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.
Here I’m still thinking how to get initial clients. Maybe you can help me in growing my agency and i can help you in selling your course.
What is your agency doing and how do you think you would help?
Isn’t that the goal for any digital marketing services business?
9am calls? I run an agency and my day starts at like 6am and continues well past 6pm some days. But that’s what it takes to net top 1% numbers, which is personally rather do for a few years prior to retirement, rather than working moderately hard for the next 30 years for someone else
Ok
Cool, appreciate the transparency. I think people romanticize going into business by yourself. It takes a while to even make a profit, and even if you do, it takes a lot of mental energy–much more more than a regular job.
You know can sell a business before shutting it down lol
Let someone else deal with the headaches and pay x10 for it