I want to share a personal story and maybe at least one of you can learn something from it.
So, my email marketing agency did $45.000 of profit this summer.
And I still decided to shut it down.
Here’s why:
I’ve reached the line where I either scale or go down.
I was mostly a one man show. To grow, I had to hire and delegate more, create new processes and optimise. There’s a lot that had to be done and I took my time to think if that’s a path I want to continue pursuing.
It took too much of my time and energy.
Having an agency means constant calls. Sales, follow-ups, reports, win backs.When you’re not on calls, you answer emails. Of course, that’s how most of today’s jobs look like. And it was okay today, but I knew I want more control in my schedule in the near future. And I did not want to wait until I burnout and start hating it, call it an early diagnosis that’s easy to treat without much stress.
They come they go.
In an agency world, client retention is a huge thing. The problem with email marketing is that most brands either don’t need an agency to work on their emails for a long time, or they will start turning into their in-house resources soon enough. You have to constantly prove them about the importance of tracking the necessary metrics, changing the strategies, experimenting and so on. No likey.
I had enough to deal with myself.
I need a lot of alone time. I know that if I start my day with 9am calls - I won’t be excited about waking up. And then this feeling can drag for the rest of day. Few years back, I battled depression, suicidal thoughts, and anyone who experienced this, knows that these things never leave you for good. I knew I need to be in control of my schedule and the people I deal with. All this resulted in more mental clarity, more time to reflect, write, talk with myself. And I can be Rolls-Royce engine productive if I feel good. I just needed to do something different.
I want to sell my know-how, not my time.
Instead of working as an agency partner, I am now creating an email marketing course for e-commerce brands. This way, smaller ones can do most of the stuff themselves, and bigger ones can easily train their in-house resources.
I believe this will be the only right way to go for about 8 out 10 brands.
Also, I have a safety net - other businesses that require only few hours a week of my time.