I Closed Down My Agency - YouTube

Channel: Iman Gadzhi

[0]
ladies and gentlemen this video is not
[1]
clickbait on the six year anniversary of
[4]
signing my first client back in august
[7]
of 2016
[8]
i'm shutting my agency down six years of
[11]
blood sweat and tears a six year journey
[14]
that took me from a broke high school
[16]
student to a multi-millionaire
[23]
and most importantly accomplished the
[24]
outcome that i had from the beginning
[26]
which was take care of me and my mom and
[29]
then eventually retire her
[30]
[Music]
[32]
there's a few things i want to talk
[33]
about in this video first i need to talk
[35]
about sort of where i'm at in my career
[37]
and how my different businesses slot
[39]
into my vision second i'll explain why
[42]
i'm actually making the sacrifice
[44]
and what goal it is contributing towards
[46]
and lastly i will explain why i'm still
[49]
more than knowledgeable after six years
[51]
to help people start and scale their
[53]
agency but also the outside experts that
[56]
i've brought into my e-learning company
[58]
great agency over the space of the year
[60]
to sort of fill in in the gaps where i'm
[62]
just not as sharp as i used to be now i
[64]
could have quietly shut down my agency
[66]
and sort of continued on as if nothing
[67]
had happened but in the spirit of the
[69]
last six years sharing my agency journey
[72]
and my journey as i said from broke to
[74]
multi-millionaire here on youtube i just
[77]
thought i'd be transparent and give you
[78]
guys a full update so let's start off
[80]
with the first point which is kind of
[82]
where i'm at with my career and how my
[83]
different businesses slot into it in
[85]
order to explain this i need to use a
[87]
concept that i've used in the past which
[89]
is market timing and career timing now
[91]
market timing is basically how good of
[93]
an opportunity something is considering
[95]
sort of the market conditions for
[97]
example you could have been an
[98]
incredible entrepreneur but if in the
[100]
year 2020 you start a newspaper company
[103]
as in like a physical newspaper company
[106]
you probably wouldn't have done very
[107]
well whereas if you were that same
[109]
entrepreneur in terms of the skill set
[111]
in the 1980s you know you could have
[113]
been a multi-multi-multi-millionaire
[115]
you know who knows even maybe a
[116]
billionaire so when it comes to that
[118]
front which is market timing starting
[120]
and running an online boutique marketing
[122]
agency is in its absolute prime when it
[124]
comes to market timing because now the
[126]
world is catching up to the things that
[127]
i was doing back in 2018 and you know
[129]
these are really a few key pillars that
[132]
i introduced all the way at the
[133]
beginning of 2018 and that's really when
[135]
i went from making a you know a cute few
[137]
hundred thousand dollars a year to a
[138]
million plus and really it's three
[140]
pillars which is an all remote team
[142]
which i've had from basically day one
[144]
this means that you can look all across
[146]
the globe and hire the best talent and
[149]
you get to pay them 10 to 20 which you
[151]
would have to pay someone in the us
[153]
because quite frankly it's just living
[155]
costs right like you could be paying
[156]
them 20 of what you're paying someone in
[158]
california and they're living three
[160]
times the quality of life because of
[162]
basically just currency conversions and
[163]
stuff like that and the best part is
[165]
you're changing all these people's lives
[166]
because you're paying them most of the
[168]
time double what they would be making
[170]
locally but now they're making that with
[172]
you but you also have the benefit of
[173]
paying them as i said 20 which you would
[175]
have to pay someone in london paris new
[178]
york so that is pillar number one pillar
[180]
number two is the ability to sign
[182]
clients globally you know i was doing
[183]
zoom calls i made the decision summer of
[185]
2019 i'm going to do no more physical
[188]
meetings when it comes to signing a
[190]
client it will all be via zoom it didn't
[192]
matter if you know back the time i was
[193]
living in london didn't matter if
[195]
someone was also based in london i would
[197]
only do zoom exclusively and the last
[199]
pillar specialize and focus in on one
[202]
niche and one service now when i was
[204]
making 80 000 a month profit at the age
[206]
of 18 back in you know 2018 and i was
[209]
using these core pillars i was really
[211]
swimming upstream like i was working
[213]
against wahura's industry norms and
[215]
industry standards but with everything
[217]
that went on in 2020 the world changing
[219]
your clients will expect that you have
[220]
no office they'll expect that you're
[222]
signing clients internationally they'll
[224]
expect that you have a global workforce
[226]
and obviously everything's done on zoom
[228]
now and it's for that reason that my
[229]
style of teaching starting an online
[231]
boutique agency works better now than it
[234]
ever has and you know that really showed
[235]
it in 2021 where at my agency ig media
[239]
we had our best year and we also had our
[240]
best single month at 160 000 dollars in
[244]
profit by the way when i speak in these
[245]
numbers i don't ever talk about revenue
[247]
only profit because really that's the
[249]
only thing that matters at a cash flow
[251]
focused agency so the time to start an
[253]
online boutique marketing agency has
[255]
never been better but here is where we
[257]
get into career timing see what gets you
[259]
from one point to the next won't get you
[261]
from that to the other between the space
[263]
of 2016 to 2021 i use my agency to go
[266]
from zero to eight figures after tax now
[269]
i need to focus on the next phase of my
[270]
career which is going to nine and multi
[272]
nine figures as i said in that five year
[274]
span between 2016 to 2021 i produced
[277]
millions in cash flow from my agency and
[279]
i always had a philosophy which was
[281]
invest anywhere from 50 to 80 as i made
[283]
more money basically that percentage
[285]
would go higher so i took all that money
[286]
and i basically invested along the way
[288]
as a lot of you guys know i made a lot
[289]
of money with crypto i very publicly put
[292]
a million dollars from my agency
[294]
business bank account in december of
[296]
2020 and publicly on youtube six months
[298]
later i posted my seven million dollar
[300]
uh crypto portfolio and then five days
[302]
later it was worth 3.5 million and next
[304]
peak we had i learned my lessons and
[306]
basically learned that i needed to take
[307]
more profits so between that you guys
[309]
also know that i invest a lot in watches
[311]
and i've made quite a lot of money there
[313]
as well as a few other miscellaneous
[315]
investments so as i said between the
[317]
millions that the agency produced in
[318]
cash flow over the year i was able to
[320]
then invest it and multiply it because
[322]
here's the thing a lean boutique online
[324]
marketing agency is the best way to make
[326]
500k to 1.5 million a year in profit
[329]
full stop i know because i have five
[331]
businesses like i have businesses in
[333]
e-commerce sas uh e-learning um agents
[336]
like i can speak from experience here
[338]
and the best part is it's the most
[339]
hands-off after two years if you did
[341]
what i did which was find an incredible
[343]
cmo shout out danny basically after two
[346]
years you get a cmo you give them profit
[347]
share like i did with danny and this
[349]
person's you know really incentivized to
[351]
run the company grow it et cetera et
[352]
cetera and that is all great the fact
[354]
that i was basically able to use my
[355]
agency to in five years go from zero to
[357]
ten million that's great but that's not
[360]
gonna get me to a hundred to five
[361]
hundred million and that's really the
[363]
goal so you need to understand that each
[365]
business has its pros and cons when it
[367]
comes to career timing and quite frankly
[369]
i'm at a stage where i am good for money
[371]
i never really need to work for money
[372]
ever again and i know that a lot of
[374]
people will be very happy in my
[375]
situation and basically like dude you
[377]
won the game at 22. like that's it go to
[379]
bali go to cape town go travel the world
[382]
medellin relax
[384]
i'm just not wired like that i wish i
[386]
was because my life would be a lot more
[388]
peaceful but i'm not like i want that
[390]
next goal and that really brings us on
[392]
to the next part of the video which is
[393]
why i'm actually making the sacrifice
[395]
like what is the sacrifice for and to
[397]
give you a very quick answer it is
[399]
agency flow which is my software company
[401]
i've been working on for two years with
[403]
actually the husband of one of my old
[405]
agency clients now we worked on it for
[407]
18 months different iterations different
[409]
features etc etc i mean software is a
[411]
very very difficult game so we worked on
[413]
it for a long long time and it was
[415]
actually in beta sort of invite only
[417]
between august 2021 and then february
[419]
2022 so in that six month period and we
[421]
were figuring out some more kinks etc
[423]
etc anyways we launched it in february
[426]
of this year so right around six months
[427]
ago and it has already been appraised
[429]
between 12 to 15 million dollars by some
[431]
vcs we've also had a very very low eight
[434]
figure offer on it which as you can tell
[436]
we didn't take so yeah all of that is in
[439]
six months now you guys don't really
[440]
hear me talk much about agency flow here
[442]
on youtube when in fact it's actually my
[445]
main focus it's the thing that i spend
[446]
for most of my mental capacity and most
[448]
of my time on and we have 11 full-time
[450]
developers of that company it is full
[452]
bootstrapped fully funded ourselves
[455]
and it's really really tough it's a
[456]
really tough business but it's what
[458]
we're doing is is incredible and the
[460]
main reason i don't really talk about it
[461]
here on youtube is because it's it's not
[464]
very applicable to my 400 000
[465]
subscribers on here you know it is a
[467]
niche software for a very specific sort
[469]
of customer which is a boutique lean
[471]
agency and this is exactly my audience
[474]
of customers and my e-learning company
[476]
grow your agency now i'll be very honest
[478]
with you guys as i kind of got to that
[479]
eight figure level and i was like i'm
[481]
kind of good like i'm
[483]
you know i'm happy i don't really need
[484]
more money i need the thing that's going
[486]
to take me to that next point in my
[488]
career because i said look quite frankly
[489]
my agency isn't going to get me there
[491]
you know my e-learning company people
[492]
some people are very delusional you will
[494]
never ever ever sell an e-learning
[496]
company because a person is a face to it
[498]
right you know it's not really a company
[499]
that you're gonna sell it's cute you
[501]
know from your agency you might make a
[502]
few million which by the way is nothing
[504]
to scoff at you know from your agency
[505]
you might make a few million over a few
[506]
years you know uh e-learning company
[509]
dummy sorry it's actually a notoriously
[510]
difficult business to to sustain past
[512]
the first like 18 months which is why
[514]
you see so many people on youtube who
[516]
have education companies that basically
[517]
just fizzle out after 18 months but
[519]
anyways that's a separate side topic the
[521]
point is i kind of got to the end of
[522]
2021 and i was actually considering
[525]
closing gya
[526]
just being honest i was basically
[527]
considering closing it uh similar to my
[529]
agency and actually similar to another
[531]
business which i'll talk about in just a
[532]
second
[533]
because i was like you know i money-wise
[536]
i'm good and now i just i mainly need
[538]
focus but
[540]
i didn't because i realized it is in my
[543]
best interest to cultivate as many
[546]
incredible agency owners is humanly
[548]
possible and the reason why is quite
[550]
selfishly
[552]
inevitably they're gonna use my software
[553]
now if you want a perfect example of
[555]
this you can look at russell brunson you
[557]
know russell brunson grew i believe in
[558]
six years from 2015 to 2021 roughly
[561]
around those dates click funnels from
[563]
zero to they actually received an offer
[565]
of a billion dollars so six years
[567]
self-funded zero to a billion which is
[570]
basically kind of my goal maybe not a
[572]
billion you know maybe like two three
[573]
hundred million but you get the point
[574]
and a large portion of what russell
[576]
brunson will do and the reason they were
[577]
so successful is he will sell you know
[580]
funnel hacking secrets or like he'll
[581]
sell sort of these educational stuff to
[583]
get people really excited about funnels
[585]
and in the same way i'm gonna continue
[586]
to make youtube videos talk about the
[588]
thing that i am most passionate about
[589]
the thing that changed my life to try to
[591]
get more and more people into agency
[593]
world and not just the agency world but
[594]
the way that i believe in agency should
[596]
be run you know what's best for you
[598]
what's best for your client what's best
[599]
for your team and inevitably i keep
[600]
building up all this goodwill and people
[602]
use my software because they know my
[604]
software is the thing that's most
[605]
tailored to them so that's basically the
[606]
playbook and you need to use that
[608]
playbook when in my case just like
[610]
russell brunson uh it's bootstrap you
[612]
know you're starting it all with your
[613]
own money you know you don't want to
[615]
take 30 million dollars in investment uh
[617]
you know for whatever percentage of your
[619]
business because you know you just don't
[620]
want to deal with that side of the
[621]
startup world so yeah i was actually
[623]
basically heavily considering closing
[624]
down the education company uh last year
[627]
because of how much time it takes in
[629]
comparison to how much profits it made
[631]
but actually this year i'll say it has
[632]
been doing a lot better which is cool
[634]
because we've actually also been able to
[635]
do a lot more with that money in terms
[637]
of customer experience i'll get on to
[638]
that later but anyways to kind of paint
[640]
a picture i'll give you an example let's
[642]
say this year we get 5000 students into
[645]
agency navigator now from those five
[647]
thousand students eighty percent of
[648]
those will use my software company
[650]
agency flow because it's like because i
[652]
mean yeah sure you could use like asana
[654]
and slack and pipe drive and all these
[656]
stuff that are
[658]
aren't tailored specifically for
[659]
agencies or you could use our software
[661]
which is literally built for you like
[663]
from scratch by someone who was in your
[665]
position so around 80 of those 5 000
[668]
will actually use it then around 40 so
[670]
half of that that 80
[672]
uh they'll be around sort of a year
[673]
later six months later so at an average
[676]
monthly ticket price of a hundred and
[677]
thirty eight dollars because we have a
[679]
ninety five dollar plan and a two four
[680]
five dollar plan so the blended average
[682]
between those is 138 dollars as in we
[685]
took the weighted average between the
[687]
245 plan and the 95 plan it comes out to
[689]
138 dollars a month so with the increase
[692]
of agency navigator students around 2000
[694]
of those after the first year will be
[695]
using agency navigate you do the math
[697]
138 dollars times 2 000 that comes out
[700]
to an extra 276
[703]
000 a month in monthly recurring revenue
[705]
that's a total of 3.3 million dollars
[707]
extra each year in annual recurring
[710]
revenue now bear in mind with agency
[712]
flow our number one goal is to make
[714]
basically no money or as little money as
[715]
humanly possible just keep flipping that
[717]
revenue over into better better
[719]
developers growing out the team
[721]
spreading the message etc etc like this
[723]
a software company is not something you
[724]
start to be ultra profitable and to take
[726]
a lot of money home yourself like of
[728]
course you know we still want to keep 20
[730]
margins so that way pierre can eat i can
[731]
eat and sort of like we can keep
[733]
continuing to think long term you know
[734]
him and i still have monthly goings and
[736]
expenses that you know we need to tend
[737]
to but anyways at an extra annual
[740]
recurring revenue of 3.3 million dollars
[741]
let's just say 3 million hours that
[743]
increases the value of our company by 30
[746]
to 40 million dollars a year and bear in
[748]
mind i won't go into sort of pierre's uh
[751]
network and his circling kind of the
[752]
world he comes from but let me tell you
[754]
we have the smartest people on earth we
[756]
have some of the smartest money on earth
[758]
in our corner there is swiss and his
[762]
network when it comes to the vc game
[763]
when it comes to his friends that have
[764]
sold their companies for nine and ten
[767]
figure levels and basically the smart
[769]
money his connection to some of the
[770]
smart money is quite insane so when i
[772]
say that you know the value of our
[773]
company goes up like this isn't you know
[775]
this isn't stuff that i'm pulling out of
[776]
my backside like we from day one have
[779]
some very good people in our corner that
[780]
have given us these benchmarks so
[782]
anyways within 18 months the sas company
[783]
will be pretty confidently worth between
[785]
40-60 million dollars and within three
[787]
to five years the goal is to get it to
[789]
valuation and potentially sell it maybe
[791]
we keep it uh anywhere between 100 to
[793]
300 million dollars so the real money is
[796]
in software or at least what i consider
[798]
to be you know real money at my stage of
[800]
the career you know you need to
[801]
understand that most people would look
[802]
at the millions that i made with an
[804]
agency and be like that is serious
[807]
serious money so that is basically the
[808]
reason i'm shutting down the agency
[810]
which is primarily focus and by the way
[812]
it's not only just the agency by the way
[814]
uh this right here a lot of you guys i
[816]
actually a lot of my extra businesses i
[818]
don't always talk about on youtube but
[820]
um you know gadgey which is my my
[823]
e-commerce brand uh super super slick
[825]
packaging this velvety finish on the
[827]
inside it's so nice every time i look at
[829]
these g1s which are basically our blue
[831]
light blockers that we make i'm even
[833]
like
[834]
i'm even stunned and impressed by them
[836]
this is one of our summer collection a
[838]
little bit more of an interesting color
[840]
but anyways as much as i love gadgey i'm
[842]
shutting it down as well so it's not
[844]
just my agency it's i have to look at
[845]
the businesses that i have and just go
[847]
how much collateral damage
[850]
will there be and just sort of where
[851]
does things slot in and you know for
[853]
example gadge is another one that i love
[855]
to bits but i actually just had to
[856]
sacrifice and funnily enough gadgety and
[858]
my agency were the ones that were taking
[859]
the least amount of actual time out of
[861]
my day but it's just mental bandwidth
[863]
and i've realized as time goes on it's
[865]
not so much how much time do you have in
[867]
a day because a lot of times you'll find
[868]
that the big big ceos and the
[870]
billionaires they're not actually doing
[871]
that much work it's how much like clear
[874]
space you have in your mind to make good
[876]
decisions and lead forward your
[877]
companies and on that note
[879]
my mind is cluttered my mind is like
[881]
this is a war zone in here so i
[883]
basically had to sacrifice these two
[884]
companies to just to kind of give me a
[886]
bit more clarity and focus on the next
[888]
uh sort of stage of my career and sort
[890]
of the last thing that kind of played a
[891]
role in this as well as i've been
[892]
running my agency for six years you know
[894]
it's been a beautiful journey but it's
[896]
i kind of felt like i completed that
[897]
game um
[899]
and i kind of came to this realization
[900]
especially
[901]
a year ago because you can always keep
[903]
playing a game you know you can always
[904]
keep scaling a company further and
[906]
further and further but i had a pretty
[908]
big epiphany around a year ago and and
[910]
that big epiphany was that i realized an
[911]
agency should never really be a
[913]
destination it's more of a stepping
[915]
stone business you know i realize the
[916]
thing you need to do when running an
[918]
online boutique marketing agency and you
[920]
should be able to get here between
[921]
anywhere from 18 months to three years i
[923]
found that territory is scale it to 750
[927]
to 2 million a year in profit okay i'm
[929]
not talking revenue profit so scale it
[931]
between 750 000 to 2 million a year in
[934]
profit
[935]
and then scale it back 25 because what
[937]
you want to do is you basically want to
[938]
find the threshold where extra sort of
[941]
input and scaling the revenue actually
[943]
just brings on too many headaches and
[944]
then basically just scale it back 25
[946]
from that point and just kind of keep it
[948]
running on autopilot and the best thing
[949]
is i said find a cmo like i did you know
[951]
danny was working for me for four years
[953]
given profit share at some point after
[955]
they've been in the company long enough
[956]
and they'll run the company for you and
[957]
the one thing that i couldn't get out of
[959]
personally was um sales calls and
[962]
onboarding calls because we were working
[963]
with very high ticket clients and our
[964]
deal structures were quite sort of
[966]
complex that's the one thing that i
[968]
could not get out of sales calls and
[970]
onboarding calls if i found a way to get
[972]
out of those two and i trusted someone
[973]
to basically uh do the selling and also
[977]
make the offer to the clients maybe i
[979]
would have kept around but whatever i
[980]
guess the chips fell as they did but
[982]
back to main point which is when it
[984]
comes to an agency the best thing you
[985]
can do is scale it to that point scale
[987]
it back 25
[989]
and then basically just invest 80 of
[991]
everything you make and within five to
[992]
seven years between the free cash flow
[994]
from the agency as well as the
[996]
appreciation of your investments you
[998]
should pretty comfortably get to an
[1000]
eight-figure investment portfolio i
[1002]
managed to do in five years and you know
[1004]
i started off you know at the age of 16
[1007]
you know 16 17 i was having minimal
[1009]
success with the agency you could say
[1010]
and then once you get to eight figures
[1012]
which is basically at the stage of math
[1013]
now you make the decision which is
[1015]
either you won the game like a lot of
[1017]
people like what i'm doing right now i'm
[1019]
i can tell you for a fact 98 of people
[1021]
wouldn't do because i won the game like
[1023]
i can travel i can do whatever i want
[1025]
like i'm i'm set for life which is
[1027]
really really cool and and the best part
[1029]
is i can continue to grow my wealth
[1030]
because i can invest it and then
[1031]
actually only draw out like let's say i
[1033]
want to live off you know 300k a year
[1035]
which is three percent of my sort of
[1037]
nest egg actually my next stag is closer
[1039]
11 12 million but whatever you get the
[1041]
point i could only withdraw three
[1043]
percent of that or a little less than
[1044]
three percent and you know and if you
[1046]
know how to invest right you should be
[1047]
getting returns that are greater than
[1049]
three percent so you're actually
[1050]
contributing and that sort of that
[1051]
snowball is growing year by year so for
[1053]
98 of people once you've won the game
[1055]
that's cool i am a sicko i've always
[1058]
been like this like i
[1059]
i can't stand still in my life i wish i
[1061]
could my life would be a lot more
[1062]
peaceful so so for the two percent that
[1064]
are like me you can do what i'm doing
[1066]
which is go for the nine figure
[1067]
opportunity which by the way takes a lot
[1068]
of work and will take a lot more out of
[1070]
you than that initial you know i'll be
[1072]
honest starting an online boutique
[1074]
agency which is why i keep recommending
[1075]
it for everyone is kind of playing on
[1077]
easy mode compared to other business
[1079]
models it's still a lot of work okay
[1080]
don't get that twisted but it's easy
[1082]
mode compared to the other businesses
[1083]
now the final thing to address is how
[1085]
can i basically teach people how to
[1086]
start and scale their agency when i'm
[1088]
not doing it myself anymore well the
[1091]
answer kind of depends on which of my
[1093]
company's two programs we're referring
[1094]
to now agency navigator is our flagship
[1096]
program and it helps anyone literally
[1098]
anyone start an online business with as
[1101]
little money as humanly possible and
[1103]
within usually we found the range is
[1105]
between six to 18 months if they stick
[1107]
added they'll comfortably making ten
[1109]
thousand dollars a month profit online
[1111]
now me teaching agency navigator is kind
[1113]
of like someone who played in the
[1114]
premier league forever you guys you know
[1116]
for any of you guys who don't follow
[1118]
football you know it's like the british
[1119]
best league it's like someone who had a
[1121]
long career in the premier league and
[1123]
now they're retired and they're coaching
[1124]
their sons
[1126]
sunday league football like it's just to
[1127]
get to ten thousand a month and i'm
[1129]
really not trying to downplay it or even
[1130]
twenty thousand a month like i'm not you
[1132]
know i i unders i remember back in those
[1134]
days when i was it seemed like such a
[1135]
massive feat but for me to teach someone
[1137]
to accomplish five to ten percent of
[1139]
what i accomplished monthly in my agency
[1141]
career
[1142]
is not very difficult and and i'll just
[1144]
be very honest to get to 10 15 20 000
[1146]
it's
[1147]
you can do 90 of things wrong and still
[1149]
get there to get to a hundred thousand a
[1150]
month uh profit with your agency like
[1152]
every all cylinders need to be firing
[1155]
correctly so that is a lot more
[1156]
difficult now the only thing that
[1157]
changes year on year is service delivery
[1160]
and no matter what program i make i work
[1161]
alongside my team anyways to sort of
[1164]
help formulate that phase of the program
[1166]
because obviously they're in the
[1167]
trenches working with our clients and
[1169]
inside that program we currently have
[1170]
two coaching calls that's actually going
[1171]
to four coaching calls this month and
[1173]
those coaches are in the trenches in
[1175]
their agencies and bringing that
[1176]
expertise back to teach about
[1178]
service delivery sales outreach mindset
[1180]
performance etc etc and then outside of
[1182]
the ridiculous program that we have you
[1184]
also have the community the custom tools
[1186]
the custom platform obviously all of
[1188]
these coaching q a calls as well as the
[1190]
recordings of them and even what we
[1191]
started implementing recently basically
[1193]
with gradiency the goal is to reinvest
[1195]
as much as humanly possible because i'm
[1197]
just telling you guys my 300 million
[1199]
dollar game plan there you go
[1201]
full transparency grow gya and help
[1203]
nurture the best agency owners on earth
[1205]
that are loyal as held to agency flow my
[1207]
software company because they're like
[1209]
okay this is the best solution for us
[1210]
but then
[1211]
sort of the big focus that we need to do
[1213]
at gya is i'm reinvesting as much money
[1215]
as humanly possible because i want the
[1217]
best agency owners because it doesn't
[1219]
help me if i get let's say 5 000
[1221]
students a year into agency navigator
[1223]
and then like 80 of them quit like no i
[1225]
need as many of them succeeding as
[1226]
humanly possible because obviously i'm a
[1228]
great guy that's the main reason but
[1229]
there is a second reason which is if
[1231]
they win they will use agency flow and i
[1233]
will send my company for 300 million
[1234]
dollars in four years so i'm just being
[1236]
honest with you now with that being said
[1237]
what we implemented this year was the
[1239]
student success concierge team so i've
[1240]
actually hired eight people it's going
[1242]
up to 12 next month to meet demand so
[1244]
eight people full time so on a product
[1246]
this cheap which by the way i know for
[1247]
some people agency navigator might seem
[1249]
expensive when it comes to education
[1251]
space and i mean if you want to compare
[1253]
it to universities and how much you're
[1254]
gonna be spending there it is blasphemy
[1256]
how cheap it is it is it is preposterous
[1259]
so to have a product at that price point
[1262]
where you're assigned a concierge member
[1263]
like you have a full-time concierge rep
[1266]
so this person speaks with you on day
[1267]
one of you signing day 30 day 60 day 90
[1270]
month 6 and month 12 okay and you can
[1272]
reach out to them at any point they're
[1274]
your dedicated concierge so whatever
[1276]
issues you have whatever extra support
[1278]
like whatever you want they're there to
[1279]
support you and to do this on a product
[1281]
at that price point for agents navigator
[1283]
usually you only find it for products or
[1285]
at ten thousand dollars fifteen thousand
[1286]
dollars twenty thousand dollars you know
[1287]
you know courses coaching programs like
[1289]
that so that's another thing that we
[1290]
implemented for agents navigator so that
[1292]
is agency navigator when it comes to
[1294]
apex things are slightly different and
[1295]
that's where i've had to bring in some
[1296]
more external help to really make sure
[1298]
that we are rock solid now apex is a
[1300]
course mastermind hybrid that helps
[1302]
people get to seven figures a year with
[1304]
their agency and then i also show people
[1305]
how to actually invest their money to
[1307]
get to eight figures within five to
[1309]
seven years basically exactly like how i
[1311]
did and then the last portion of it i
[1312]
also show people here are the businesses
[1314]
you can start and from my own personal
[1316]
experience here's how to do it if you
[1318]
want to go for that nine figure
[1319]
opportunity just like i did so it's a
[1321]
very unique sort of program because
[1322]
we're showing people how to make seven
[1324]
eight and nine figures i've done the
[1325]
seven and eight from the agency now i'm
[1327]
going for the nine now with that program
[1329]
obviously the first step in that process
[1330]
is getting to 100k a month or basically
[1332]
around seven figures a year with their
[1334]
agency and that's why i have a lot of
[1335]
coaches in that program outside of
[1337]
myself so at the moment i have four
[1338]
coaches and there are six coaching calls
[1340]
a week in that program we have sales
[1342]
experts like paul daly who's actually my
[1344]
ceo at gradiency he actually ran and
[1347]
then exited a local lead gen agency so
[1349]
he does call reviews and sales trainings
[1351]
on monday we have john danes who
[1352]
actually runs an agency doing 180 000 a
[1356]
month and he works with real estate
[1357]
agents so he has his coaching call we
[1359]
have michael gardner who basically sets
[1360]
meetings for agencies with his legion
[1362]
agency so he has a coaching call when it
[1364]
comes to outbound sort of script setting
[1366]
and stuff like that and i even have
[1367]
danny who worked at my agency for four
[1369]
years he was my cmo he still coaches in
[1371]
apex when it comes to everything to do
[1373]
with service delivery speaking of danny
[1375]
after four years working together i have
[1376]
allowed him to basically merge our
[1378]
clients that we had left at the end of
[1380]
the agency with his new agency so he's
[1382]
now gone and done his own thing
[1384]
obviously we're still on great terms so
[1386]
by the way if you've ever wanted to work
[1387]
with iag media i know there's a lot of
[1389]
you guys here who have applied to work
[1390]
with us but quite frankly we're a very
[1392]
very very expensive agency so if you
[1394]
ever want to work with us i will
[1396]
actually just leave danny's uh email
[1398]
right here danny ig dash
[1401]
you can reach out to him and um yeah his
[1404]
agency not to say that it's cheap or
[1405]
anything but it'll definitely be cheaper
[1407]
than working with ig media but as i said
[1409]
obviously we're still on great terms and
[1410]
he's still coaching for apex and then
[1412]
lastly there are the calls with myself
[1414]
where i will go over the overall
[1415]
structure hiring company culture and
[1417]
basically what to do with your money
[1419]
once you make it and basically all the
[1420]
stuff that i'm kind of focused on in the
[1422]
stage of my career that i'm at so as i
[1424]
alluded to earlier basically all the
[1425]
money at gui is going back into the
[1427]
business all the coaches that we have
[1429]
that aren't cheap considering how much
[1430]
money they're making outside of the
[1432]
coaching gig uh we've got all the
[1433]
improvements the custom platform we've
[1434]
got version two of our custom platform
[1437]
actually coming out this month uh we've
[1438]
got the app coming out in the next few
[1440]
months i don't know any other education
[1442]
company taught by a guru who has their
[1444]
own app and you know i don't know any
[1446]
other guru who invests this much money
[1449]
back into their e-learning company
[1450]
obviously we have the new concierge reps
[1452]
and then you know initiative that we've
[1454]
been doing ever since 2019 i take a lot
[1456]
of my personal profits from gradiency
[1458]
and use that to build schools i actually
[1460]
messaged alan the chairman of pahartrust
[1462]
uh i actually messaged him a week ago
[1464]
and committed to building my fifth and
[1466]
next school i'm actually taking some of
[1468]
the gya team in november to nepal to
[1471]
visit our first four schools that we
[1473]
fully funded and by the way at gy i have
[1475]
almost 30 full-time employees now so
[1478]
yeah payroll is very very very expensive
[1480]
anyways all this to say that the focus
[1482]
now main focus is basically gy cultivate
[1486]
as many incredible agency owners because
[1488]
they will inevitably use agency flow so
[1490]
as i said i don't really care too much
[1491]
about the profit margins here they're
[1492]
just as long as both keep 20 i'm happy
[1495]
everything else gets reinvested
[1497]
and tunnel vision for the next goal
[1499]
which is nine figures and the last sort
[1500]
of thing i'll uh mention is for any of
[1502]
you guys watching this and you're like
[1503]
why do you recommend starting an online
[1504]
boutique marketing agency when you have
[1506]
a sas company an e-learning company once
[1508]
again it comes back down to career
[1509]
timing and market timing just remember
[1511]
in order to create and scale a software
[1512]
company like i did you basically need a
[1514]
nine out of ten skill set as an
[1515]
entrepreneur and you need an eight out
[1517]
of ten capital you know or at least to
[1519]
access them you know you'll need
[1520]
investors or something like that like it
[1522]
it's quite expensive to start a software
[1523]
company and then to create an e-learning
[1525]
company like i did you know not just be
[1526]
like a guru who launches a course in the
[1528]
last six months you know gy has been
[1530]
running for four years now well i guess
[1531]
officially no sorry wait 2019 2020 three
[1534]
and a half years and and the first year
[1536]
of it i basically just was a guru with a
[1538]
course like i didn't really i didn't
[1540]
have a company with all these support
[1541]
systems in a mission et cetera et cetera
[1543]
but yeah if you want to start an
[1544]
education company that stands the test
[1545]
of time uh you're going to need a 10 out
[1547]
of 10 skill set it's a really tough
[1549]
business actually if you want to last
[1551]
years and years and then you're also
[1552]
going to need a sort of six or seven out
[1554]
of 10 in terms of investment you know
[1556]
our custom platform that we built costs
[1557]
a lot of money near seven figures you
[1559]
know the custom platform that we built
[1560]
and then now the new app that we're
[1561]
building as well that's over seven
[1563]
figures in development cost just right
[1565]
there so definitely do not try to start
[1566]
those businesses when you're first
[1567]
trying to get to just 10k or even 50k a
[1569]
month do what is most practical and that
[1573]
is the thing that changed my life
[1575]
forever i will be forever grateful to
[1577]
having an agency it was an incredible
[1579]
incredible six years that took me to
[1581]
that eight figure level but now it's
[1583]
time to put my head down make some
[1584]
sacrifices
[1586]
and focus on getting to 100 million if
[1589]
not even hundreds of millions
[1597]
[Music]
[1620]
you