Resources for education & mentorship for client-work? SEO/Adwords/etc, agency-style (6)

Hey everyone,

I'm reaching the end of my runway, savings-wise, to continue running affiliate campaigns at the scale I've been running for too long, in which I've spent a lot, learned a lot (not enough perhaps?), but has just not been profitable enough to live on. I'm not DONE with affiliate marketing necessarily, but I need to be making a few K a month consistently, minimum, by Feb/March-ish so I can keep eating... haha.

I've been doing a lot of self-reflection and consideration as to what my next step has gotta be, and the most reasonable options pretty much is either get a job as a (junior) media buyer, or at an agency somewhere around here for a bit, etc -- which I'm fairly confident I could find, given a few months. OR, I skip the middleman, and pick up a few local/small-business clients and figure some stuff out on my own there.

Funny enough, within the week that I started going down the latter train of thought, I've tentatively lined up two clients who are interested in my proposition of bringing them some more business. (manifesting??)

One -- easy enough to line up as its my folk's business -- a freight brokerage, that while they're doing fine, could always use more customers/freight -- their margin on a single truckload ranges from $200-$2000 say, though life-time value of customers can be huge, into the $100,000+ range, should they choose to continue using this brokerage for their logistics. For all intents & purposes, they don't have ANY digital presence, so this one's a blank slate.

Two -- a friend's neighbor I met out camping -- he runs an exotic car repair shop in a major market (Aston Martins, Land Rovers, Maseratis, etc). He already has an agency doing some stuff for him at $1k a month. I know some Adwords camps are running, but not sure how much of that $1k goes to spend. Perhaps they're doing some SEO too; I've basically really gotta do an audit here to figure out the current situation. Anyway, he's bummed that he lost the 'personal touch' in a growing, corporatizing agency, and is 100% on board to fire that agency and have me take over. I feel it wouldn't be too hard to improve on what they've done with a little bit of elbow-grease. They are GOOD, and don't have a lot of competition outside of the dealerships. "I would pay $2k, $4k, $5k a month if we're getting the right amount of business from it!" < direct quote from this potential client.


NOW, here's my crux: I can starting learn the basic SEO stuff, I can jump into adwords and start playing around (particularly with client #1) without too much stress on the spend, I can start doing keyword research, etc. , but it's all fairly new to me. I REALLY don't have any clue on how much I should be charging for what, to give clients the best bang for their buck without undervaluing myself. What's an appropriate retainer and/or set-up fee for SEO work, say? How do I gauge the scope of the project? What's an appropriate retainer to charge for managing some amount of ad spend? Do I work in some commission structure? Am I going to be able to get campaign data from old agency for client #2, so I can start with those camps ? etc. etc.

I need to find somewhere I can answer questions like this , and though I've never been extremely fond of guru-ism/courses, I'm willing to drop a few thousand bucks here to join the right community/network/course to tackle this and build up some more stable income for myself. Or in the same vein, I'm willing to pay for mentorship/guidance/advice -- hiring a consultant for consulting basically. BUT, as we all know, that stuff is way hard to sift through given the nature of our industry.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me??? I need some direction & I'll be eternally grateful!

(mods: if this is the wrong board for this, sorry!)

I would strongly suggest making a more detailed post in the SEO section!

SEO experts like Greg Morrison should be able to provide advice.

And if you'd start a follow-along: I'm preparing to do a case study on SEO myself so will also do my best to share my experiences!

Sorry to hear your affiliate campaigns didn't work out as well as you had hoped, but you're manifesting another path which is amazing! Having SEO clients on a retainer can make things a lot easier on your heart and soul than affiliate campaigns that are unstable. There are pros and cons to each definitely, but more and more I'm feeling that having SEO income (either from your own affiliate sites or from clients) wouldn't be a bad idea - something to fall back on when in-between profitable campaigns or when you're just tired and want to take a break.

When one door closes, another opens. All the best my friend! Let us know how you get on.



Amy

Thanks for the advice and kind words as always, Amy.

Do you know if Greg & the OMG guys talk much about Adwords ppc campaigns as well, or is it primarily SEO? I know this one potential client is interested in that at least as much, and it'd be great to combine the two learning experiences a bit. Perhaps I'll have to accumulate bits and pieces from a few places.

Originally Posted by chris_climbs

Thanks for the advice and kind words as always, Amy.

Do you know if Greg & the OMG guys talk much about Adwords ppc campaigns as well, or is it primarily SEO? I know this one potential client is interested in that at least as much, and it'd be great to combine the two learning experiences a bit. Perhaps I'll have to accumulate bits and pieces from a few places.

Originally Posted by chris_climbs

Hey everyone,

I'm reaching the end of my runway, savings-wise, to continue running affiliate campaigns at the scale I've been running for too long, in which I've spent a lot, learned a lot (not enough perhaps?), but has just not been profitable enough to live on. I'm not DONE with affiliate marketing necessarily, but I need to be making a few K a month consistently, minimum, by Feb/March-ish so I can keep eating... haha.

I've been doing a lot of self-reflection and consideration as to what my next step has gotta be, and the most reasonable options pretty much is either get a job as a (junior) media buyer, or at an agency somewhere around here for a bit, etc -- which I'm fairly confident I could find, given a few months. OR, I skip the middleman, and pick up a few local/small-business clients and figure some stuff out on my own there.

Funny enough, within the week that I started going down the latter train of thought, I've tentatively lined up two clients who are interested in my proposition of bringing them some more business. (manifesting??)

One -- easy enough to line up as its my folk's business -- a freight brokerage, that while they're doing fine, could always use more customers/freight -- their margin on a single truckload ranges from $200-$2000 say, though life-time value of customers can be huge, into the $100,000+ range, should they choose to continue using this brokerage for their logistics. For all intents & purposes, they don't have ANY digital presence, so this one's a blank slate.

Two -- a friend's neighbor I met out camping -- he runs an exotic car repair shop in a major market (Aston Martins, Land Rovers, Maseratis, etc). He already has an agency doing some stuff for him at $1k a month. I know some Adwords camps are running, but not sure how much of that $1k goes to spend. Perhaps they're doing some SEO too; I've basically really gotta do an audit here to figure out the current situation. Anyway, he's bummed that he lost the 'personal touch' in a growing, corporatizing agency, and is 100% on board to fire that agency and have me take over. I feel it wouldn't be too hard to improve on what they've done with a little bit of elbow-grease. They are GOOD, and don't have a lot of competition outside of the dealerships. "I would pay $2k, $4k, $5k a month if we're getting the right amount of business from it!" < direct quote from this potential client.


NOW, here's my crux: I can starting learn the basic SEO stuff, I can jump into adwords and start playing around (particularly with client #1) without too much stress on the spend, I can start doing keyword research, etc. , but it's all fairly new to me. I REALLY don't have any clue on how much I should be charging for what, to give clients the best bang for their buck without undervaluing myself. What's an appropriate retainer and/or set-up fee for SEO work, say? How do I gauge the scope of the project? What's an appropriate retainer to charge for managing some amount of ad spend? Do I work in some commission structure? Am I going to be able to get campaign data from old agency for client #2, so I can start with those camps ? etc. etc.

I need to find somewhere I can answer questions like this , and though I've never been extremely fond of guru-ism/courses, I'm willing to drop a few thousand bucks here to join the right community/network/course to tackle this and build up some more stable income for myself. Or in the same vein, I'm willing to pay for mentorship/guidance/advice -- hiring a consultant for consulting basically. BUT, as we all know, that stuff is way hard to sift through given the nature of our industry.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me??? I need some direction & I'll be eternally grateful!

(mods: if this is the wrong board for this, sorry!)

Thanks for the share, LeadCloak!

Side-note: Does anyone have any experience with any of Dan Henry's course-offerings related to agency-style FB advertising?