Do This to Make $1M a Year as an Agency (No Website Needed)

I've scaled my ad agency to a million dollars in AR in six months without a website and I managed over hund00 million in ad spend throughout my career. In this video, I'm really

career. In this video, I'm really excited to be sharing with you guys my insights around scaling an agency and the painful mistakes I made along the way. Today, we're here with Sylvia

way. Today, we're here with Sylvia Paris, founder of adconversion.com and Sammy. Sylvia, what's the story with

and Sammy. Sylvia, what's the story with growing your business to a millionaire in just six months? Oh,

>> how much time do we have?

So, I grew my agency to a million dollars in six months without a single website, which always blows people's mind because the first thing we do, and I'm guilty, we all make that trap, is

like we overindex on things that just don't matter in the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey. And the the

entrepreneurial journey. And the the story behind that of how we made that happen was building a strong personal brand and a lot of credibility in the space. And that's something that I think

space. And that's something that I think a lot of agencies shortcut. I

understand. I get it. Like I remember when I was first starting out and I was like my number one goal in life was like how can I get to 10K a month, you know, in in revenue. And I remember like that

being such a massive number and and such a huge milestone. And what we forget is at the end of the day, if you're in the agency world, you're in the credibility

business. Uh you're in the expertise

business. Uh you're in the expertise business. So the way that you get more

business. So the way that you get more clients is by demonstrating your expertise more regularly. So that can come in many ways, shapes, and forms, right? But if you can think about all

right? But if you can think about all the different types of strategies, whether it's ads or outbound or just like straight up content marketing, all of it surrounds and like hinges on the

fact that you're trying to demonstrate expertise in some way, shape, or form to open a conversation and then eventually try to move that person down the the sales process. In what way did it take

sales process. In what way did it take place for you? How did you demonstrate your expertise to the audience to grow so fast? So, I had been posting on

so fast? So, I had been posting on LinkedIn for about a year and a half and at the time I was actually working inhouse originally and I was running um

ads and building a performance marketing team at a tech startup and at that time I was just on the downtime like just posting on LinkedIn sharing what's working what I'm learning and then in

addition to that before working at that company I had started a YouTube channel and I was just posting videos and sharing content and I started my YouTube channel like super early. I'm talking

like 2018 uh when I posted my first video and then you know I was just like having fun with it. So I wasn't very consistent but over

it. So I wasn't very consistent but over the years just like posting content and for me YouTube was kind of like a journal where I myself was trying to figure out like what works what doesn't

work and then just trying to share it simply with other people because I remember when I was learning remember that feeling it just felt so complicated like folks at least this was my

perception like they they tried so hard to be perceived as being smart and like making things sound better or more confusing. confusing than they are

confusing. confusing than they are versus just like explaining things simply and being like hey if you want to do remarketing well here are the three things to focus on and like you know just kind of like hitting on those

points. So through YouTube and then

points. So through YouTube and then LinkedIn, uh that really allowed me to create like that initial foundation and then from there um I was able to start landing some clients, getting some like

portfolio work in case studies and the cool thing about having a niche and like focus is once you do good work for one person, one company, they usually know somebody else and then you know kind of

spirals from there. We'll get to to your premise which is actually give valuable content to people for free a little bit later but I wanted to dive deeper into

the very tactical breakdown of how you actually scaled to a million a year million in ARR in just 6 months because that seems like for a normal agency owner that would mean an absolute

operations implosion. How did you avoid

operations implosion. How did you avoid that? So the the tactics of how we did

that? So the the tactics of how we did it uh so for us for context we are an ad agency and we so number one is focus of service. Uh the the way that you can do

service. Uh the the way that you can do that without just dying in the process is by having focus. I think so much of the rise up was saying no to things and just trying to be extra focused. Like

even to this day we still only specialize in ads. Um and we are well over uh a million dollars a year now.

We're on our way to 10 million. That's

our next milestone. Just having focus is really important from an operational standpoint because every time you add an additional service line that's additional complexity right in terms of like onboarding SOPs and these types of

things. So the first thing I would say

things. So the first thing I would say is focus like you don't need five services to get to a millionaire R. You

really only need like one really strong service, one really tightly defined ICP that you're going after. Get very clear on those problems that they have and just try to get in front of as many of

them and show them that you can help them. I would say that's the first

them. I would say that's the first thing. The second piece is more so

thing. The second piece is more so around the decision you have to make as the business owner. I think a lot of folks don't realize this, but when you decide to make the shift to start an

agency and grow an agency, it's very different than when you're just a consultant and a freelancer. So, I I used to have this joke with like my my team members earlier on where I was like, "My team made more money than I

did." [laughter]

did." [laughter] Like like I used to always say like ad conversion is wealthy silio is poor because what people don't realize is like when you decide to build an agency

you you're basically saying I am going to forego short-term profit so that I can build an asset that is valuable so that one day I can get it to operational

efficiency where the cash flow is strong enough that I can live off that or I'm going to build an asset that's valuable enough that it's something that I could sell one Okay. And for me, I was really approaching it more from the mindset of

like, how can I build an asset that's so strong that through the exit one day, if I decide to go that path, like that's where like all the massive upside would come. And for a lot of people on the

come. And for a lot of people on the fence listening, like I think a lot of people fall into starting an agency, but they don't necessarily want an agency.

Like they want to have a good lifestyle, you know, have high income. And I'm not saying like you can't have high margins as an agency, especially now with like AI. things are getting very interesting

AI. things are getting very interesting with like your ability to offset cost but it's it's expensive like the building teams and infrastructure it's like a whole other animal versus like

when you're a consultant it's just like I could be good at the work build a personal brand and then charge premium rates and just kind of have you know a really good life. So I think as an

agency owner, I always find myself telling other agency owners is like if you are going to go down that path, like just accept what you're going into

because the moment you decide to become an agency, it now becomes less about you being great at your craft and now it becomes about building team and infrastructure and people and systems

and creating an environment that other people want to work at. Because again,

going back to the premise of like what is an agency? It's an expertise company.

And when you start to scale as a expertise company on the agency side, now it's about recruiting other great talent, other great expertise, giving them a place where they'd want to work,

which means, hint hint, you have to pay people really good, which eats margin, and kind of making that that decision.

So, it's kind of like a long-winded answer, but um just I think a couple important things for people to take into consideration.

>> I appreciate that. Even though most people are already far along their agency or freelance journey, however we're going to call it in their specific case, I think many people don't really ask themselves the question which is

what do I actually want? What sort of a business do I want to build? And also

what's possible with each of these businesses. So as you said, you can be a

businesses. So as you said, you can be a freelancer. You can charge premium rates

freelancer. You can charge premium rates through the brand they built for yourself or you can get other people by providing them with a place where they can flourish, where they can generate the results and they can get the

fulfillment and money that they want.

What would you say are the milestones?

Like what can you reasonably expect as a either performance marketer, freelancer or as a performance marketing agency to grow to? And we're going to be talking

grow to? And we're going to be talking in terms of like what's the revenue you can realistically get to as a freelancer with the margins that you would have off of this and what would be like what's what's the limit with an agency.

>> I would say if you as a freelancer your first goal should really be that 10k a month. I I think I think mentally it

month. I I think I think mentally it really changes you you know for for context like when I hit 10k a month as a freelancer it it felt better than when I hit a

million dollars in AR. [laughter]

I still remember when I hit it. Like I

was uh I was in the driveway at a Dairy Queen and I saw like this invoice came in and I was like, "Holy shit." Like I just passed 10K a month and I was like so you know like I it really because

getting to 10K a month is the hardest thing in the world. Not even in terms of like the tactics, it's the mindset like going from zero to 10. It's like you

have to just do so much work on yourself of like how you think. like for like I'm trying not to get too into a rant, but like when I first started freelancing,

um I basically had left this job that I was at and I had like a three-month runway where I was like, "Okay, I have to make money or I'm going to have to start going on credit card debt." And

what I was doing during that three-month runway is I actually started on Upwork.

That's where I got like initial traction before I joined that SAS company I mentioned. And um I was on Upwork. I was

mentioned. And um I was on Upwork. I was

reading a book called fanatical prospecting and I was like sending emails to podiatrists and local doctors.

I was cold emailing them and then I would literally phone call them, cold call. I did these hour power hours they

call. I did these hour power hours they called it in the book where you like cold call and then you try to like break in. It was the worst thing ever. But

in. It was the worst thing ever. But

like that experience like that's what it you sometimes you have to do like whatever it takes in the beginning, right? To just kind of like break

right? To just kind of like break through. But so much of it is just

through. But so much of it is just getting out of your own way and like mentality. So for those that are like in

mentality. So for those that are like in that zero to 10 phase right now, the number like best advice I can give you is um compare yourself against yourself.

You know, I think especially now with like online BS like there's so many people like saying you can get to 10K a month in like 90 days and then now you have this expectation that you can do it and it is possible, don't get me wrong,

but like for me I never had an easy path. Like I even remember joining

path. Like I even remember joining groups and like I literally joined this one group of like cold email and the other people in the group were literally

getting like responses after like their 30th message, 50th message and getting meetings booked and I swear I don't know what it was but like it took me like 500

messages just to get a response and then a meeting booked came like 700 emails later. So like I just say that to like

later. So like I just say that to like encourage everyone that like everyone's on their own timeline, you know, and just staying with it and like being focused I think is the number one thing

because the people that I see that never get past that they over complicate things and then they they focus on things that don't matter. So like if you want to get to 10K a month in your first 90 days, like this would be my road map

for you to give you the best likelihood of success is number one just choose one niche, right? like um and and when I say

niche, right? like um and and when I say a niche, I really mean a problem. Like

what's a really specific problem for a type of person that you want to go after and spend all of your time just getting in front of those people and making sure that you can help them solve the problem. So for instance, like we didn't

problem. So for instance, like we didn't have a website, but the people we helped were B2B SAS companies. So they were we were connecting them with them on LinkedIn. They were seeing my content.

LinkedIn. They were seeing my content.

Maybe they found me on YouTube, but like it wasn't chance, you know what I mean?

like I was outreaching to them, connecting with them and then I would post content so they would see it. So

that's number one. I think so many people like we we default to websites or uh logo design or like all these things when all that really matters is like >> Yeah, exactly. Like you have to show you

have expertise and then you need to get that expertise in front of the people that matter. That's it, you know, and

that matter. That's it, you know, and then it's a matter of just figuring out like the sales piece and like how you can communicate that value better. But

that's really all you got to do to get to 10K a month truthfully because the more your expertise increases over time in terms of that perceived expertise in

the marketplace now the more you can charge and the the value as well about solving uh specific problems is you start to notice patterns. So for

instance like when I talk to a B2B SAS company I can speak their language. So,

I can talk about pipeline and CAC paybacks and building fullfunnel strategies, right? It's very different

strategies, right? It's very different versus like if you talk to somebody in e-commerce, maybe you're going to talk about like refund rates and uh you know, average order value and conversion rates and like it's a different lingo. And all

of that is like little things that are like secretly going into like building that perceived value and expertise meter to your favor. And where I've actually seen this like played out to its extreme

is I've got a friend of mine. He has no intentions of building a like an agency, but he's really good at what he does and people know him in the space. He charges

10K a month per client and he can personally manage up to 10 clients.

>> So that's not bad.

Like you know what I mean? Like that's

pretty good. And uh and then he just uses like tools to like help scale his capacity. So that could be possible for

capacity. So that could be possible for for somebody listening. Um, but I think really the the the when you become an agency really starts to become less a revenue figure. It's more of like a team

revenue figure. It's more of like a team infrastructure of like when you start to build the operations around you to to outsource the work. Hey, thanks for hanging on. Because you're watching this

hanging on. Because you're watching this episode of Perspective Talk, we got something special for you. You can get a 14-day free trial of Perspective by clicking on the link in the description below. That's link in the description

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Now, let's get back to the episode. So

baby, let's talk about that. How how did you actually get the people in? Because

from how you told me the story, I already assumed that you got a bunch of killers onto your agency team and that's how you were able to scale to uh to six figures in just half a year. Uh what was

your strategy for hiring people? How how

did you scale that internal infrastructure?

>> I kind of stumbled on this by luck. Uh I

I know it's a shitty answer, but it's the truth. So at a previous like at my

the truth. So at a previous like at my previous company, I built a performance marketing team there and basically I had to source and recruit performance marketers and then get them on there and

then you know train them up. So I had already had like a little bit of a roster of like killers that I had hired and trained at past companies that I was like, "Oh man, like if I'm going to start this thing here, I know I got to

call that guy. Like I would love to have him here uh because I know he's great at what he does." So I kind of had a leg up in that respect. The other thing too in terms of like where I think we have a bit of a competitive advantage which I

didn't in intend on but it it's worked out beautifully is because we have the academy and we're teaching people you know how to scale ads and you know we're

doing all the content that we do. Our

ability to recruit talent is incredible.

Like I can send one email out to my newsletter and get, you know, over 500 applicants that like want to work with us, like that are really good quality because if you're taking our courses and

you're part of our newsletter, like that already speaks to a very specific kind of person, you know? So through our own content efforts, through like our personal networks, like we're able to

recruit great talent. And one thing that like me and my leaders always find ourselves repeating is like good people know good people. So the best place to recruit is from your network, you know,

and and kind of starting there because good people often hang out with other good people, right? So it's like if I'm looking for a creative strategist, like right now we we're hiring creative strategists. Um the first thing we did

strategists. Um the first thing we did was we asked our existing creative strategists and we're like, "Hey, do you know other creative strategists that would be great?" And it sounds so obvious but uh we don't really often think about it.

>> It's very humble of you Sylvia to say that that it's luck where to me it sounds more like you built a brand over multiple years actually doing the skill providing value to people for free and

then you're able to basically uh call them to action right to to joining the the company. And so these all these

the company. And so these all these killers so just for clarity you already had ad conversion back when you were running the agency right?

>> Correct. Yeah. So we started as the academy first just to give context.

>> Uh so we first started as an academy. I

actually didn't want to start an agency because I was like agencies suck. I used

to work in agencies. I was like I used to do white label work for agencies and then I also worked in a few back in the day and it was like awful and you know they have like a bad rep and they're

icky and this and that. And then

basically what I realized for us because um our vision with ad conversion is to build an ecosystem around B2B ads. And

what I realized is like if I only have the academy and we're only teaching people things but we don't stay in the work then we become irrelevant right like we need a way of testing and learning and kind of like a playground

right where we can figure out what's working so that we can take those learnings those insights and then we can bring those insights into the academy and it's kind of like this flywheel between the academy and the agency where

both feed each other and that's that's worked out really well for us. gonna

pick it back off of this flywheel in a second because I also have a bunch of questions around adconversion.com.

But before then, um, for your agency, as you started bringing in all these killers and you started performing work for clients, you said that focus is really what gets you to to scale very

very fast and focus on what you're doing best. What was the kind of service that

best. What was the kind of service that you were offering specifically?

>> So, we were doing um specifically we're doing performance marketing management.

So we were running ads for B2B SAS brands on Google, LinkedIn, Meta originally and then from there we've now expanded to eight channels. Um but that

was the the core focus and premise.

>> So fullfunnel multiple different traffic sources and basically >> yeah so we originally just to be even more tactical like we we've originally started with just like strategy and execution across those channels and then

from there we added more channels into the mix and then we evolved where we built a in-house creative team. where

now we could also do the all the ad support in terms of the copy, the creative, the concepts, uh the landing pages. And then it evolved even further

pages. And then it evolved even further based on realizing like problems our clients are having where we were like, man, everyone's reporting sucks and conversion tracking sucks. So then we're like, all right, let's build a data

team. So now we have like a a whole

team. So now we have like a a whole in-house data team as well that builds all the dashboards, the pipelines, the tracking, all that stuff. But originally

it started as just the strategy and the execution for these specific types of companies trying to do this very specific thing. And you know what's

specific thing. And you know what's crazy? Like I'm still just an ad agency.

crazy? Like I'm still just an ad agency.

Like we haven't even said like oh we're adding email marketing, SEO, you know, like all these other things which is like the more I scale and the more I realize about like building teams and getting people to work together, like

people is the hardest part about an agency. For sure. For sure. It's like

agency. For sure. For sure. It's like

it's not even like people come to me and like they're like over obsessed about marketing and sales which I get it like we are marketers for the most part when we build out agencies but when you build

an agency like you're in the people business and like the number one constraint to uh an agency is your ability to recruit great talent and to retain your clients which is all

operations.

>> Super interesting take. also had a guest. Um, we're actually going to be

guest. Um, we're actually going to be airing the episode with her in two days and she said the exact same thing, which is when you're in the agency space, you're not really you think you're in the marketing business, but really

you're in the hiring and operations business. So,

business. So, >> very very wise words.

>> I also love the the service that you're offering to to your clients because I really start to see the flywheel here, right? You started the strategy and

right? You started the strategy and execution across all these different channels. When you look at

channels. When you look at adconversion.com, like this is exactly what you guys are teaching there, which is by now I think over 8,000 people have signed up for your courses. So like

massive ton of people. All your courses are completely free, which is like mindboggling for the quality that you're offering. And you're teaching people to

offering. And you're teaching people to run ads on basically all these platforms that we're offering to clients. So kind

of all ties together and makes sense.

And so for ad conversion, maybe let's then take a step back because actually it was before your agency. Where did

that idea come from?

>> Yeah. So when I when I left Metadata, I basically asked myself, I'm like, what's what's something I could see myself doing over the next 5 to 10 years that even if it failed, like the pursuit

itself would be worth it? Me personally,

I've never been a money motivated individual. You know, like once I was

individual. You know, like once I was making like more than $70,000 a year, I was like, I'm good. I don't have to live at my mom's house. like I'm fine, like all is well, you know. So, for me, I'm

like definitely much more uh mission driven. And

driven. And >> I always just remembered like my own personal story and like learning how to run ads. Like for context for everyone,

run ads. Like for context for everyone, um the way I started running ads was with my own business in college. I had a DJ business and I was spending $10 a day trying to get leads for me and my

cousin's DJ business and we were DJing on the weekends. I still remember losing $300 because I didn't add uh DJ Khaled as a negative keyword and and I used to live

in Miami so he came into town and like for some reason we showed up for all these DJ Khaled search terms and I didn't block it >> and like I remember that pain you know what I mean of like holy [ __ ] I just lost $300 and I have nothing to show for

it. Right? And I'm a broke college

it. Right? And I'm a broke college student. So that was like my my start,

student. So that was like my my start, right? Which is like trying to figure

right? Which is like trying to figure out this weird crazy thing of like running ads online. And uh from there started the YouTube channel, just started sharing like, hey, this is what

I'm seeing works, right? And just like kind of more documenting. Um and then, you know, fast forward now with with ad conversion. I still remember that pain

conversion. I still remember that pain of like why is it so hard to learn how to run ads? Like when you try to figure this stuff out, you just like get ripped

off by like unqualified people, you buy courses, and then it's like you're just like in a never-ending upsell sequence that you can never really get to like the actual takeaway of like the insight

of how it is you should learn this thing and like what you need to do. And I was just fed up with it. So I was like, what would be the most crazy thing ever if like somebody just built a place where

they offered beginner, intermediate, and advanced courses for free? And these

courses are like all shot in studio, highly produced. No lesson is longer

highly produced. No lesson is longer than 10 minutes. They're jam-packed with like templates and resources so you can put this stuff into practice. And what

would happen, you know, and that was kind of like the premise. And I started with the academy and I started like reaching out to like the smartest people I know on their subsequent topics. Like

one of our rules is we will never partner with someone because they're famous. We will partner with them

famous. We will partner with them because they know what they're talking about. And like I just started reaching

about. And like I just started reaching out to like and I love those people that no one knows but they're killers. Like

for example, um one of my instructors, Chris, he scaled like over six figures in um in pipeline on Reddit ads for B2B.

Like super niche. Like this guy was like in Reddit testing every little objective and like every format and like you know what I mean? Just like over obsessing these things, but no one knows who he is, but he's a killer. or like uh

Yonberg who's like done so much on LinkedIn ads and he's like done so many iterations. I was like, "Oh, that's the

iterations. I was like, "Oh, that's the guy." You know, um and and so on and so

guy." You know, um and and so on and so forth. So, it kind of like pulling this

forth. So, it kind of like pulling this group of of individuals and then, you know, it's cool because like most people, they're so passionate about the same problem that they're like, "Yeah, I'm [ __ ] tired of getting ripped off

with, you know, [ __ ] ass courses and like not really getting the the insight that I need that when I reach out to them and I show them like, hey, this is what we're building, they're like, what do I need to do? Like, let me like let's

do this. Like, how how do we, you know,

do this. Like, how how do we, you know, how do we get started?" So that was like the the initial you know pain and like why I wanted to start at conversion and then from there it's grown. So

originally it was just to create like the courses and and be that go-to place in terms of education and then as we've scaled now it's really become like

building an ecosystem that it's like the go-to place to master ads from education services and software. So the academy is the educational side with our community and all the courses. The services is

really our agency and we see the agency as like our lab where we only work with like some of the coolest brands in the world. Like for example, we used to work

world. Like for example, we used to work like Active Campaign, Mix Panel, Checker, uh like super cool brands and logos, you know, um helping them really

like scale. And then now with the the

like scale. And then now with the the software that's relatively newer, like getting that to the market is like the next piece of our ecosystem.

>> It's amazing. So, it all started with you losing $300 and seeing that shoot I wish I had learned this before I invested my money.

>> Yeah, 100. I I mean I I always tell people like if you want to get better at running ads like get a side project or something and like spend your own money.

Like that six sense that that you only get from like pain of like what it feels like is super valuable because when we work with these massive brands, they're

so wasteful, you know? And like when you when you have that experience, you never lose it. It's like you just feel it. I

lose it. It's like you just feel it. I

don't know how else to explain it. You

know, like when you lose money and you don't say anything for it, it hurts.

>> Oh, that's amazing. It's teaching people to have skin in the game by putting their own money to the ads rather than giving it to you because you already have all the backend mechanism. You're

running a software. You're running an agency with clients. Like this whole this whole flag like not only does it make sense, but it seems super valuable.

So guys, like in the description down below, you'll be able to find direct link to adconversion.com or you can just type it in your search browser and you'll be able to find all these courses for free. And more specifically, you

for free. And more specifically, you said there's content for intermediates, there's content for agencies, for SAS.

What can people like actually find inside of there if you could give us a quick breakdown all the >> Yeah, so we have beginner intermediate courses right now. We have a beginner intermediate course on Google ads,

LinkedIn ads, Reddit ads, B2B advertising foundations and then how to build a fullfunnel paid media program.

For us right now going back to focus, right? Uh we are 100% focused on like

right? Uh we are 100% focused on like the B2B space and really like planting our flag there. And um you know maybe one day, let's see if we expand to other

verticals, but for right now in like the foreseeable future, we're we're really focusing on B2B. Let's take a quick segue into into another topic that I'd love to discuss with you. Obviously,

you've run a lot of ad spend in your career. You've managed over 100 million

career. You've managed over 100 million lifetime ad spend, arguably profitably.

How has your thinking evolved as you are spending more and more money on different advertising platforms?

>> Uh my how has my thinking evolved? Um

it's a good question. I've never been asked that. The more I invest and the

asked that. The more I invest and the more I learn, the more I realize that it is about doing fewer things more

impactfully. I I live in the startup

impactfully. I I live in the startup world and like the SAS world. So, it's

like there's a culture of hyperrowth and there's a an obsession with like doing more, but doing more doesn't necessarily translate into achieving more, you know. And the more

that I do these, you know, uh, fullfunnel programs and we're scaling for all these brands and we're doing all these things, so much of the time we find ourselves telling our clients to

stop doing so much and like test more intentionally. So, I'll give you one

intentionally. So, I'll give you one small example. People are obsessed with

small example. People are obsessed with launching new campaigns. They're always

launching new campaigns because they are, you know, there's like internal politics. different people need to have

politics. different people need to have those campaign launches for whatever reason or they're uh they just believe there's like the grass is greener on another you know another campaign and

instead like if you really want to find success like the game is iteration so you want to launch the campaign see how it works iterate right and then you can continue to iterate your way to to

success so I would say the the more we do this the more I realize like it's about intentionality and the more intentional you can be in terms of your budget, your campaign

strategy, the offers you're putting into the market, the creative that speaks to your messaging and the story that you want to bring, and just being more intentional about the elements. So, it's

like in it's fewer net things, but they're done more intentionally like to execution. I I'll give you another small

execution. I I'll give you another small example. Like there was a brand we were

example. Like there was a brand we were working with. They were spending 350k a

working with. They were spending 350k a month on Google ads and they were like obsessing over traffic. They were like, "Oh, it's the best bidding strategy.

Should we use target CPA or max conversions? Our quality score hasn't

conversions? Our quality score hasn't passed six or the last six months. We've

been trying to do this, this, and that da da da." I look at their account and I'm like, their conversion rate was 0.03%.

>> 0.03%.

I'm not even joking. 0.03%. 03%.

And I'm like, "Guys, maybe we should just improve the landing page, [laughter]

you know, like how about we try this?"

And we didn't even touch anything on the landing page other than the hero section. And it was like small changes.

section. And it was like small changes.

I was like, just rewrite the hook, you know, move this stupid image off the page, put this instead. And just like a small iteration, their conversion rate

went from 0.03% 03% to 1.8%. And that's

still not great, but it's like already dramatically better. So, kind of what I

dramatically better. So, kind of what I mean by intentionality and the more we do this, it's like it's about doing the few things that we all know we should be doing, but just doing it better and

trying and iterating off that, right?

So, what does that mean like practically speaking for everyone? Number one is you must buy high quality traffic, right?

You need to show up for the right people. Number two is you need to make

people. Number two is you need to make sure that you're converting that traffic in the most optimal way, right? Does

your landing page or your funnel actually make sense in relation to the audience, right? And then number three

audience, right? And then number three is you need to make sure you have a good product that people are interested in and the the lifetime value is strong enough, right? This is more of the

enough, right? This is more of the product optimization where you can improve the economics of your product which will allow you to offset and buy more traffic. That's fundamentally it.

more traffic. That's fundamentally it.

Everything else is kind of like just noise on top of it. And one practical thing I always recommend to everyone is it's like the Peter Ducker quote, what gets measured gets managed. So one small

tactical way you can allow yourself to start focusing on the things that matter is create a weekly scorecard for yourself. And in this weekly scorecard,

yourself. And in this weekly scorecard, just map out all of the metrics for your funnel. So, you know, for context, it

funnel. So, you know, for context, it could be impressions, clicks, CTR, cost, conversions, cost per conversion, right?

And then you can break it out be depending on how many steps you have in your funnel by funnel stage and obsess over that and just keep iterating off that because problems create problems

and the problem is is we abandon the whole thing once we reach the first problem and then the next problem arises. So, for example, your first

arises. So, for example, your first problem is I'm not getting leads.

And then you start to get leads. And

then your next problem is I'm not getting good leads. And then you improve that. And then you're like, great, I'm

that. And then you're like, great, I'm getting good leads now. And then your next problem becomes the leads are not booking meetings. And then you know by

booking meetings. And then you know by now somebody has already abandoned this alto together and they already jumped on the next like train or fat or whatever.

You know what I mean? They're like ah it's not LinkedIn ads, it's Tik Tok ads or it's whatever. Instead of just like doubling down and being intentional and iterating your way through success. And

I think that's the thing that the more I do this, the more I realize like there it is part art, but for the most part scaling ads is is more of a science.

>> Love the tactical breakdown applicable also to people who are listening to us.

Also spinning off of that for for how you're recording the courses for ad conversion.

What are the specifics that you've learned with the courses? like the more courses you've built, what were the were the tiny details that you figured out are really the things to focus on

>> in terms of creating courses or >> in terms of creating courses. Yes.

>> Number one is preparation. So for us, I was joking with you the other day. I was

like, I create a course on how to create courses >> for the amount of the the amount of courses we've produced. Um so number one is preparation. So, you want to make

is preparation. So, you want to make sure that when production day comes, and whether that means filming in studio or if you're filming at home, whatever it might be, you're ready to go. Like, you

don't want to be fiddling around with like, oh, what am I going to say? I

don't know. You know, just winging it.

So, preparation is everything. So,

really having a strong outline, you know? It's so funny how everything is

know? It's so funny how everything is the same. I'm trying not to rant, but

the same. I'm trying not to rant, but it's so amazing like how everything is the same. For example, like the most

the same. For example, like the most important thing to writing a book is your manuscript, right? Like actually

writing out the the book itself. When it

comes to a movie, the most important thing is the script, right? Like you can have the best actors ever, but if the script sucks, the movie is going to flop. When it comes to YouTube ads, the

flop. When it comes to YouTube ads, the best thing is the script, right? Like if

I have a strong script with a really good hook in different variations, I can make an animated YouTube ad work versus a talking head versus like an AI, you know, voice over, whatever. Those are

all just like flavors, but the the core must be there. And when it comes to courses, it's the same thing. So you the script itself must be good, the outline, like the preparation. So I would say

that's 80% of the work is getting the outlines done. So for us, what that

outlines done. So for us, what that looks like is we will um we'll we'll work with an expert. We will basically map out the outline together and it's

like a series of sessions over time. And

I think the other thing that's really important when you create a course is you want to make sure that it's as zero fluff possible. So you're really what

fluff possible. So you're really what you're trying to do is like you're trying to 8020 the 8020 you know so you're basically trying to get down to like 9010 of like okay what really

matters when it comes to LinkedIn ads right for a beginner seriously like and then you cuz unfortunately like when you're an expert you forget like you know so much that you have forgotten

what you've forgotten that you now take for granted it's like expert bias so like your job is to just try to like distill and give yourself a beginner's mind this is where I find like

workshopping with someone is super helpful. Um or like talking to to

helpful. Um or like talking to to complete beginners like we we did that with our beginner courses. I basically

had like my close friends and family that have no idea what ads are and I'm like go through this course and let's talk about what you learned and then I would like quiz them and I would see like oh did you like can you can you

explain to me what match types are right like and like these kind of things. But

yeah, the the long-winded answer is I would really focus on the outline and like mapping out the modules you're going to cover. What are the lessons in those modules? Um really making sure

those modules? Um really making sure that you're saying a cohesive story. And

one one thing I'll just end on there is like don't be afraid like when you do film the course, it's going to feel like it all sucks. You know, you're going to be like, "Oh, like you're just going

from lesson to lesson to lesson and you're going to be like, "Oh, this this whole thing is [ __ ] Like I have to like just can it. like we have to do the whole thing over again, but in post-prouction when you put the whole thing together like the magic will will

come together and then you'll be able to see the the vision unfold.

>> I love it. I love the also the tips that I dropped here. One very interesting one which is to do the grandma test basically with your own family or friends which is ask them like did you actually learn something out of this?

Can you explain to me in five minutes what I actually was trying to teach you >> the grandma test? Yeah, 100%. [laughter]

>> Super interesting.

And so I kind of set it up this way asking you first about what you've learned with the agency now what you've learned with ad conversion to also kind of take this question over to your new business Sammy. But before we do it

business Sammy. But before we do it we'll need to give you a proper introduction. So tell us what is Sammy

introduction. So tell us what is Sammy about? What problem are you actually

about? What problem are you actually solving? So, inside of our ad agency,

solving? So, inside of our ad agency, you know, managing north of $3 million a month in ad spend, like we came across a clear problem, which was we needed to scale our team's capacity so that they can, you know, do better work for the

clients they have. And then in addition to that, just get our clients better results. So, we were spending way too

results. So, we were spending way too much time doing manual ad optimizations.

And we were just like, this is crazy.

Like, like I have too much on my plate.

Like, I can't be in LinkedIn ads all day or I can't be in Google ads all day, you know, checking every single thing. But

at the same time too, it's my responsibility to make sure I'm maximizing my client's ad spend. So

that's where Sammy was born. So Sammy is an ad automation platform that lets you optimize your ads 247 across LinkedIn, Google Meta, and YouTube. And with

Sammy, you can essentially create workflows uh to optimize your ads from optimizing performance, managing budgets, or monitoring KPIs. So, for

instance, on Sammy, I could do something like set up a workflow where uh if my ad spends more than X and it doesn't generate Y, turn it off so it doesn't burn any more cash and it sends me an

alert in Slack so I'm notified in real time once the change is made. Or I could have Sammy just keep me in the loop where I have to give manual approval so I have the final say on if Sammy pauses

the ad or increases the budget or whatever that action is that I wanted to take. for people using Sammy including

take. for people using Sammy including your own agency. What kind of tool stack did that replace?

>> Unfortunately, it didn't replace many tools in the sense of because there wasn't really any >> processes.

>> Yeah, for us it was more process. So,

for instance, um it replaced like weekly workflows. So, before we would have to

workflows. So, before we would have to log into the ad manager and we would have to basically do this audit every week. You know, how much did we spend?

week. You know, how much did we spend?

How are the ads performing against our KPIs? And we'd have to do this every

KPIs? And we'd have to do this every single week forever, you know, until the client turns. And it was just like way

client turns. And it was just like way too much time. So for us, like what we found is like by just implementing Sammy, we were already at the beginning saving like four plus hours a week in

time per individual, which is actually massive. And then in addition to that,

massive. And then in addition to that, we were eliminating like 30 to 40% of wasted ad spend just by setting up these workflows. Like I don't give you like

workflows. Like I don't give you like the kicker. It's actually not magic.

the kicker. It's actually not magic.

It's because like imagine you're spending a hundred bucks a day, right?

And your goal is and and every campaign they go through three phases in terms of optimization. First, it's the launch

optimization. First, it's the launch phase, then the maintenance phase, then the scale phase. In the launch phase, your goal is like I'm launching this new thing and it must spend X basically

acrew enough data and I'm allowing it to spend X because I need to give it that time frame where if it doesn't spend enough and it doesn't produce then I I have to kill it. So practically speaking

my ad must spend more than $500 and if it doesn't generate a single meeting it gets killed. So you launch your ads and

gets killed. So you launch your ads and then now as a performance marketer what do you do now? You have to check every day. Did it spend the 500? Did it spend

day. Did it spend the 500? Did it spend the 500? Did it spend the 500? Right?

the 500? Did it spend the 500? Right?

And then eventually when it does now, you pause it, right? And then you move on to the next phase. However, in

practice is it's like you launched the campaign, then you got busy because you're doing 500 other things. Right?

The campaign actually didn't spend $500.

Now it spent $1,000 and it didn't actually generate anything. Right? Now

multiply this across like 20 campaigns, three channels. It just gets even more

three channels. It just gets even more insane. Right? And that's like one small

insane. Right? And that's like one small example around pausing ads that are not performing.

That alone just having Sammy where Sammy is checking every single hour with these workflows we're setting up where the moment that ad spends more than our amount, it gets killed or we get

notified. So then we can take action is

notified. So then we can take action is massive at like improving efficiency and just reducing that elimmited uh that wasted ad spend. I've met quite a few agency founders or former agency

founders who went into the SAS business.

And one of the things that I love about SAS products built by former agency owners is people coming from performance marketing are very very aware of actually products generating

performance. So like ourselves, right?

performance. So like ourselves, right?

We started a funnel business, we ran an agency, scaled it to like seven figures, and they was like, well, we're wasting so much time building all these funnels, so why don't we just build something to automate it? And then we grew the

automate it? And then we grew the software business for yourself. You saw

this problem first for your your own agency having grown to you're saying you're approaching eight figures a year right now for your agency. So you're

trying to save a lot of money for yourself and by that building that software also possibly for other people who would be who'd be uh good users of

of that software. And so

what I'm thinking is first of all, did did Sammy actually start in September this year?

>> Yeah, September 3rd. Uh

>> September 3rd. So it's not even been 3 months as we're recording that on November 25th.

So it's it's it's seems like it's still very very early on. But the question I want to ask you is with the experience of focusing only on the couple things that really matter, how are you going to

take that approach to building your own software?

>> Yeah, great question. Um I So two things I kind of think of it from the growth and then the product side. So from the product side I'm going to I'm going to say I'm we because I have a

co-founder on on Sammy. We are going to hyper obsess about user feedback. It's

what we've been doing in these early days. Like we honestly care more about

days. Like we honestly care more about feedback than we do MR right now. You

know, we're like trying to gather as much feedback as we can from as many sources as we can. So what that looks like is talking to users. So we started a a Slack channel. Um and we invited all

of our early users into that Slack channel and it's like a little community where it's really cool. we can get like closer to them, keep them apprised of like new features, get their feedback,

and like constantly have that that pulse. And then there's also sales

pulse. And then there's also sales calls. So, we're a productled startup,

calls. So, we're a productled startup, so we have a free trial motion. It's a

14-day free trial into into the product.

But even having a productled motion, like we decided to launch a salesled motion as well early on as another way to collect feedback and of course potentially drive acquisition. So I'm

the one running those sales calls and it's super insightful because I get to learn more from people of like hey what are you looking to solve like what is your core dream use case you know and

then from there we take those insights and we put it back into the product development of like okay this is coming up the most often it's obvious this is like the core sticking point let's go

ahead and like solve for this as an example uh so for right now like for us that's like AI budget reallocation like everyone wants it's like a more automated way to like you know manage budget. So we're like okay let's build

budget. So we're like okay let's build that you know like we're scoping that out now with with early users and and so on and so forth. And then on the growth side of like knowing what we know like

doing this for SAS companies, we are gonna try to do exactly what we do for clients but for oursel you know so I'm trying really hard to be a good patient you know like they say like the doctor is usually the worst patient because you

don't just do the things that you know right and and by the way agency owners are the worst like we're like clients you need to have like you know positioning and you need to be clear on

your target audience and like all these things but then you talk to the agency owner. It's like, "Who's your target

owner. It's like, "Who's your target audience?" He's like, "Well, um, anybody

audience?" He's like, "Well, um, anybody that can afford 3K a month, you know, like, [laughter] and it's like a perfect example, right? Like it's like just do

example, right? Like it's like just do what you know, you know, again, intentionality. I I really can't stress

intentionality. I I really can't stress that word." So, for us, what does that

that word." So, for us, what does that mean? That means uh we are going to

mean? That means uh we are going to build a fullfunnel paid media program to start. we are going to be really

start. we are going to be really focusing on um trying to figure out like what is the the language market fit before the product market fit. So like

what angle really resonates. So like

I'll give you a quick tactical example.

What we're finding is like when we talk about ad automation as a whole, people perceive that in different ways. Like

that's kind of like grandiose like whoa ad automation. Whoa, what does that

ad automation. Whoa, what does that mean? Right? Versus like when I say like

mean? Right? Versus like when I say like for example one ad might be like optimize your ads 24 hours a day across meta Google LinkedIn YouTube right?

That could be one ad that we could test to see what's the fit like versus another ad. It's like how I automated

another ad. It's like how I automated 350K a month in LinkedIn ad spend.

much more specific, same product, just a core use case, right? So, that's

something we're testing right now. So,

we're doing uh we're going to be running some ads into uh a conversion funnel and then we're going to see based on the ad responses and then of course if people are signing up to the actual funnel, what does that look like? And then in

the funnel, what we'll do is we'll then redirect people to sign up for a free trial. So, like our first, we call them

trial. So, like our first, we call them no-brainer offers. Like our first

no-brainer offers. Like our first no-brainer offer that we're going to test is we're noticing a lot of people are signing up because they want to automate LinkedIn ads right now, which I think is partly given like our B2B audience. And what we're going to do is

audience. And what we're going to do is we're going to walk through like a case study of how we automated 350K a month in LinkedIn ad spend using Sammy. And

then they'll basically sign up for this like case study breakdown and then we'll redirect them to the free trial of saying like well hey if you want to do this right like you can go sign up for

Sammy for 14 days etc. etc. And then from a product perspective to to be able to make sure that those people have time to value, we've templatized the automation. So we call them SAM

automation. So we call them SAM templates. So you can then sign up into

templates. So you can then sign up into the product, you know, just use the template, modify the values for you, and then you know, you're off to the race.

>> Fantastic.

Already in this process, you're looking into how to make them successful. So not

just the point of sale, but far beyond retention. And that's really what we

retention. And that's really what we talk about when we say full funnel, you know, like the the entire experience.

>> Love it.

Look, Silia, we've covered quite a lot and I'd love to end it on a high note.

So, I'll ask you one last question before we wrap it up. Is there anything else you would like to say to our audience?

>> I would say uh stick with it. You know,

all the agency owners building like like stay focused, stick with it. Um really

just be intentional about the few things you do and and do it well. You know, I think um money is great and money is important,

but if you do want to build an agency and build a team like and you want to work with the best people, like people need to be motivated and excited to want to work for you. and having a big vision

and having a goal and and having values and like standing for something is not just good market differentiation like it's great culture you know and it allows you to attract great talent. So I

would just say be honest with yourself like have that conversation like what am I trying to build always work backwards if I just you know want to be really like high paid freelancer do my work be

really good at my craft double down on that and like accept that you know and then maybe you can use those funds to start a SAS start a you know education company whatever it might be or like the

next iteration um if you decide to go down the agency path like you know really keep an eye on your margins really focus on operations and infrastructure accept that that's the real, you know, fight you're in. It's

the tops and like trying to improve the the operations process. And um I guess the the last thing I will close on is all paths are great, but at the end of the day, it really just comes down to

you and what it is you're trying to accomplish, you know, but now with the internet and like the resources online, like all things are possible.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, that was Sylvia Paris. Thank you very much.

Paris. Thank you very much.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Thanks for watching this episode of Perspective Talk. If you want to learn

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