Question

For Seo or Digital marketing agency owners, would you mind sharing your quick story on how you'd start your agency? Did you start as freelance or just went straight up agency?  

Answer 1

Actually, I first contacted @piper/activity" class="qa-user-link">piper C Barr. Do know, I was very broke at this moment and I had no SEO experience whatsoever. He told me to do white labelling and teach myself SEO in the meanwhile. So I did, I cold mailed all the businesses I could, and eventually landed myself a 900 a month client. Do know that I value knowledge above money and at this time there was a guy Blair Urquhart, who offered to coach me. At that time I didn't really doubt anyone which was stupid of me, as I should have. I dropped the client on his request as he'd need me fulltime, and I would make it back working for him too. Eventually he picked a fight with Gareth Daine, after helping Gareth to get rid of horrible shit that dude made up, Gareth Offered me a job. I took it with both hands and slightly after that Christopher Fischbach came into the picture actually due to blair, as Blair introduced me to him to make a point as I personally think while SEO can make you a shit load of money, I don't really feel it will make you a billionair. so he invited me with some top people in a chat. Christopher offered to teach me and bought me a domain + hosting and obviously the premium version of elementor. FOR FREE. He made me excercises, and told me what to read, eventually I got the hang of it and decided to use my talents to good use. Got my first 2 clients after helping people for a week. Eventually, I kept helping people and grew quickly. Now, I am doing quite well and I invest most of my earnings into creating passive income cash flows, and assets that make me more money. Oh I got to meet @piper/activity" class="qa-user-link">piper in real life too :D Awesome guy.  

Comments

@wagstaff Thanks for the story! It makes me more motivated to go my dream, to have my own agency!  

---

@dolli88 Just be consistent! Try to increase income while decreasing personal time required. Don't be afraid to outsource.  

---

@wagstaff Only problem I have is I am not so good with person to person meeting but I need to conquer this to achieve my goal. How's the cold email worked for you? Seems like cold email will work just fine in my location

---

@dolli88 oh no I eventually stepped away from cold mailing, and took an entirely different approach. I positioned myself as an expert and helped as many people as I could. That worked fine, eventually I hired people to generate leads.  

---

@wagstaff Thats true man. Creating a relationship to a prospect client is the way to go  

Answer 2

Did websites on the side freelance for a couple of years in the 90s then opened up my firm in 98 and never looked back.  

Comments

Love to hear from your startup experience, how did manage to get the client for yourself?  

---

@priestley I was getting married and did some trades of service with the photographer, the cake person and a custom coffee guy. Went to places I loved (local bar and hair stylist that knew me) and said I wanted to do their sites. Start with places you love and they know you and pitch yourself.  

---

Thanks for the ideas, sound awesome, cheers  

---

One more thing  @torras do you use paid advertisement at the beginning of your journey? Like how you grow, I just go through your projects and seems like you did a great job in each step, love to hear some tips more if you have time, thanks

Answer 3

I was laid off by a company that made several risky investments that didn't pay off. I had just turned down a job offer and probably had a chance to go back to that other company to discuss their offer, but I decided I wanted to get out of California. So I embarked on independent consulting. Within a couple of months a friend of mind with whom I had been running a joint SEO project called me up and suggested we form a boutique agency - a partnership. That was 2012 and we're still working together today. I guess I was lucky to have options to choose from but really it comes down to how hungry you are. An older friend of mine left a full-time job in IT working for one of America's largest insurance companies to become an independent insurance agent. He told me when that first mortgage payment came due "that was when the rubber met the road" - meaning, he knew he had to sell or his family would starve. So he learned to sell insurance very quickly.  

Comments

Thanks Michael. That is where I am starting now. It is nice to see it is possible.  

Answer 4

People know I am a computer nerd, my friends are all entrepreneurs and paid me to learn, then once I learned they referred me to others who referred me to others.  

Answer 5

Was freelancing for reach local rep. Couple of her clients ask me to look into there SEO and ppc.  

Answer 6

I'd figure I would comment as well since I'm new. We're almost ready with our website but once that's up we are going to take on specific case studies that we know will lead to many referrals. We will be charging base cost operation and once results show we will charge the regular fixed rate amount.  

Comments

I'm personally planning to go to social events such as B2B meetings etc to find people to work with.  

---

@piper we are in the same boat at the moment. Working on my website before going all out. I like the idea of going to social events.  

Answer 7

I went back to college for an English degree and ended up working in computer labs for 4 years, which led to taking internet classes. After college I worked for Temp companies editing their websites and built sites for free for friends before doing it full time as a free lancer. The rest of my education was self-taught. I had intended to write books but ended up promoting other's writings instead.  

Answer 8

Freelancer>worked for company>started my own