Notes on Starting an Agency from Scratch - Episode 2

Overview

• The series documents the process of starting a social media marketing agency (SMMA) from scratch.
• Objective: Prove that signing the first client does not take long.
• Episode 1 laid foundations: niche selection, ideal customer profile (ICP), services, and website creation.

Progress So Far

• Agency Name: Renault Reach
  • Focus on Home Improvement industry.
  • Tagline: "Your Renault, Our Reach."
• Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK.
• Services: Meta ads for lead generation and appointment setting.
• Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
  • Company Size: 1-10 employees.
  • Monthly Revenue: £10K–£20K.
  • Decision Maker: Owner, Founder, Managing Director (MD).
  • Pain Points: Need for high-quality leads, lack of time for content creation, tech-phobic industry.
• Offer: "Get 10 qualified leads within 30 days or you don’t pay."

Lead Generation

• Lead List Creation:
  • Use Google Maps to find local businesses in sub-niches (e.g., kitchen & bathroom fitters, landscapers, solar).
  • Initial sub-niches identified:
    • Kitchen & Bathroom Fitters
    • Landscapers
    • Flooring
    • Solar companies
• Data Scraping:
  • Tools like Data Miner used to scrape company data from Google Maps.
  • Initial lead list of 164 companies was refined to 132 after removing duplicates.
• Finding Business Owners' Details:
  • Use tools like Snov.io to find LinkedIn details or email addresses of business owners.
  • Manual searches required for many leads due to low tech-savviness of potential clients.

Outreach Strategy

• Methods:
  • Cold calling (primary method)
  • Email outreach
  • Avoiding DMs due to personal brand complexities.
• Cold Call Strategy:
  • Develop a cold calling script based on previous successful calls.
  • Emphasize offering value without immediate sales pressure.
  • Focus on setting appointments for further discussions.
• Sample Cold Call Script:
  • Introduce self, quickly state the purpose of the call, and ask if they can handle more leads.
  • Offer a risk-free guarantee (if no leads, no payment).

Cold Calling Results

• Conducted 22 dials resulting in 5 meetings booked.
• Initial calls felt rusty but improved with practice.
• Ratio of 1-3 meetings is expected from 30 leads.

Follow-Up Strategy

• After calls, send confirmation emails with meeting details.
• Create a pipeline to manage leads through various stages:
  • Initial Outreach
  • New Lead
  • Appointment Set
  • Ghosted
  • Client Closed

Conclusion

• A long and productive day with lead generation and outreach.
• Future steps include conducting meetings and closing clients.
• Emphasizes the importance of persistence and using a structured approach to outreach.
• Acknowledges the exhaustion but also the excitement for potential success.