, reading websites, listening to podcasts, and even more. Possibly hiring a coach Taxes Business creation Finding a niche Developing your skills in said niche specializing in said niche Niche research ETC. How does one even get started this days. IT's no wonder why many people fail at this. How does one even begin to learn all of this? How does one become proficient in so many thing specially when you can hardly master one. Yet, people say only do one thing. So how can you do it? How can I even begin to dream about doing said things when if you were to focus only on one thing it would take you years to get start. While the other half says to just get started but, you have no idea how to any of this? Seems a little bit like a double edged sword me. So, what do you think is the starting point for someone?  

Answer 1

The best agency owners I've met have 2 great skills. Sales + the ability to delegate. Thinking you have to know all the above to be an agency owner is like thinking a McDonalds franchise owner has to know how to farm wheat to make hamburger buns. Understand enough of it to sell the right thing to the right people and know that your team is doing a good job, but the rest can be hired out to specialists.  

Comments

Fair enough, but, wouldn't said owner need to know how to do everything anyways? I have not ran an agency in while but, it seems like those who are skilled at several things seems to be able to do more. For example, let's say you delegate to someone to create you an ad. How would you know if it good or not? Do you just take a trail approach until you learn it?  

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@cosmogony9079 I’m looking to start a agency form scratch, had little to no experience just watched free videos that talks about the subjects you mentioned above. I’m aware that sales will be 80% of the work I will need to focus on because without that, there is no agency, the other 20% will be delegation and creating systems to automate as much of the process as possible but I also will be studying each of the above topics to the best of my ability because i believe it’s genuinely a passion for me. I personally have always worked manual labor jobs my whole life (I’m 34years old) and I want to achieve freedom from that lifestyle. This quote really explains it best and thanks for posting your thoughts because it has inspired me to get into action even more today. My/your mindset is very important and without mental toughness it will not work.  

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@cosmogony9079 You need to know enough to be able to tell that someone is doing a good job and do it at a basic to intermediate level. Think 80/20 rule here. Learning like how to judge a good video for an ad is 95% less time than learning the ins and outs of the adobe suite.  

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@cosmogony9079 Trust me from experience. I've run FB ads for 9 years and have spent the vast majority of time trying to be a better technician rather than an a business owner. I'm really really good at Facebook ads and have worked with some big clients, but I never substantively grew until the last year because I didn't understand how to properly delegate and focus on sales/my own marketing to grow.  

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@cosmogony9079 I have little to no experience but that’s why you run multiple adds to see which ones engage the best, tweaking them and adapting and adjusting them should give you the data in return to make a decision, the understanding that there will be failures and already have the confidence you will overcome them will be useful

Answer 2

Super learning is how - and it’s a process. Takes years, sometimes decades. It’s why there’s a massive difference between the newb who just started and the experienced Vet who’s run millions in ads, every industry etc. it’s also why those who are experienced command much higher costs.  

Answer 3

It’s almost impossible to be an “expert” at every skill listed here. Great entrepreneurs know they have to be really good at 1-2 skills that get sharpened daily. The rest needs to be outsourced to other experts in their fields which will save you lots of time and make your business much more dynamic in the process

Answer 4

Just become an expert at copywriting, everything else will take care of itself

Comments

Unfortunately, I lack the English ability to become a professional copywriter. I also can not seem to focus or grind in a pain point very well.  

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@cosmogony9079 learn it or earn it

Answer 5

You can’t be a professional if you just read how to do something. You should have experience. Once you ran successfully ads for a certain period and you are confident in what you’re doing you can think about offering your services.  

Answer 6

You don’t have to become an expert in all those areas, but you do have to understand why they are important and how they all fit together. Best way is through practice - or take a job at a firm that does those and learn for a while first. The reason so many people fail in this industry is they get into it for the wrong reasons. Either they heard it’s “easy” to start an agency, are after a get rich quick deal, just want to join a “buzzy”/current/cool industry, or don’t want to work a job and think this is easier. Those can be ok motivations, but you still have to dedicate yourself to it and put in the work

Comments

This is right. You need to understand enough to be a strategist. A great architect for example may or may not be able to weld or pour concrete etc.  

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Take your list - taxes you outsource. Business creation takes 10 mins on legalzoom. On the services - don’t make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. Pick maybe 2-3 you know the most about and start there, sell those services and build your processes and operations. When you have those down you can look to add more and contract them out to experts

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@jago72953 I mean like network connecting, building business assets or contacts, TOS pages, contracts, cold messaging scripts. There is just soo much. But, you are right, i need to eliminate most of it.  

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@cosmogony9079 my recommendation is don’t overthink it. Get started and figure it out. When I was starting I “borrowed” my TOS pages and contracts . I identified business I wanted to work with and personally reached out to them, my “script” came from practice and what worked and what didn’t. You’ll never have everything 100% dialed and ready. Networking is all fine and good, but the clients come to you when you’re doing good work and getting results

Answer 7

My advice is to get a job at a "Real" agency. A madison avenue name brand agency where you learn the ropes. No course is going to teach you the art of pushback to scope-creep. Also, learn how to rotate churn to your advantage. You learn that on the job. There, you learn the "rules of engagement" such as knowing when to do RFPs and when the RFP process is just a sham for legal obligations and why you still participate in it. Again, no course/webinar teaches these kind of things. You also network and develop your niche. Then when you leave; you can have paying clients that leave with you on your coattails.  

Answer 8

Steven, here’s my thoughts. As for an advertising agency this question is a paradox. Your learning will never stop. In order to maintain expert status you would have to maintain ongoing learning Indefinitely. Someone else in the comments above gave it away perfectly the only two skills you need is sales and delegation. The expert is a young learning apprentice or the ad buyer that is solely dedicated to staying on top of such data - a constantly evolving position. As Warren Buffett says Wall Street is one of the only places where you ride in a Rolls-Royce to get information from those who rode the subway. The same statement is very true for the entrepreneurial space. Those guys understand the expert does not need to be them. It’s all about leverage and that is easily achieved through sales and delegation.  

Answer 9

I don't think Neil Patel has all that knowledge.  

Answer 10

Hi. Chief Marketing Officer of a perfume brand here. I only have 2 skills. 1) High quality copywriting 2) Concrete knowledge of how to build a marketing strategy. If you ask me to run ads, I will fail against my employees. That is such a servie level knowledge. I hope this makes it clear.  

Answer 11

My favorite people to look up to in this instance is Elon musk, jack ma, and steve jobs. they were visionaries. strategists, not tactical people. they were great at delegating and selling. delegation hiring and sales are really the 2 main skills I would put a majority of your focus on, I like to crack things before I hire to make sure I'm not getting bullshitted which can just be hiring a consultant or taking a course, etc and I don't strive to be the best at it but just to crack it. I hope to hire someone who knows way more then I do about the platform but I can tell if they are bullshitting or not which helps with delegation. and then learn sales and you'll be able to run a good agency. finances though. are another HUGE thing I would strongly suggest learning. People I know who run agencies go out of business due to not being paid. invoices not being paid. strangles your cash flow and that can put people out of business real fast. I've seen it time and time again. You can hire a good accountant or CFO but I strongly suggest learning basics like factoring to make sure your guaranteed 100% every month to get paid invoices. learn to build business credit and grow your business with OPM using credit and get cashback etc. also especially during times like this. if you have good business credit lines, factoring, OPM, etc you can drive through tough economic times during recessions because of that's when many businesses go belly up due to cashflow. So having good business credit and understanding of finances are super important as well. so my top 3 is finances, sales, and delegation. If you can make sure your agency has MSIs and not just getting paid monthly retainers by a client. make sure to have multiple streams of income available in your agency. Best of luck mate, go out, study, crush it, and come back and tell us all about your successes!  

Answer 12

I started 10 years ago just by doing it. I didnt even know what Digital marketing was. Just knew I needed to get people to find out about my work online.  

Answer 13

If you want to run an agency the most important skill is team building.  

Answer 14

Key things I learnt when I had my agency: - set everything up as if you’re going to sell it. So all the processes, offices etc made it ready to someone to buy your business - you don’t have to be an expert at everything. Drop your ego and accept what you’re shit at and what you’re good at and employ people around you - hire someone to do your client work ASAP. The more time you’re focused on client work the less time you have to push your business forward - your sales funnel isn’t on Facebook, it’s on a sales management platform like Zoho or Salesforce - content marketing is a waste of time and money, everyone does it and everyone posts the same old shit (blogs specifically) - google search ads will be your biggest generator of leads - be as transparent and up front with your clients as much as possible. Don’t shy away from your results from being shit. They’re more like to keep you if you do this, rather than fabricate numbers just to keep them happy. I still managed to sell my business, but I made all of the above mistakes and it set me back a few steps.  

Comments

You really think content marketing is a waste of time and money? what about like Gary vee, and Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, etc all the big guys like sam ovens and Dean Graziosi, tony robbins, they are always pushing out content posting like 10 times a day on 20 different platforms shouting in the marketplace to get attention. you think it's not worth it? I'm not arguing that it is or isn't, I'm just genuinely curious as to why cause I don't know

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I meant blogs like “10 hashtags to use on Instagram” or “39 reason why you should have a Facebook page”. I don’t think this bloke who’s starting an agency can be compared to Tony robbins et all

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@appel no no I agree, I just mean on strictly a content marketing basis, like there are loud people, wanna be loud people and then the quiet people. If you took away all the content and money Gary, tony, dean, grant, Tai, sam, etc all spend on the content or stopped their content, would they sustain or not? they rely so heavily on their content marketing no? It plays a huge role in their success. that's all I'm saying. I actually agree with you that content can be waste of time and money BECAUSE we can't compete with the top content guys in the marketplace like Gary, grant, Tai, etc. so why even try spending time and money on it when you can't compete with them? so I'm with you 100% because the way I look at it is with you, that gives us the quiet guys a huge advantage over that huge middle pool of wanna be loud guys who are wasting money on content. I agree with you, I was just curious as to why you thought so! the quiet guys like us can even make MORE money then the guys shouting like Gary tony etc, I truly believe people like you and me can make more than them. just look at the chairmen and CEOs of great companies. you, I, nor many people would even know their names and they are racking in millions of dollars more money then the guys shouting in the marketplace spending time and money on content like Gary and tony. I also DONT want to LIVE for social. your life has to be consumed by social to play at that content level. I don't have the time for that honestly lol

Answer 15

You need to get good at one thing and one thing only. Become amazing at copywriting and be an email marketing agency at the beginning. This way your lack of knowledge won't hurt any business as they won't be any ad spend involved and you get to try your hand on few accounts until you get a hang of it. There are too many Facebook ads agencies out there and for some reason very few doing email marketing.  

Answer 16

Hey Steven, great question man it can be daunting. Facebook Blueprint is great, and free. Free youtube content should fill in any gaps. Try to take on a client or two for free and a small ad budget, grow from there. Started doing my wife's dance studio ads last April, knew close to nothing. I know so much more now just from trial and error. Good luck! Anything worth it was never easy.  

Answer 17

It's a very long process of getting your hands dirty, experimenting, and many, many errors. Learning from books and videos will only get you so far. I started out in 1997 as a Webmaster for a law firm in London. Back then we had to do everything ourselves, and there were no online resources to learn from - we just winged it and experimented. That's how we learned it. Luckily, that approach served me well. Not only can I plan, research code, market and sell most things digital, I learned how to do almost all those things you listed above. But it took time. Lots of it. And I still don't consider myself a true expert, even though I have more than 40, 000 hours (24 years) working as a developer/designer/marketer. Just get stuck in, build your own websites that you can afford to screw up and lose (never experiment with a client's website), and realise that true expertise can't be found in books and videos. Nothing beats good old experience.  

Answer 18

White label your service. Afterwards you can hire a closer from Philippines to generate you clients. Congrats you're now an Agency Owner!  

Answer 19

I just feel the more you get your hands dirty, the more you’ll know how to clean it up. Doing jobs is the best way forward, just get stuck in as quickly as possible

Answer 20

This thread is the reason why most agencies don't produce results. "you don't need to know advertising - just learn to close your clients" "outsource and delegate" i bet you most of the agency owners would not be able to make it in performance marketing.  

Answer 21

Sell one thing to one person before you get into all of that list!